Pictorial, Textual, and Picto-Textual Glosses in E-Reading: A Comparative Study

Abstract

This research explored the effects of three types of multimedia glosses on the reading comprehension of learners in an EFL context. From among the three experimental groups under study, one received treatment on five academic reading passages through picto-textual glosses where both textual definitions and relevant images of words popped up, thus helping learners surmise the meanings of the keywords. In a similar vein, the other two groups received treatment on the same passages, but used either pictorial or textual glosses where pertinent pictures or textual definitions of the keywords appeared on the screen. The experiment showed that the picto-textual-gloss group outperformed the other two groups, and that the pictorial-gloss group outperformed the textual-gloss group. The study thus underpinned Paivio's (1971Paivio's ( , 1986Paivio's ( , 1991 Dual Coding Theory, arguing that when information is available in two modes of presentation, it becomes more elaborate and thus more memorable. When applied to reading comprehension, the idea suggests that the combination of textual and visual definitions might help learners better decipher the meanings of keywords in reading passages, and hence arrive at an even deeper comprehension of the texts.Keywords: MCALL courseware, Textual gloss, Pictorial gloss, Vocabulary annotation, Reading comprehension BackgroundThere is a general consensus that multimedia courseware is potentially useful for second language reading, as a given text can be rendered comprehensible to L2 learners through glosses or annotations (Davis, 1989;Martinez-Lage, 1997;Roby, 1999). The term "gloss" refers to an explanation or a definition of words written on margins in reading passages that helps learners readily work out the meanings of the words (Shiki, 2008). Few studies (Chun & Plass, 1996;Lomicka, 1998;Kost, Foss, & Lenzini, 1999;Al-Seghayer, 2001; Jones & Plass, 2002;Rott & Williams, 2003;Bowles, 2004; Ko, 2005;Yoshii, 2006;Akbulut, 2008) have corroborated the contributions of multimedia glosses to reading comprehension, in general, and vocabulary acquisition, in particular. Chun & Plass (1996), for instance, examined the effects of multimedia glosses on reading comprehension. They conducted three studies involving 160 students of German using CyberBuch, a multimedia software application. The results of these experiments revealed that multimedia glosses significantly aided in comprehension, and that vocabulary annotations consisting of both visual and verbal definitions were more effective than the ones providing textual definitions alone. Likewise, Lomicka (1998) explored the way multimedia annotations might have affected the level of comprehension. The participants were 12 college students in a second-semester French course. Learners were asked to read a text under one of three conditions: full-gloss condition, limited-gloss condition, and no-gloss condition. The experiment showed that computerized reading with full glossing led to a deeper understanding of the reading passage. In Ko's...

Multimedia Glosses for Enhancing EFL Students’ Vocabulary Acquisition and Retention

“…Allan Paivio's DCT suggests that if the meaning of a word is visually illustrated, this word will become more memorable (Paivio, 2010). In other words, when information is available in two modes of presentation, it becomes more elaborate and thus more memorable (Shalmani & Sabet, 2010). Therefore, Boers, Warren, Grimshaw, and Siyanova-Chanturia (2017) suggest that providing multimedia glosses invites more and longer attention to the glosses.…”