Effects of ESL Learners’ Use of Subtitles on News Watching: No Subtitle, during Watching, and after Watching News *

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

45 ESL students with high intermediate level in an intensive English program in the States. It particularly focuses on the following three stages to see differences:
(1) watching news without subtitles, (2) using subtitles during watching news, and (3) reading subtitles after watching news. The participants are chosen from high intermediate to advanced level at an ESL program of a US university and asked to take a general listening test. The listening materials for news are selected in consideration of content, length, accent of speakers since those factors play pivotal roles in the result of ESL/EFL listening comprehension. The statistical results disclose that the group provided with subtitles after viewing the news outperforms the other two groups - suggesting that using subtitles after watching news is far beneficial for ESL learners with the levels. On the other hand, being exposed to subtitles during news watch becomes distracting over listening comprehension. Identifying unclear words and expressions has also been a disturbingly burden over the phase of using subtitles during the news watching.
Taking such findings into account, ESL/EFL listening pedagogy may benefit from a focus on employing appropriate listening techniques to accelerate listening proficiency especially for learners with high-intermediate to advanced level.