The effect of intralingual live subtitling on students’ performance and perception in EMI lectures in Flanders: A pilot study

Abstract

One of the challenges in higher education is providing educational access to an increasingly multilingual and multicultural student population. Universities are therefore considering using English as language of instruction (EMI), but students' limited proficiency in English can be a drawback. Live subtitling might help to overcome this language barrier. The aim of this article is to report on (1) whether these subtitles influence their performance and (2) how university students in Flanders perceive EMI lectures with intralingual live subtitles. This has been investigated during five 2-h Marketing lectures taught in English to students of Economics who have Dutch as mother tongue (27% bilingual). The live subtitling was produced in each lecture in real time through respeaking during two lecture fragments of approximately 25 min. Quantitative and qualitative data have been collected using (1) online language tests, consisting of a certified listening test and vocabulary test to determine the students’ English proficiency; (2) an online demographics questionnaire (e.g. mother tongue and self-reported proficiency in English); (3) tests after each lecture about the content and perception of the lecture. The findings show that, on average, students performed noticeably better in a comprehension test when given intralingual live subtitles.