Prompt 7

M. Grgurovic & V. Hegelheimer discussed studies conducted by CALL teachers to prove whether help options, video subtitles or transcripts, would effectively
boost learner’s listening comprehension breakdowns. The results of researches showed
that participants more frequently interacted with the subtitles than
with the transcripts and some of them tended to skip help pages. Obviously, I think the reason for that is we more often used to watch TV subtitles in our daily life- news and movies.

However, I am concerned about one thing which is shifting the purpose of listening comprehension to reading skill since the students will focus on reading the texts instead of concentrating on listening to the video clip. In real life situations, we communicate skillfully with each other (listen and speak) without written texts help.

One of the issues that have been raised by most educators is “How can we promote the learner’s use of help options during multimedia listening activities?” I might be able to elicit the answer for that from both Grgrovic & Hegelheimer’s article and Levy’s practice implication issues.
First, we have to consider that students should have the opportunity to choose what they think they need rather than prescribing specific help option. There should be a match between learners’ interests and the purpose of the material or technique. I mean that the teacher has to clarify the aim beyond using help options before conducting any language activity in order to help students to draw their own learning goals and be more motivated. Unarguably, It is very important to know the students’ technical background and familiarity for effective language use. Finally, the level of difficulty of a material has to correlate the level of students’ proficiency and variation and, also, related to their course of study as a supplementary activity.
CALL materials are not the target themselves, but they are tools for successful learning and teaching process