This article analyses the role of both reading and producing subtitles as functional activities and didactic tools in foreign language education. Firstly, it examines the need for the educational use of both subtitles and subtitling in the classroom. Then, it provides a sample activity that exploits both tools with the aim of improving oral comprehension skills that is assessed through multi-methodological research. All in all, the didactic application of an activity based on the use of subtitles as learning support and of subtitling as the active production of subtitles by students in front of the computer, entails a series of benefits that are worth noting: it assists students in the development of oral comprehension skills, provides them with different types of support (visual, textual, and technological) for language development, encourages learners to face authentic input, and produces tangible output (the subtitles produced by students) that can be shared with their peers (or even on the web).

Subtitling as a task and subtitles as support: pedagogical applications

While translation is gradually regaining importance as an effective task in foreign-language (FL) teaching, the challenge for teachers is often to find ways of integrating translation into methodologies which have long since moved away from the grammar-translation method. Subtitling can offer a stimulating addition to more traditional monosemiotic translation tasks, while at the same time facilitating mnemonic retention, helping to raise awareness of cultural and intercultural issues and pragmatic aspects of communication, increasing motivation and enhancing the overall learning experience. This article discusses the use of subtitling in FL teaching and reports on students’ feedback on their subtitling experience. It will first provide an overview of recent literature and developments in this field. The article will then define a theoretical background for the use of subtitling and establish a methodological framework for its introduction in the foreign-language curriculum in third level undergraduate cou...

Audiovisual translation in second language acquisition. Integrating subtitling in the foreign-language curriculum

This paper presents an experiment on the potential pedagogical benefits of collaborative reverse subtitling in foreign language education. The principal objective was to discover whether reverse subtitling used as a collaborative language learning tool could enhance general translation and writing skills. The participants involved in the study had two and a half months to subtitle two short clips and were monitored as they followed a series of steps guiding their work week by week. The findings obtained from the analysis of the language tests results, the answers given to questionnaires and the teachers’ observations are promising. Given the small size of the sample (20 students), it is difficult to make generalisations. However, the main conclusion is that writing and general translation skills can be fostered by the use of reverse subtitling within an online, collaborative learning framework. This is a very encouraging result that we believe will lead the way to further research in the field.

The use of reverse subtitling as an online collaborative language learning tool

/pdf/audiovisual-translation-in-the-foreign-language-classroom-t25434pwyf.pdf

Audiovisual translation in the foreign language classroom: applications in the teaching of English and other foreign languages

In this paper we address the question whether shot changes trigger the re-reading of subtitles. Although it has been accepted in the professional literature on subtitling that subtitles should not be displayed over shot changes as they induce subtitle re-reading, support for this claim in eye movement studies is difficult to find. In this study we examined eye movement patterns of 71 participants watching news and documentary clips. We analysed subject hit count, number of fixations, first fixation duration, fixation time percent and transition matrix before, during and after shot changes in subtitles displayed over a shot change. Results of our study show that most viewers do not re-read subtitlescrossing shot changes.

http://avt.ils.uw.edu.pl/files/2013/12/krejtz_szarkowska_jemr_2013_final-3.pdf

The Effects of Shot Changes on Eye Movements in Subtitling

The purpose of this paper is to present the rationale and outcomes of ClipFlair, a European-funded project aimed at countering the factors that discourage Foreign Language Learning (FLL) by providing a motivating, easily accessible online platform to learn a foreign language through revoicing (e.g. dubbing) and captioning (e.g. subtitling). This paper will reflect on what has been achieved throughout the project and the challenges encountered along the way, in order to share our experience and inspire other FLL tutors in secondary and tertiary education. The focus is on the main outputs of the project: a) ClipFlair Studio, an online platform where users (both tutors and learners) can create, upload and access revoicing and captioning activities to learn a foreign language; b) ClipFlair Gallery, a library of resources containing over 350 activities to learn the 15 languages targeted in the project; and c) ClipFlair Social, an online community where learners, teachers and activity authors can share information.

/pdf/learning-foreign-languages-with-clipflair-using-captioning-259x90v81c.pdf

Learning foreign languages with ClipFlair: Using captioning and revoicing activities to increase students’ motivation and engagement

Subtitling activities for foreign language learning: what learners and teachers think

By simply watching subtitled films in Greece, traditionally considered a subtitling country, and Spain, a dubbing country, certain differences in this professional practice of audiovisual translation may easily be observed. In this chapter the aim is two-fold:first to look into the factors that guide translators’ decisions in the process of subtitling in these two countries, by finding indications of norms; second, closely related to the first, is to explore the relationship between the subtitles and the other elements of the audiovisual text. The main premises are that the use of descriptive tools can overcome the limitations posed by prescriptive approaches and that there are regularities in the practice of subtitling.

