This paper presents an experiment on the potential pedagogical benefits of collaborative reverse subtitling in foreign language education. The principal objective was to discover whether reverse subtitling used as a collaborative language learning tool could enhance general translation and writing skills. The participants involved in the study had two and a half months to subtitle two short clips and were monitored as they followed a series of steps guiding their work week by week. The findings obtained from the analysis of the language tests results, the answers given to questionnaires and the teachers’ observations are promising. Given the small size of the sample (20 students), it is difficult to make generalisations. However, the main conclusion is that writing and general translation skills can be fostered by the use of reverse subtitling within an online, collaborative learning framework. This is a very encouraging result that we believe will lead the way to further research in the field.

La recerca al voltant de l’ús de la Traducció Audiovisual (TAV) en l’ensenyament de llengües estrangeres s’ha incrementat de forma considerable durant la darrera dècada. Tanmateix, ha cobert principalment l’ús de subtítols com a suport i l’ús de subtitulació i doblatge actius com a tasca. Aquest article introdueix l’ús pedagògic d’una altra forma de TAV: l’audiodescripció activa –la descripció oral d’informació visual per als cecs i persones amb discapacitats visuals– per tal de potenciar les habilitats orals en l’educació a distància. En aquest estudi quasiexperimental desenvolupat en un entorn en línia van participar 30 estudiants espanyols d’anglès amb finalitats específiques (nivell B1). Els participants van escriure de forma col·laborativa en aquest entorn l’audiodescripció de dos anuncis turístics i posteriorment van gravar-se les veus usant la plataforma ClipFlair. Es van obtenir algunes conclusions raonablement vàlides que projecten llum respecte als beneficis pedagògics de l’audiodescripció i que demanen seguir investigant en les possibilitats d’aquestes tècniques en contextos de segones llengües.

This article explores the effects of collaborative reverse subtitling as an activity for the promotion of writing skills in English as a second language. An initial analysis is undertaken of the pros and cons of the role of translation in second language learning historically and the role of information and communication technology in this process, with special attention being paid to recent initiatives on the didactic use of audiovisual translation in the form of subtitling, and the evidence of their efficacy obtained so far. Subsequently, a completed research project is described, which was aimed at promoting second language learning among distance learning university students through collaborative reverse subtitling. Specifically, the project aimed to explore both the potential of a guided subtitling activity for the development of written production skills, and also the dynamics of undertaking such an activity collaboratively, in order to gain insights on the social, cognitive, metacognitive and transfer mechanisms that can be activated in collective study. Finally, we reflect on the need to accumulate evidence on multimodal translating scenarios combining individual and collective work for the development of communicative language competences, through further research and classroom use, in order to consolidate and refine these findings.

The present article describes a didactic proposal based on the use of an audiovisual translation and accessibility mode as a pedagogical tool: subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH). When students create SDH for a pre-selected clip within a well-structured task, they are enhancing integrated skills, especially in the form of written production (of the subtitles), listening comprehension (of the original), and lexical creativity (through the condensation of the original message in the form of subtitles and the description of paralinguistic elements). A project undertaken with online students to assess the potential benefits of SDH has acted as a preliminary study to back up the didactic proposal presented herein. The main data gathered from this experience offers a reference for future practice and research in this field, since it confirms previous assumptions on the validity of subtitling as a pedagogical tool to improve foreign language learning skills.

Author/s Noa TalavánTomás CostalUniversidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Spain ABSTRACT Research on the use of active dubbing activities in foreign language learning is gaining an increasing amount of attention. The most obvious skill to be enhanced in this context is oral production and a few authors have already mentioned the potential benefits of asking students to record their voices in a ‘semi-professional’ manner. The present project attempts to assess the potential of intralingual dubbing (English-English) to develop general oral production skills in adult university students of English B2 level in an online learning environment, and to provide general guidelines of dubbing task assessment for practitioners. To this end, a group of undergraduate pre-intermediate students worked on ten sequenced activities using short videos taken from an American sitcom over a period of two months. The research study included language assessment tests, questionnaires and observation as the basic data gathering tools to make the results as reliable and thorough as possible for this type of educational setting. The conclusions provide a good starting point for the establishment of basic guidelines that may help teachers implement dubbing tasks in the language class.