The Pedagogical role of subtitles in foreign language learning

Abstract

The present study pursues to demonstrate how subtitles can adopt a pedagogical role in the foreign language learning process. Additionally, this study seeks the implementation of subtitles outside the educational environment of the students. Subtitles facilitate foreign language learning in many different ways, since students can have a visual representation of what they hear. Apart from that, subtitles also lead to a better language comprehension and to an improvement of the learners’ vocabulary. It is also important to mention that students enlarge their bank of words, and they learn how to use those words in different contexts properly. In order to demonstrate this, 45 students in secondary education level participated in the study. A questionnaire was designed in order to obtain information about their use of subtitles, that is, in which language they use them and to what extent they think that subtitles are important for the improvement of their grammar and listening skills. The results of the data revealed that, no matter the age of the participants, practically all of them use subtitles on a daily basis. The results also confirmed that subtitles can help students improve their grammar and listening skills significantly.