Television series inside the EFL classroom: Bridging the gap between teaching and learning informal language through subtitles

This experimental study seeks to explore informal and conversational speech, such as slang, phrasal verbs and colloquial expressions through the use of subtitled TV series (interlingual and intralingual) amongst learners in higher education. Thus, 40 Spanish/Catalan, Dutch, German, Russian, Romanian and Moldavian second year university undergraduates, studying a BA in English in the province of Catalonia (Spain) with an A2 to C1 proficiency level of CEFR, were randomly assigned either to interlingual mode (English sound + Spanish subtitles) or to intralingual mode (English sound + English subtitles). They were exposed to a total of 13 subtitled episodes from the American series 'Friends' over a period of 7 weeks. A multiple choice and open questions pre-test and a post-test were administered in order to analyse the effect of the two types of subtitles upon informal vocabulary learning and film comprehension. Results indicated that learners performed better under the EE (intralingual) than under the ES (interlingual) mode. No significant interaction has been found between the intervention and the post-test scores, therefore, the difference in scores between the two conditions of subtitles is not dependent on students' prior proficiency level. The obtained results support the use of subtitled audiovisual aids in foreign language classroom teaching, being in line with the principles outlined by the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning and Theory of Cognitive Load.