A Comparative Study of the Effectiveness of Persian vs. English Subtitled Movies on Listening Comprehension Ability among Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners

Subject Areas : Journal of Teaching English Language Studies

sanaz darvishi ¹ , Seyed Taghi Andi ²

1 - Department of English Language,Faculty of Islamic Azad University, Sari Branch, Iran
2 - Department of English, Sari Branch, Faculty member of Islamic Azad University, Sari, Iran

Received: 2018-12-25 Accepted : 2019-02-12 Published : 2019-03-01

Keywords: EFL learners, Movies, Listening Comprehension skill, English subtitles, Persian subtitles,

Abstract :

The present study examined the effects of Persian versus English subtitled movies on listening comprehension ability among Iranian intermediate EFL learners. To do so, 60 EFL learners were selected through OPT from two classes at a private institute in Sari, Mazandaran province. The participants were classified into three groups: two experimental groups: a) English subtitle group (N=20); Persian subtitle group (N = 20) and a control group (N=20). The instruments of this study were listening pre- and posttests. The collected data were analyzed through a paired sample t-test and a One-way ANOVA. The result showed that both Persian and English subtitle films had a significant effect on intermediate EFL learners’ listening comprehension performance. Therefore the first and the second hypotheses were rejected. Moreover, there was statistically meaningful difference between the performances of experimental and control groups in listening comprehension after they received instruction. Therefore, the third hypothesis was rejected. This study had few implications for language teachers, practitioners and syllabus designers to use audiovisual programs in facilitating language learning process.

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Bio-data: Seyyed Taghi Andi has been teaching English as a foreign language and also
linguistics more than 20 year. His research interests are psycholinguistics, technology-based
instruction and teaching methodology.
Sanaz Darvishi is currently doing her M.A. thesis in TEFL in Sari Azad University. She teaches
English in language institutes in Sari. Her area of research interests is language skills and
technology in language teaching and language learning.