THE EFFECT OF MULTIMEDIA ANNOTATION MODES ON L2 VOCABULARY ACQUISITION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

One aspect of second language teaching via multimedia to have received attention over the past few years is the impact of glossing individual vocabulary words through different modalities. This study examines which of the image modalities--dynamic video or still picture--is more effective in aiding vocabulary acquisition. The participants, 30 ESL students, were introduced to a hypermedia-learning program, designed by the researcher for reading comprehension. The program provides users reading a narrative English text with a variety of glosses or annotations for words in the form of printed text, graphics, video, and sound, all of which are intended to aid in the understanding and learning of unknown words. A within-subject design was used in this study with 30 participants being measured under three conditions: printed text definition alone, printed text definition coupled with still pictures, and printed text definition coupled with video clips. In order to assess the efficacy of each mode, a vocabulary test was designed and administered to participants after they had read the English narrative. Two types of tests were administered: recognition and production. In addition, a face-to-face interview was conducted, and questionnaires were distributed. Results of the both tests were analyzed using analysis of variance procedures. The investigation has yielded the conclusion that a video clip is more effective in teaching unknown vocabulary words than a still picture. Among the suggested factors that explain such a result are that video better builds a mental image, better creates curiosity leading to increased concentration, and embodies an advantageous combination of modalities (vivid or dynamic image, sound, and printed text).

[1]  W. Nelson Francis,et al.  FREQUENCY ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH USAGE: LEXICON AND GRAMMAR , 1983 .

[2]  E. Yalow.  On Educational psychology: A cognitive view. , 1979 .

[3]  James N. Davis.  Facilitating Effects of Marginal Glosses on Foreign Language Reading , 1989 .

[4]  Mike Levy,et al.  Computer-Assisted Language Learning: Context and Conceptualization , 1997 .

[5]  G. Seth.  Psychology of Language , 1968, Nature.

[6]  G. Painchaud,et al.  A comparison of vocabulary acquisition in audio and video contexts , 1996 .

[7]  Paul Procter,et al.  Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English , 1978 .

[8]  Israel Colon,et al.  Foreign Language Acquisition and Audio‐Visual Aids* , 1988 .

[9]  Dorothy M. Chun,et al.  Effects of Multimedia Annotations on Vocabulary Acquisition , 1996 .

[10]  M. Warschauer,et al.  Computers and language learning: an overview , 1998, Language Teaching.

[11]  Claudia R. Kost,et al.  Textual and Pictorial Glosses: Effectiveness on Incidental Vocabulary Growth When Reading in a Foreign Language. , 1999 .

[12]  Dorothy M. Chun,et al.  RESEARCH ON TEXT COMPREHENSION IN MULTIMEDIA ENVIRONMENTS , 1997 .

[13]  George M. Jacobs,et al.  What Lurks in the Margin: Use of Vocabulary Glosses as a Strategy in Second Language Reading , 1994 .

[14]  F. Oyono.  Une Vie De Boy , 1975 .

[15]  Patricia S. Koskinen,et al.  Captioned Television as Comprehensible Input: Effects of Incidental Word Learning from Context for Language Minority Students. , 1992 .

[16]  James N. Davis,et al.  Computers and L2 Reading: Student Performance, Student Attitudes , 1997 .

[17]  H. I. Day,et al.  Curiosity and the Interested Explorer. , 1982 .

[18]  T. S. Hasselbring,et al.  Macro‐contexts for learning: Initial findings and issues , 1987 .

[19]  Martha C. Pennington,et al.  The power of CALL , 1996 .

[20]  W. Graves,et al.  Computing across the curriculum : academic perspectives , 1989 .

[21]  Steven P. Cole,et al.  Using Video as an Advance Organizer to a Written Passage in the FLES Classroom , 1995 .

[22]  Alice C. Omaggio.  Pictures and Second Language Comprehension: Do They Help? , 1979 .

[23]  Nina Garrett.  Computers in Foreign Language Teaching and Research: A New Humanism, Part 2. , 1990 .

[24]  Alain Desrochers,et al.  A dual-coding approach to bilingual memory. , 1980 .

[25]  Judith A. Muyskens,et al.  New Ways of Learning and Teaching: Focus on Technology and Foreign Language Education. Issues in Language Program Direction: A Series of Annual Volumes. , 1997 .

[26]  R. Mayer,et al.  Multimedia learning: Are we asking the right questions? , 1997 .

[27]  Lara Lomicka,et al.  TO GLOSS OR NOT TO GLOSS: AN INVESTIGATION OF READING COMPREHENSION ONLINE , 1998 .

[28]  A. Paivio.  Mental Representations: A Dual Coding Approach , 1986 .

[29]  R. Mayer,et al.  For whom is a picture worth a thousand words? Extensions of a dual-coding theory of multimedia learning. , 1994 .

[30]  R. Oxford,et al.  Vocabulary Learning: A Critical Analysis of Techniques , 1990 .