Promoting Grammatical Development Through Captions and Textual Enhancement in Multimodal Input-Based Tasks

Abstract

This study assessed the extent to which captions, textually unenhanced and enhanced, can draw learners’ attention to and promote the acquisition of a second language (L2) grammatical construction. A pretest–posttest–delayed posttest experimental design was employed. Seventy-two Korean learners of English were randomly assigned to an enhanced captions group, an unenhanced captions group, and a no captions group. Each group completed a series of treatment tasks, during which they watched news clips under their respective captioning condition. The target L2 construction was the use of the present perfect versus the past simple in reporting news. For the enhanced captions group, the present perfect and past simple forms were typographically enhanced using a different color. Eye-movement indices were obtained to examine attentional allocation during the treatment, and oral and written productive tests and a fill-in-the-blank test were used to assess participants’ gains. A series of mixed-effects models found both captioning and textual enhancement effective in drawing learners’ attention to and facilitating development in the use of the target construction. In addition, positive links were identified between attention to captions and learners’ gains.

Multimodal Input in Sla Research

“…Second, this special issue corroborates the beneficial impact of captioned video on L2 learning (Lee & Révész, 2020;Wisnieska & Mora, 2020) and provides additional evidence to reject the redundancy principle of the multimedia learning theory in the context of L2 learning. In addition, it sheds new light on the impact of L2 text on learners' auditory processing of the input.…”

“…It also highlights the role of tests that target different aspects of L2 knowledge development (e.g., Wisnieska & Mora, 2020) and that reveal partial learning gains (e.g., Feng & Webb, 2020;Puimège & Peters, 2020). We also find two examples of how eye-tracking can be used to study multimodal input and which types of eye-tracking metrics we might need to consider (Lee & Révész, 2020;Pellicer-Sánchez et al, 2020). While eye-tracking is a particularly interesting technique to study multimodal input because it provides an online unobtrusive account of learners' attention allocation, the multimodal character of the input also has a number of implications for data collection procedures and analyses.…”

“…This special issue illustrates that multimodal input can be operationalized in many different ways. Studies have investigated the value of audio-visual input (Feng & Webb, 2020;Puimège & Peters, 2020), audio-visual input with subtitles in the L1 (Pujadas & Muñoz, 2020), subtitles in the L2 (Lee & Révész, 2020;Pujadas & Muñoz, 2020), and L2 subtitles with enhanced (i.e., highlighted) target constructions (Lee & Révész, 2020). It also offers a study on audio-assisted reading activities, that is, reading while listening (Pellicer-Sánchez et al, 2020).…”

“…Because captioned video does not only seem to aid speech decoding and pronunciation but also facilitates other aspects of L2 development such as vocabulary and grammar (Lee & Révész, 2020), language teachers should be encouraged to further explore the value of this type of multimodal input in their teaching and stimulate students to engage with those materials as out-of-class activity. In addition, they might also consider the use of other types of captions such as captions with enhanced target structures if the aim is to draw learners' attention to specific linguistic features (e.g., grammatical structures) and stimulate their learning of those structures (Lee & Révész, 2020).…”

“…Multimodal input is not only beneficial for intermediate to advanced students (e.g., Lee & Révész, 2020;Puimège & Peters, 2020;Wisnieska & Mora, 2020) but can also be used with young and adolescent beginning L2 learners (Pellicer-Sánchez et al, 2020;Pujadas & Muñoz, 2020). Both reading while listening (with supportive images) as well as videos with subtitles in the L1 have the potential to motivate beginning L2 learners to engage with this type of L2 input and facilitates their comprehension of those materials.…”