Material

Introduction

Developing speaking skills in a foreign language requires more than recognizing words and understanding utterances. Learners must be able to formulate ideas independently, sustain a conversation, and select expressions appropriate to a particular situation. In university education, students regularly engage with films and music videos in a foreign language. These materials present speech in context, but watching and listening are primarily receptive activities. To develop speaking, teachers need to organize a transition from comprehension to learners’ own spoken performance [7, 8].

Captions in the target language connect spoken utterances with their written form. A meta-analysis identified benefits of this type of video viewing primarily for listening comprehension and vocabulary learning [1]. Experimental studies confirm that captioning conditions and task types affect comprehension and retention [2, 3]. Findings about receptive skills, however, cannot be treated as direct evidence of improved speaking. Some studies have linked captioned video tasks to spoken performance [4], whereas research on songs has mainly examined the retention of phrases and words [5, 6].

The research problem addressed here is the insufficiently specified link between perceiving captioned audiovisual material and producing an independent utterance in classroom practice. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the didactic potential of films and music videos accompanied by on-screen text and to propose a sequence of tasks for developing students’ foreign language speaking skills. In this article, “captioned music videos” means videos displaying synchronized lyrics in the target language; unsynchronized printed lyrics are treated as supplementary material.

Materials and Methods

This is a theoretical and methodological study. Its materials comprise seven published research works [1–7] and a Council of Europe framework document containing descriptors of communicative language activities [8]. Sources were selected purposively for their relevance to four questions: how captions support comprehension and vocabulary; what evidence concerns speaking; how songs contribute to acquiring spoken language material; and how spoken production and interaction can be assessed. The selection was thematic and does not constitute a systematic review of the entire literature.

The methods were comparative analysis of research findings, distinction between receptive and productive outcomes, and pedagogical modelling of a lesson sequence. The unit of methodological analysis was a task enabling a student to move from an observed speech model to an original utterance. The design took account of the group’s language proficiency, the length and clarity of the excerpt, caption quality, the relevance of its content to the learning context, and the possibility of discussing it without reproducing the original dialogue verbatim.

The proposed model is not based on an experiment conducted by the author: the article reports no student sample, control group, or pre- and post-instruction measurements. Accordingly, the Results section presents the outcome of literature analysis and methodological design rather than data from classroom implementation.

Results

Principles for Selecting Materials

Analysis of the publications identified three distinct mechanisms. First, captions help learners connect audible speech with written forms, supporting comprehension of an excerpt and noticing new language items [1–3]. Second, a film provides a communicative situation in which the interlocutors, their intentions, and the context of an utterance are visible. This creates a basis for response, retelling, and dialogue tasks, although speaking still requires separate practice [4, 7]. Third, repetition of a song may support retention of heard words and phrases [5, 6]; transfer of these phrases to spontaneous speech needs to be assessed separately.

For film work, a short, self-contained scene with a clear communicative purpose is appropriate: a request, explanation, clarification, or discussion of a decision. For a music video, intelligible lyrics, a manageable pace, suitability for the students’ age and proficiency, and expressions usable outside the song are important. Slang, metaphorical wording, and unusual grammar require explanation and should not be presented as universal models for everyday conversation.

A Model for Working with Audiovisual Excerpts

The pedagogical model yielded a four-stage sequence: “understand — notice — reproduce — speak independently.” At the first stage, students identify the situation and speakers’ intentions without having to memorize every word. At the second, they compare speech with captions and select two or three useful utterances or constructions. At the third, they practise pronunciation, pausing, and the use of selected expressions in a controlled exercise. At the fourth, they complete a new communicative task without relying on full captions.

Table 1 – Speaking tasks for two types of audiovisual material

The nature of the material determines the final task. A film dialogue offers a model of turn-taking and speech acts, so pair interaction is a natural outcome. A song supports repeated exposure to spoken phrases, but its lyrics are often monologic and figurative. Following a music video, students therefore need to express their own position or discuss the topic rather than merely sing or repeat a line.

Assessing Spoken Performance

Progress should be assessed through spoken performance rather than the number of excerpts viewed or captions correctly reconstructed. Drawing on CEFR descriptors for spoken production and interaction [8], four features are proposed for observation: completion of the communicative task, coherence and intelligibility, appropriate use of words and expressions, and the ability to sustain interaction. For a monologue, the fourth feature is replaced by the logical development of ideas. Pronunciation is evaluated in terms of intelligibility rather than imitation of a particular accent.

One practical way to document progress is to make two comparable audio recordings before and after a series of lessons, using tasks of the same type and criteria defined in advance. Ideally, the assessor should not know which recording was made first; task materials should be retained, and students’ initial proficiency taken into account. These procedures are proposed for a future evaluation of the model and were not applied in the present study.

Discussion

Published findings support the potential value of captions for comprehension and vocabulary learning, but they do not justify a claim that any viewing activity improves speaking. The studies by Winke and colleagues [2] and Montero Perez and colleagues [3] addressed listening and vocabulary tasks. The study by Borrás and Lafayette [4] directly examined students’ speaking performance, although its particular conditions cannot be generalized to all proficiency levels, languages, and video formats without further testing. The methodological contribution of this article is therefore the organization of a subsequent speaking task.

Research on songs likewise calls for careful interpretation. In the experiment by Ludke and colleagues, singing facilitated short-term memorization and spoken reproduction of phrases in an unfamiliar language [5]. Pavia and colleagues investigated several dimensions of vocabulary knowledge acquired through repeated listening [6]. These findings support work on sound and vocabulary, but they do not amount to evidence of improvement in free conversation. Repetition and singing along are therefore intermediate exercises in the proposed model; its principal outcome is assessed through a new utterance.

When choosing captions, it is important to distinguish target-language text from translation into students’ first language. Translation may help learners grasp a complex plot initially, but target-language captions are the relevant support when the task is to relate spoken sounds to words in the language being learned. This support can be used flexibly: students first determine the general meaning, then consult the written cue, and finally complete a speaking task without it. The amount of support depends on the group’s level and the difficulty of the material; no single sequence has been established for all learners [1–3].

The study is limited by the thematic rather than systematic review, the heterogeneity of the studies considered, the absence of research devoted specifically to music videos with synchronized lyrics in the selected evidence, and the lack of implementation data from the author’s own classes. The model is a testable methodological hypothesis. A future evaluation could compare groups completing equivalent speaking tasks after viewing with and without captions, while controlling for initial proficiency, practice time, and material difficulty.

Conclusion

Captioned films and music videos have didactic potential as sources of contextualized spoken input and language models. The strongest evidence concerns comprehension, vocabulary learning, and retention of phrases. Developing speaking requires a deliberately organized transition to independent production and interaction.

A four-stage model is proposed: understanding the content, noticing useful language, guided practice, and completing a new communicative task without textual support. Film work can culminate in dialogue or role-play, while song-based work can culminate in discussion of the theme and appropriate use of selected expressions in students’ own speech. The model’s effectiveness should be tested in a subsequent pedagogical study that assesses speaking before and after instruction.