Saudi Students’ Attitudes to the Use of Subtitles to Improve Their Listening Skills

Abstract

The role of subtitles in improving listening skills is a controversial issue in the literature of second language (L2) learning. This study attempted to investigate L2 learners’ attitudes to the use of subtitles when watching English audio-visual materials. Investigating L2 learners’ attitudes to the use of subtitles may have implications for designing listening courses in education organisations around the world. The study recruited 63 Saudi third-year students from an English department at a Saudi university. The data was collected by means of a closed-ended questionnaire containing 23 Likert-scale items. The results indicated that most participants: a) agreed that listening skills are important; b) had more positive attitudes to the use of English subtitles (captions) than to Arabic subtitles; c) expressed positive attitudes to people who use articles; and d) acknowledged that the use of captions had a greater positive impact on L2 learning than either Arabic subtitles or no subtitles at all.