Second language learning using films

A part of our occasional series highlighting interesting uses of InqScribe

In addition to transcriptionists and documentary filmmakers, researchers make up a large portion of InqScribe users.  Although, in this case, we hit two of our favorite topics simultaneously: research and education.

Alex Gilmore, a professor at the University of Tokyo, just published a book chapter on using InqScribe to produce film-based teaching resources based for second language learning.

Why film?  Think about it, wouldn’t you rather learn a language by watching a film than reading boring text or hokey audio tapes? Films are a naturally motivating platform for teaching language. They’re also useful because they have contextual and discourse features like colloquial language, politeness strategies, and vague language that make them valuable for developing listening skills. They represent a much more authentic use of language.

Why not just use the subtitles present in many DVDs? Subtitles are actually often condensed versions of what is actually said. In language learning, it’s important to have the full text. So you have to take the time to produce quality learning materials.

In the chapter, Professor Gilmore details a procedure in which he uses InqScribe to produce teaching materials for an episode of Fawlty Towers, a British comedy television series. This includes subtitles as well as classroom materials. He covers ripping from DVD all the way to producing subtitles, so it’s a pretty thorough tutorial.

He’s generously provided a PDF of the chapter. You can download the paper here.

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Gilmore, A. (2009). Catching words: Exploiting film discourse in the foreign language classroom. In F. Mishan & A. Chambers (eds.), Perspectives on Language Learning Materials Development. Oxford: Peter Lang AG.

InqScribe training videos for Deaf community

We have a fair number of users in the Deaf community who use InqScribe to transcribe and subtitle videos.

Stacy Bick of Rochtester Institute of Technology has put together a really nice series of videos to introduce subtitling with InqScribe for the Deaf community. Actually it’s a pretty complete set of video tutorials that anyone might find useful.

Here is the main video tutorial page (Unfortunately, this is just a list of the latest videos, so you may have to scroll down).

For your convenience, here is a list of all the videos:

1. Introduction
2. Interface Overview
3. Select Media File
4. Controllers and Shortcuts
5. Transcription and Snippets
6. Proof Checking
7. Export Movie from InqScribe
8. Enable/Disable Subtitle Display
9. Export Only Subtitles to FCP
10. Modify Existing Transcript Timecode
11. Conclusion

Thanks, Stacy!

New InqScribe video tutorials

InqScribe is so easy to use, who needs tutorials, right? Well, a little background can’t hurt, so we created four new introductory video tutorials that provide (1) a basic overview of InqScribe, (2) an introduction to shortcuts and snippets, (3) tips on using time codes, and (4) an introduction to subtitling. They’re all a part of our revamped home page.