Reading Prompt #6

What did find with regards to using subtitles and transcripts to help ESL students develop listening skills in English? What are some of the implications for instruction?
Grgurović & Hegelheimer designed their study to prove that input modification can help improve comprehension. Their study contained a video of an academic lecture with access to help options in the form target language subtitles and transcripts. The length of the study was three weeks long with a biweekly 50 minutes classroom time (100 minutes a week). The study focus on use frequency, time spent on help option interaction patterns, and performance versus proficiency. The results of Grgurović & Hegelheimer’ study revealed the following; access to subtitled pages were twice as much frequent than transcript pages, participants spent more time on subtitle pages than transcript pages, and participants considered of lower proficiency did not use the help option even though it was available to them, and the last finding was that the group considered higher proficiency spent almost twice as much time interacting with help options. The implications of this study point not only to CALL design but also to other factors such as proficiency, motivation, control, learning styles and preferences. Some ELLs may have numerous obstacles to overcome when dealing with CALL. Technology can be overwhelming, their language proficiency may be too basic to understand the potential of CALL, and a combination of these and/or other factors can be a motivational barrier. So the most important implication would be: how to remove those obstacles and motivating ELLs to take advantage of CALL capabilities. Removing the obstacles will require using appropriate software effectively and help learners to use available technology to its maximum capabilities.
From your reading of Levy, comment on one or more of the issues related to the practice dimension of CALL. What you would want to take into consideration for your own classrooms.
The main idea in the chapter can be summarize as practice being the effective use of available technology, taking into consideration its capability, the specific goals of the class or course, the learner needs, existent learners skills, and their perceptions about CALL. For a classroom it is a must to take into account as much as possible all the variables involving CALL instruction. In my classroom, I would put an emphasis on the learner’s technological capabilities, their perceptions about using technology and definitely the ultimate goal of the class and the student’s objectives.