iCap: Intralingual Captioning for Writing and Vocabulary Enhancement

Abstract

The research on the use of active captioning or subtitling in foreign language learning has considerably increased in the course of the last decade, although there is still lack of evidence as regards the potential advantages of intralingual captioning in this context. The present project attempts to fill this void by analysing the didactic use of intralingual subtitling in a distance learning environment both in terms of written production and vocabulary acquisition. To this end, a total number of 41 undergraduate English B1 students have been working on 10 sequenced subtitling activities using short pre-selected videos taken from an American sitcom in the course of a month and a half. Peer-to-peer assessment has also been fostered during the project through active use of online forums. The conclusions confirm the expected benefits as far as writing and vocabulary skills enhancement is concerned and provide further insights into how to best implement this practice.

Audiovisual translation in the foreign language classroom: applications in the teaching of English and other foreign languages

“…The study on intralingual subtitling alone reports encouraging results on writing skills enhancement in undergraduate distance learning students of English, who subtitled a sitcom excerpt using ClipFlair (Talaván et al, 2016b).…”

“…However, two such studies have been identified. One was carried out by López Cirugeda and Sánchez Ruiz (2013) Talaván et al (2016b) present the findings of a study on intralingual captioning (iCap) for the enhancement of writing skills and vocabulary acquisition. The study was carried out with 41 B1-level undergraduate students of English at UNED, Spain over a month and a half in a distance-learning setting.…”

“…Talaván and Costal (2017) undertake an intralingual dubbing project (iDub) to assess its potential on the development of speaking skills. iDub is based on iCap, a previous project on intralingual captioning for the enhancement of writing skills and vocabulary acquisition (Talaván et al, 2016b). In view of its positive outcome, the ten ClipFlair activities (based on excerpts of an American sitcom and specifically created for the iCap project) were used in iDub, changing the task from subtitling to dubbing.…”

“…combined with revoicing and will thus be considered in Chapter 4, Combined captioning and revoicing. The other study byTalaván, Lertola, and Costal (2016b) will be presented here; its main features are shown inTable 2.3.…”

iDub - El potencial del doblaje intralingual en el aprendizaje de idiomas extranjeros: cómo evaluar la tarea

“…Within iCap, the research team created ten ClipFlair activities i using ten videos taken from the American sitcom How I Met Your Mother (Bays andThomas 2005-2014) and had students working on their intralingual subtitling for two months, with very positive feedback and learning (Talaván et al 2016). Thus, the idea behind iDub rested upon replicating these ten activities but changing the instructions, so that students were asked to record their voices in a dubbing-like manner, as will be explained in the description of the tasks below, instead of creating subtitles.…”