| The increasing number of foreign language techniques integrating the latest technology has recently been growing. In addition, the focus of learning a language has shifted from printed words to the use of the spoken language in everyday settings. Implementing multimedia technology with verbal information and full visual context has become more accessible in the language classroom, such as the presentation of captioned videos. In this study an attempt was made to investigate the effect of the use of video captioning on English as a foreign language (EFL) on college students' language learning in Taiwan. Language learning as examined in this study is defined as students' performance in language comprehension and in language proficiency.; This study used a pretest-posttest design in which 80 students were divided into two groups of 40 students each. Subjects were exposed to two experimental conditions with caption-viewing and without caption-viewing. A series of ESL instructional videos with English captions was the treatment in this study. Subjects' initial language proficiency was measured by the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT), used as a pretest, prior to the actual experiment. After viewing the fifth episode of Connect with English, subjects were given the other instrument, the Content-Specific Test (CST), measuring their language comprehension in terms of listening comprehension, vocabulary and content comprehension. Then, an identical GEPT, used as a posttest, measuring students' English proficiency in listening and reading, was given again to the participants at the end of the experiment.; The data analysis, utilized by an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) in this study, revealed that subjects viewing captioned videos outperformed the control group, which did not view captioned videos. The findings indicated that the use of captioned videos improved learners' listening comprehension, English proficiency in listening, vocabulary learning and content comprehension. However, the subjects' mean reading scores, analyzed by data of the GEPT---the reading subtest, did not show a significant difference between the two groups. This led to the conclusion that captioned videos did not have a significant impact on EFL learners' language proficiency in reading after a period of five weeks. |
