The Effect of Multimedia Glosses on L2 Listening Comprehension

The present study examined the effect of multimedia glosses on foreign language listening comprehension. To this end, 94 male students studying at Rasa English Institute in Tehran were selected for the treatment. The participants consisted of three groups, and each group was randomly assigned to one of the following treatment conditions: textual, pictorial, and textual-pictorial glossing. They were given a vocabulary pre-test before the treatment. The purpose of this test was to exclude the words which were already familiar to the participants from the posttests. Meanwhile, a listening comprehension post-test was administered at the end of the treatment period. To investigate the effect of multimedia glosses on listening comprehension, the data obtained from the listening comprehension post-test was analyzed using one-way ANOVA. The result showed that textual-pictorial glosses had a significant effect on listening comprehension. The findings of this study may have implications for language learners, teachers, researchers, and materials developers.