This book brings together current thinking on informal language learning and the findings of over 30 years of research on captions (same language subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing) to present a new model of language learning from captioned viewing and a future roadmap for research and practice in this field. Language learners may have normal hearing but they are ‘hard-of-listening’ and find it difficult to follow the rapid or unclear speech in many films and TV programmes. Vanderplank considers whether watching with captions not only enables learners to understand and enjoy foreign language television and films but also helps them to improve their foreign language skills. Captioned Media in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching will be of interest to students and researchers involved in second language acquisition teaching and research, as well as practising language teachers and teacher trainers.

Robert Vanderplank is Director of Oxford University Language Centre and a Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford, where he is also Director of the Kellogg College Centre for the Study of Lifelong Language Learning and maintains the LARA database on language attrition research (www.lara.ox.ac.uk). His research interests and publications include television and language learning, listening comprehension, learner strategies, language testing and assessment, language maintenance and attrition, and learner autonomy.