As we all know, subtitling has been widely used
in a way in the teaching of foreign language learning.
If a foreign language for different purposes
at different education levels, although as we have heard
in the plenary speech by NASA, we know that we still
lack studies in this field
in primary and secondary education.
It has proved to be helpful in the acquisition
and enhancement of the safe.
That's why I'm. Here.
Okay, here it is.
So in the acquisition
and enhancement of vocabulary, a grammar cultural knowledge
rating and oral comprehension and production
skills and well,
I have mentioned some of the of the scholars working on these topics,
although as we know, there are many others and many of them are precisely
here in this conference as well as for the ways of using active
use in subtitling
that is active and passive subtitling,
the applications of which are very well
revised by Torralba 2020.
It is the active use of subtitling
that implies the practice of translation,
and this is specifically the use of subtitling
on which this study is based.
And this leads us necessarily to the practice of translation.
So didactic tool for foreign language learning in, as we know, as
the previous speaker has already says to it, has long been rejected.
But in the last 20 years,
the number of publications on the on these topics have
considerably increased
offering very interesting and new methodologies
with the inclusion of descriptors for mediation
in the common European framework for a of reference for languages.
So a translation has become a recognized and very well
justified methods.
And this in this context
also according to this
common European framework, mediating
it takes a way of mediation is across linguistic activity,
which involves very lingual competence.
So translating a written text either in speech or in
written, is one of the scales comprised
by mediating
activities.
A Well, this study explores the active use of reverse subtitling
as a didactic tool in the teaching and learning of English
as a foreign language for trainee translators and interpreters.
And specifically, it focuses on the acquisition
of special vocabulary, a particularly relevant aspect
as preparation for subsequent obligatory
translation courses, as well as specialized translation courses
that constitute the backbone of the students third
and fourth year degree syllabus in the
in the Faculty of Translation and interpreting of the University of LAS.
Five months later on Canaria, where I work
a I will
describe here a classroom experiment
in which students enrolled in an English
course produced reverse subtitles from Spanish into English
English as their first foreign language
and a of four and a half minutes of a documentary
containing a great deal of specialized vocabulary.
On the topic of the technology.
More precisely, Nano's technology, a qualitative
and quantitative data collected
through the observation of all the tasks that the students
had to carry out and also
from the their responses to a very short
and simple questionnaire they had to feeling
at the end of their whole teaching or learning experience.
And so 22 students
participated in this in these preliminary study,
which was carried out last year, academic year 2021, 2022.
They were undergraduates in the second of the four years of the degree
A in translation interpreting.
And at that time, well,
this was in the in their last English language
language course in the curriculum, which is lingua quatro in English,
and the English level was between B2 and C one.
We also would like to have ac1 at that moment,
but we know this is not real in the end,
and also that the length of the of this teaching
experience was 4 hours, a practice of approximately plus autonomous.
Work.
At home.
It is interesting to, to note here that this language always aims
to ensure the acquisition of a proficient, specialized
level of spoken and written skills in English.
At that time they were working on
unit for scientific and technical English,
the professional focus of which was on decoding
and constructing scientific and technical texts.
At that time, the students
had never done any subtitling
or reverse translation before.
And again, as the previous speaker
mentioned, together with the main task,
which was the subtitling tasks that were a series of
complementary activities,
a addressing a great variety of of language
skills, speaking, writing and mediating a
So the pre tasks where a well aimed at contextualizing
and making the students familiar with the specialized topic
and also with the basic aspects
of the subtitling software and practice.
After they did the main task, they had to work on the post accent,
which was very useful for the teacher to observe and assess
the students performance in their use of specialized vocabulary
and its assimilation.
As for the pre tasks, A at the beginning, well,
in the first session of about 2 hours,
first of all, a general discussion was carried out
about the documentary as a specific audiovisual genre.
A It's a features, functions and the typical
or the most common topics handled in this text where highlighted
and so asked to have students develop
a type text type awareness.
After that, they watched the video in Spanish,
of course, because they they they would do later this
translation and took notes also in Spanish
and about the most significant aspects
after that they talked in Spanish again
about the general and specific ideas of the audiovisual text.
This approach a to the specialized topic in Spanish
gave them the necessary confidence to be able to talk about
a specialized topic with which they were not familiar at all.