Subtitling Norms in Greece and Spain

Learning a new language can be tedious –except in the environment actually used, in which case it is most exciting. Active learning and engaging learning activities are prominent among the –often not realized in practice– promises of ICTE. Giving learners a special version of a professional environment, not for the purposes of training a professional but for the side benefits of fundamental skills associated is widely practiced in education. In this paper we present a special learning/exercising environment for foreign languages, mimicking a highly specialized professional activity: film/video subtitling. The learner combines listening (to speech, music and other sounds) with viewing (thus incorporating cultural aspects in her learning) in order to come to an understanding which she must then render by suitable translation into subtitles: they will appear as a subtitled film clip and be stored for the student’s, the teacher’s and peers’ later review. 1. Pre-view (Introduction) The educational software presented in this paper is a learner’s version of a professional activity and environment: that of film subtitling. A learner’s version of a tool is optimized for learning, not for production. Film subtitling is a special type –art and science– of translation: it need take into account space (available on the screen) and time (synchronization); it can benefit and may suffer from the image context: one may skip subtitling a “yes” when accomp anied by the actor’s nodding in the screen (from English, say into Greek) but will do a very poor job in skipping subtitling a corresponding “no”: shaking one’s head from left to right is not the way of gesturing discord in Greek! Translation has been overused in teaching and overvalued in testing foreign languages and thus has come under rightful criticism as a tool for learning foreign languages. For example Richards, J.C, & T.S. Rogers (1986) maintain that translation as a method may encourage focusing in the source text and keep the learner thinking in her mother language, thus discouraging thinking directly in the language being learned; in translating the student often ignores the context and places undue value in “faithfulness”. However, translation remains a good if limited exe rcise and a fundamental faculty: to be able to render in a “target” language, text expressed in a “source” language. Learning a new language can be the most exciting learning task (for a young human at the beginning of life or an adult in a new environment) or one of the dullest (reciting the past tense of the subjunctive of irregular verbs...). ICT has the promise and has been used –not always with great success– for teaching and learning foreign languages. Active learning is supposed to be a great asset of ICTE, often advertised and less often realized by ICTE products , on account of either “activeness” or “learning”. LvS, Learning via Subtitling, the software presented in this paper, surmo unts these shortcomings by using multimedia not as a nice add-on but as the core of an activity which even when presented as an exercise for learning remains a valid real-world engaging task: The student is asked to add subtitles to a film thus practicing multimedia comprehension and written expression. This short paper is structured in three views: the learner’s (in Section 2, addressing what the learning environment is), the engineer’s (in Section 3, addressing how the system has been built), and the educator’s (in Section 4, explaining why this is a suitable method). 2. The learner’s view (What?) 1. The student reads the instructions or discovers how to use the software –the usual case with young learners and ICT– and starts the activity 2. The student can watch the video clip under her own control (pause, restart, skip etc), keeping online notes 3. The student adds the subtitles 4. The student saves the subtitles, revisits and reedits them. 5. The student sends the subtitles to her teacher, who can make comments and corrections Figure 1: Subtitling a Spanish film in Greek Active learning. The value of active processes on the part of the learner (such as writing, solving an exercise, programming) is always stressed when designing educational material. Although “reading”, “listening” and “comprehending” are invaluable –and in a deeper sense can be very active indeed– they are considered to be “passive learner activities” which need to be supplemented by others, more active ones. LvS gives the student a specific active role: she must add subtitles to a film clip. Realistic (meaningful) activity. The student’s activity is realistic and meaningful. Subtitling films is not something invented for students –such as reciting grammar rules is , however useful that may be. Engaging in a realistic activity gives meaning to the student’s practice and is known to enhance interest and learning. In the case of LvS the student has a concrete goal with clear usefulness. Hands-on result. The result of the student’s work is an artifact: it is tangible, viewable, and can be shown to other students and teachers. The LvS (Learning via Subtitling) software tool for exercising in learning a foreign language is straightforward and flexible in use (similar to general MS Office tools and Windows philosophy) and does not require ICT sophistication. (Figure 1) The environment is currently available in 6 languages (Greek, English, Spanish, French, Italian and German). 3. The engineer’s view (What?) LvS is a video subtitling simulator designed for educational activities. It includes a video clip view screen (Media Player Interface), a subtitle editor screen and a slides viewer interface. The video clip view screen allows the student to view the film, with or without subtitles. The subtitle editor allows the student to edit and manage the subtitles. Figure 2: Student’s View of LvS Components LvS is running under Windows 2000 or XP and uses Real Player from Real Networks as media player. The video clip (film) is converted in 256?192 size frames, at 25 frames per second. The student controls the media player interface through the navigational controls which include VRC-like controls for viewing and listening and buttons for controlling the slides with information or the film script. The program accepts activities in *.lvs format. The multiple view information interface provides the facility to access the activities content in a random fashion.

http://www.sub2learn.ie/downloads/various_authorslvs.pdf

Learner’s Version of a Professional Environment: Film Subtitling as an ICTE Tool for Foreign Language Learning

LvS (Learning via Subtitling) is a subtitling tool for language teaching. The main objective of LvS is to provide educational material for the active learning of foreign languages through subtitled video clips. Using this tool and the specific activities created by the teacher, students can add subtitles to video clips, thus participating in active writing and listening comprehension activities. LvS is a subtitle simulator for specific purposes. This paper presents the possibilities offered by an environment such as LvS for learning languages through subtitling and the effectiveness of the use of news videos in L2 teaching. It describes the different stages of a LvS activity involving teaching Italian for translators.

Stavroula Sokoli

Papers

Learning foreign languages with ClipFlair: Using captioning and revoicing activities to increase students’ motivation and engagement

Subtitling activities for foreign language learning: what learners and teachers think

Subtitling Norms in Greece and Spain

Learner’s Version of a Professional Environment: Film Subtitling as an ICTE Tool for Foreign Language Learning

La subtitulación al servicio del aprendizaje de lenguas: el entorno LvS