Are They Listening Better? Supporting EFL College Students' DVD Video Comprehension with Advance Organizers in a Multimedia English Course.

Abstract

As technology continues to evolve, authentic multimedia-based teaching materials are widely used in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms. However, they may lie beyond most language learners proficiency level. The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of advance organizers in conjunction with the cognitive theory of multimedia learning in EFL students comprehension of English-language DVD soundtrack material. Two types of advance organizers were developed: 1) a 5-minute film preview with captions followed by brainstorming and 2) 20 episodic photos important to the main idea of the film, each accompanied by a caption in the form of a line from the film, and a control condition was used for a comparative purpose. A total of 128 intermediate university-level EFL students were placed in a 3-week teaching experiment based on a Latin Square research design and were also asked to complete a post-test questionnaire. The findings showed the participants in the condition of the 5-minute film preview followed by brainstorming performed at a significantly higher level than in the condition of 20 episodic photos, which, in turn, outperformed the control condition on the multiple-choice listening test. It was assumed that the first type of advance organizer was more meaningful and involved a higher level of cognitive processing, and thus it should have had more impact on the comprehension and retention of the aural input. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research on the facilitative effect of advance organizers on target-language DVD video comprehension are discussed.