Glossed Full Captions Versus Glossed Keyword Captions: Which One Is More Effective for Incidental Vocabulary Learning from Viewing?

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

To date, only one study (Teng, 2022b), which was conducted with Chinese primary school students, has compared the effectiveness of glossed full captions with glossed keyword captions for incidental vocabulary learning through video viewing, and how these two captioning formats operate with other learner populations, for example adult EFL learners, remains unexplored. Recognizing the scarcity of research on this topic, the current investigation sought to compare the effects of these two glossed captions on incidental vocabulary learning from viewing. To this end, 54 adult EFL learners from three intact university classes were allocated to one of the following conditions: 1) a test-only control condition (N = 18), 2) viewing with glossed full captions (N = 18), and 3) viewing with glossed keyword captions (N = 18). Learning of the 20 target items was assessed at the levels of form and meaning recall. Mixed-design ANOVAs and a MANOVA were used to analyze the data. Regarding form recall, the pretest-immediate posttest results showed that glossed keyword-captioned viewing produced significantly larger vocabulary gains than the other conditions. As for meaning recall, the glossed fully-captioned viewing condition resulted in higher gains, although it failed to reach statistical significance. These findings suggest that glossed full and glossed keyword captions may support distinct dimensions of vocabulary knowledge differentially. Pedagogically, the results highlight the importance of aligning caption design with specific language learning goals.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Copyright © 2026 The Author(s). Published by the Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages at the University of Mazandaran. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license.

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History

  • Receive Date: 26 December 2025
  • Revise Date: 19 April 2026
  • Accept Date: 28 April 2026
  • First Publish Date: 03 May 2026
  • Publish Date: 03 May 2026

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