Subtitling and dubbing as teaching resources in clil in primary education: The teachers’ perspective

Abstract

This paper explores the use of Audiovisual Translation (AVT) as a didactic tool in schools of Primary Education. The investigation of active subtitling and dubbing in formal contexts has delivered promising results concerning students’ motivation, the improvement of translation skills, and the promotion of oral and written comprehension and production. However, research in the field has predominantly concentrated on university students, and there is a paucity of studies scrutinising Primary Education. Also, there is a dearth of articles analysing teachers’ voices regarding the use of AVT in the classroom. Moreover, this is the first paper providing empirical results on the combined effects of subtitling and dubbing in bilingual education. The study comprised a sample of 31 teachers working in 8 public schools of Primary Education offering bilingual streams in Asturias, using a mixed design with quantitative (a survey) and qualitative (focus groups) techniques. The most salient findings underline that teachers consider AVT beneficial in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), as it promotes code-switching, students’ metalinguistic awareness, and working with the 4Cs in content-subjects. The paper also ponders the challenges identified by teachers concerning the use of AVT in Primary Education.