The effect of watching documentary videos with L1 or L2 subtitles on Iranian learners’ vocabulary learning

Abstract

The focus of the study was to find out the effect of watching subtitled documentary videos on EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ vocabulary learning. To this end, 90 intermediate students (male and female) were randomly selected based on a proficiency test. Next, they were randomly assigned to two experimental groups and one control group. Participants took a pre-test. After 12 L2 treatment sessions where each group watched the video clips, 1 experimental group watched the clips with L1 subtitles and the other group with L2 subtitles and the control group with no subtitles, the post-test was conducted. Then, one-way analysis of variance was conducted to find out if there were any differences between the post-test performances of three groups. The results showed that participants in the L2 subtitled group and L1 subtitled group performed significantly better than unsubtitled group. The L2 subtitled group (mean = 16.97) performed better, but not significantly than the L1 subtitled group (mean = 16.56). The findings contribute to EFL learners, teachers and the Ministry of Education. Keywords: Documentary, video subtitling, listening, vocabulary learning, L1 subtitling, L2 subtitling;