<strong>Using subtitles to aid listening and viewing comprehension</strong>Texts with multimedia components are widely available and students are normally familiar with them. Multimedia texts convey meaning through a combined use of components such as visual images, spoken text, sound, written text, and graphics. Understanding multimedia texts in a FL means being able to capture the message derived from all such components and is generally dependent on an awareness of the significance of cultural, intonational, spatial peculiarities, and so on. Multimedia texts can therefore be used to facilitate:A.   surface understanding of the text (getting the “gist” of the text) andB.   deep understanding (through the combination of all elements).<strong>Outcomes</strong>Upon completion of subtitling tasks, students will:<li>Develop an understanding of different components of multimedia texts</li><li>Develop an awareness of non-linguistic and extra-linguistic elements of communication acts</li><li>Utilize non-linguistic and extra-linguistic elements to facilitate comprehension</li>
<strong>Procedure</strong>This can be achieved through class activities that:<strong>A.</strong>   Choose an appropriate multi-media video and ask students to:<li>guess the content from the title</li><li>watch the video without subtitles (if short) and/or without audio and formulate further hypotheses</li><li>watch again to verify</li><li>ask students to comment on the non-linguistic context (situational context, body language, spatial characteristics, colours, lights, etc) as well as on the extra-linguistic elements (intonation, tone of voice, speed of speech, etc).</li>
<strong>B.</strong>  Show the video with the subtitles in L1. Are students satisfied with the subtitles? If yes/no, why?<strong>After the activity</strong>A final reflection on how the different elements work together to convey meaning can be useful.<br /><strong>Source/attribution: </strong>Digilanguages                     <strong>Author: </strong>Laura McLoughlin