A Comparison Study of Student Retention of Foreign Language Video: Declarative versus Interrogative Advance Organizer

Abstract

The present study compared student retention of information in foreign language (FL) videos in 2 advance organizer conditions. The participants were 67 college students enrolled in 5 sections (4 experimental sections and 1 control section) of a beginning‐level French course. In the advance organizer declarative (AO.) condition, the teacher read aloud 6 sentences that summarized, in chronological order, major scenes in the upcoming video. In the advance organizer interrogative (AO?) condition, the teacher began by reading aloud the same 6 sentences, but this time each declarative sentence had been transformed into a question. For each question, the teacher suggested 3 possible answers, making no indication as to which one was correct. The control condition consisted of a group of students who watched the same videos as in the AO. and the AO? conditions, but had no advance organizer before the video viewings. Student performance with 10 videos introduced in each of these 3 ways was examined on tests of information in the videos. Results indicated that although there were no significant differences in scores between the two AO experimental groups, students in both the AO. and the AO? conditions scored significantly higher on the tests than did the control group. The researchers interpreted these findings as supporting the premise that it is significantly better to incorporate an advance organizer with video than not, and as indicating that both declarative and interrogative AOs can facilitate extensive listening in the FL classroom.