After that, they wrote they had to write a summary about this
four and a half minutes of the video, and according to
an imaginary mediation situation by which a
a British friend who couldn't speak and is by any in Spanish
asked them
about the content of the beginning of the documentary,
they had to write the summary of about 120 words with
and they were not allowed to use a dictionary.
This I say this exercise was essential
for comparing the students performance
in the use of specialized vocabulary
before and after doing the subtitling task.
Obviously, after that they downloaded the program, the computing
software, onto the computer, onto the computers
and then they were given instructions about subtitling and also
about the software they were going to use basic very basic instructions.
The main task was started
in that session, and so they devoted a
the last 30 or 35 minutes to working on the subtitles.
So the only of the first minutes of the of the of the text,
they could use dictionaries and other documentation, resources
and also exchange ideas with the classmates and
since they had never
done any subtitling before or
they had never done a reverse translation
subtitling, just one minute of these
audiovisual tags was a real challenge for them.
They had to continue
working on the subtitling task at home as homework.
This time it was individual homework
and they could again use dictionaries and other resources.
But this time it was individual and they finished the task
at the beginning of the second session in the classroom
so that they could exchange ideas with classmates
and they could modify their versions
if they considered it necessary.
And after that, in the session to a,
some volunteer students
presented their subtitled versions so that the other
classmates could comment on them, always
with a focus on the specialized vocabulary used, but also in
taking into account grammar mistakes when they were found
After that,
after the completion of all these exercise,
they were supposed to be able to write a summary,
a second summary in English, a
using specialized vocabulary, and thus
we expected them to perform better in a
after they wrote this
summary and handed it handed in and they were given
an incomplete glossary containing a
the terms found in the documentary
and either the what they had i the word in Spanish
or the definition in English, and they had to fill in the gaps
by using the English term in
and after these finally
in order to gorge the students feelings
about the subtitling experience, they where they had to fill a short
and simple opinion questionnaire at the end.
As for their results,
it was interesting to
to to look at the the what happens with summary.
One and they
the summaries revealed all showed that they could use general vocabulary
which is commonly used when talking about technology and science
and science and scientific advances. But
they couldn't, they couldn't use
well this vocabulary which is usually
found in these topics, but also in general topics in general day
to day context and such as explore Expert Revolution, this kind of words.
But this writing also showed
the lack of vocabulary of the fields.
Then regarding the second summary,
we saw that
the number of terms used in this writing was between four and 13,
with an average of nine terms for summary A
And then it is interesting to note here that 60% of students use
ten or more nanotechnology related terms, which differs greatly
from the students performance in the summary.
A For the glossary, the number of right responses
varied between 20 and 36.
And here also it is interesting to note that 70% of students
scored higher than 30 out of 36 was the highest
a The reason for these high scores
could be
that for the students it is easier to recall a vocabulary
when they are given a list of terms or a list of or clues.
And then when they have to write a
attacks with no requirements
other than a limited number of of words.
As for the questionnaire, this opinion questionnaire
and the questionnaire contain five questions.
The first one that you enjoy subtitling.
We see that 70%
of the students strongly agreed and 23% agreed.
A question to you end
translating into English, 73%
strongly agreed and 27% agreed.
Do you think you have learned a new vocabulary?
Again, 77% agree, strongly agreed, sorry, and 23%
agreed. And the question four
Do you think you have improved some grammar aspects?
68% agreed, 4% strongly agreed.
And then 14%
strongly disagreed and 14% disagreed.
A The response of questions 1 to 4
which where a closed ended questions
revealed that reverse subtitling
had a motivating effect on them.
At the same time, all of them recognized the effectiveness
of the subtitling practice in learning a new vocabulary.
And finally, as an additional benefit of this experiment,
most of them admitted having improves on grammatical.
Aspects.
Regarding the last question,
which was an open ended one.
What else have you learned?
The students gave a variety of responses
which were grouped as follows 36 38%
acknowledged having learned how to produce subtitles
according to conventions, to a set of criteria 7%.
But the important
well, the 38 17% how to produce.
No, I mistook that
so a 17%
How to use subtitling software 7%.
The importance to master
both the language and the software 14% the difficulty of subtitling.
