What the Eye Doesn't See: Cross-Cultural Problems in the Comprehension of Video Material

Abstract

Video is frequently used in second language teaching, the most common reason given being its ability to illustrate language use in context, teachers having assumed that the visual channel provides support for the verbal message. However, little research has been carried out on the relationship of the visual and verbal channels in video material and particularly whether the information available in the visual channel is exploited differently by native speakers and non- native speakers.

This paper reports on an experiment designed to test differences in story comprehension of an ELT video played silent sequence to one group of British native speakers of English and to three groups of non-native speakers of English from different cultural backgrounds. Comprehension was measured by the use of summary writing and comprehension questions. Results showed that the native speakers were significantly better able to infer the story line and related background information than the non-native speaker groups. The results indicate that although native speakers are able to derive benefit from the visual channel in video, non-native speakers, par ticularly from cultures further removed from that of the target video material, are less able to recognise and exploit the facilitative poten tial of the visual cues present in this channel.