And finally 24% learned how to condense and simplify
sentences, which is of special relevance for
future translators and interpreters.
The conclusions from this
preliminary approach
well are the following
and from
Let me.
Yes, from the students performance in summary to
the glossary and also their responses to the questionnaire.
A We see that reverse
subtitling had a positive effect on specialized vocabulary
learning and also in other additional learning outcomes.
The combination of reverse translation,
the technological component
introduced by the use of the subtitling software
and also moving away from the typical vocabulary exercises.
It created a motivated
and motivated, motivating learning setting for the
for the acquisition of specialized vocabulary.
A an aspect of foreign language learning that students
usually find to use and associate to a memorizing word list
and well, a although
well well.
Also the method responds to professional needs as future
translators and interpreters and consequently
although well
time perception in the designing of this type of exercises
and that the fact that the students have to use a have
to learn the basic aspects of the of the subtitling software
and they may seem a disadvantage now, but efficient
learning and motivation may well outweigh in these
this possible drawbacks of this method.
After this preliminary study, it would be productive
to apply this experience to a larger group of students
for a longer period and introduce them to
using this learned vocabulary in speaking and in other writing
exercises.
A more significant results could be obtained.
However, this first approach has shown that active subtitling
helps students assimilate a series of specialized
lexical elements, as well as acquire
other other types of knowledge.
Responding to the special needs, a translator
or interpreting Chinese what that see.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you so much that I think for sharing the experiment.
Any questions?
Any comments?
Yes like is for example I school know
placement
if there's more to it
from some other type of.
I suppose so
the this is this can be applied to other contexts
depending on in this case it was interesting things
the setting here the learning setting was the faculty
or the degree in translation interpreting.
It was interesting to focus on specialized vocabulary, but of course
these could be done in other learning
settings in higher high school
and I think there are already approaches in this sense.
So one of the tests that
David said that
we had to engage more students
with that interesting,
but at the same time to keep
the preparatory from my
I find that more
and the combination of these two approaches
of this now
I would.
Say, well, it would be really interesting.
It is true that in my case, since I work in the context
of translation and interpreting training,
it is easier that the students are already very motivated
to work on this type of activities and they are really eager
to work on these.
And they they had the opportunity to envisage their future
as professional translators, in fact.
So the motivation is there.
Well, they really love it.
But software age is not the typical one
because it's free. Yes, it's free.
Of course.
Both mock and. Yes, that's right.
That's right.
Yes. Yes.
There's a version for for up Yes.
I pages.
I have issues regarding pre subtitling tasks.
I was thinking you trying for example the same text with
and without the video I try first without subtitling, without the image.
And sometimes like if you see how they find it's so difficult
to translate because the vocabulary was yes,
yes, technology was an art.
So comparing
how they feel about translating reverse translation of a text
without becoming.
A written text. Yes. Okay.
Even the same one or even a pre subtitling?
No, I haven't done van, but.
Sometimes they find it like really boring and very hard to transmit.
And when you change slightly more on your visual
context with the image, with everything they seem
to understand much better because they use. Yes.
And there's a big difference. It's like.
Yes, yes, sure. Three times.
Yes, that's it.
That's an interesting then.
Probably post subtitling, just like translating.
Now reverse translation with text with all what they've learned.
Yes. Yes. No, that's an interesting. Yeah.
Thank you.
I like that.
Yes. Yes.
It could be apply later. Yeah.
This was a first approach and I would like to continue working on that.
And thank you very much for that.
Yes. Yes, I will. I will.
Take what off in your comments.
I'm curious to know why you didn't use that, because.
Well, you know, when you need a an audiovisual text
for for for a specific purpose, you you spend hours
searching the Internet, looking for text.
And that was the best one I found
the the the correct level, the, the
the appropriate level of the oh, sorry of
and yes, thinking of the
of the way they had to translate that later into into English.
So I thought, well, I think they can do this
it is a bit difficult of course they have to
to fill the challenge to do something more difficult.
But this was the text I found that was the the one I needed.
That's right. For
a nanotechnology had a lot of low and I know they mentioned
that there was a lot of interesting vocabulary around the
this this topic
is important.
Thank you.
Well thank you for inviting.