listening is the most frequently used language skill in both the classroom and daily life . It is a skill through which learners gain a large portion of their knowledge especially in the present day of mass communication . The trend towards globalization; which appears I greater internatioal trade, travel, and internet use ; has made listening more important . Therefore, there is agrowing need for students to be more able to understand not just standard British or American accents, but other varieties spoken around the world. Consequently, it is important to develop students listeningskill in order to meet such growing demands ( Flowerdew & Miller,2005 ) .
Despite this growing importance, listening has been a forgotten language skill for a long time . Not only has it been a neglected skill in schools but also it has been neglected as an area of research . Whereas a considerable amount of research has been conducted into reading, writing and speaking ;researchers used to consider listening as something that could just be picked up . There was a dominant belief that listening does not require teaching because it is a skill that develops naturallyat students minds . The importance of listening was gradually high lighted when researchs and teachers started to put the horse ( listening comprehension) before the cart ( oral production ) ( Thanajaro, 2000;Miller,2003) .
As the awarenss of the importance of teaching authentic listening increased , EFL teachers began involving several forms of media (Thanajaro, 2000 ) . At this point, foreign language movies have come to be a wealth of instructional materials because they visually capture the traditions, customs, and values of the target society . Their extensive use in second language classroom raised many guestions as to how to make the best use of this from of media to enhance learning English as a foreign language in general and listening skill in particular . Many studies investigated the linguistic benefits of several forms of movies like :-
a) Original movies
b) Dubbed movies and
c) Captioned movies .
Of these types, captioned movies are claimed to be the most useful type in presenting the cultural and linguistic information ( Guillory, 1998; Baltova, 1999; Bird and williams, 2002 ; Danan, 2004 ) .
Although captioned movies were originally directed to the hearing – impaired persos, their availabilityfostered their use in laguage courses ( wan&shen, 2007 ) .
Many controversial issues have bee raised around utilizing such captioned movies in improving EFL listening skills . On the one hand, some methodologists criticize them and raise a lot of discussions whether they help or hinder students listening skills . Opponents argue that captions slow down the development of learners listening ability because they encourage viewers to rely o the written text, which take attention away from the spoken language ( Borras & lafayette, 1994 ) . On the other hand, studies involving captioned video provide strong evidence that captioning enriches processing the target language ( Meskill, 1996 , Meskill, 2002
It is a scaffolding method and a new approach to listening comprehension development ( froehlich, 1988 ) that facilitates the trasition from reading to listening . It provides a trascription to the utterances of different dialects and presets opportunities for language learers to experience the oral language in written forms ( Meskill, 1996, Meskill, 2002 ) .
To sum up, most English movies are subtitled in L1, which makes students read their native tongue to pick up the storyline . The question arises as to whethr beefit from using English subtitles or captions instead . Based on (a) krashen's views who suggested that closed captionig offers an offers an iterestig parallel with the notio of comprehensible input in second language acquisition '' ( Guillory, 1998, p.91 ) and (b) the multi-sensory presentation of iformation; the study attempts to investigate how far studenta can benefit from captioning . It is believed that pairing the spoken dialogue and script can be advantageous because words are presented in two sensory modalities rather than one ( Tabbers, 2002 ) . In addition to investigating the effect of captioned movies on the listening skill from the cognitive perspective, the study also investigates the effect of
captoned movies o listening anxiety which is one of the affective filters that inhibits students 'performance in EFL listening .
Despite this growing importance, listening has been a forgotten language skill for a long time . Not only has it been a neglected skill in schools but also it has been neglected as an area of research . Whereas a considerable amount of research has been conducted into reading, writing and speaking ;researchers used to consider listening as something that could just be picked up . There was a dominant belief that listening does not require teaching because it is a skill that develops naturallyat students minds . The importance of listening was gradually high lighted when researchs and teachers started to put the horse ( listening comprehension) before the cart ( oral production ) ( Thanajaro, 2000;Miller,2003) .
As the awarenss of the importance of teaching authentic listening increased , EFL teachers began involving several forms of media (Thanajaro, 2000 ) . At this point, foreign language movies have come to be a wealth of instructional materials because they visually capture the traditions, customs, and values of the target society . Their extensive use in second language classroom raised many guestions as to how to make the best use of this from of media to enhance learning English as a foreign language in general and listening skill in particular . Many studies investigated the linguistic benefits of several forms of movies like :-
a) Original movies
b) Dubbed movies and
c) Captioned movies .
Of these types, captioned movies are claimed to be the most useful type in presenting the cultural and linguistic information ( Guillory, 1998; Baltova, 1999; Bird and williams, 2002 ; Danan, 2004 ) .
Although captioned movies were originally directed to the hearing – impaired persos, their availabilityfostered their use in laguage courses ( wan&shen, 2007 ) .
Many controversial issues have bee raised around utilizing such captioned movies in improving EFL listening skills . On the one hand, some methodologists criticize them and raise a lot of discussions whether they help or hinder students listening skills . Opponents argue that captions slow down the development of learners listening ability because they encourage viewers to rely o the written text, which take attention away from the spoken language ( Borras & lafayette, 1994 ) . On the other hand, studies involving captioned video provide strong evidence that captioning enriches processing the target language ( Meskill, 1996 , Meskill, 2002
It is a scaffolding method and a new approach to listening comprehension development ( froehlich, 1988 ) that facilitates the trasition from reading to listening . It provides a trascription to the utterances of different dialects and presets opportunities for language learers to experience the oral language in written forms ( Meskill, 1996, Meskill, 2002 ) .
To sum up, most English movies are subtitled in L1, which makes students read their native tongue to pick up the storyline . The question arises as to whethr beefit from using English subtitles or captions instead . Based on (a) krashen's views who suggested that closed captionig offers an offers an iterestig parallel with the notio of comprehensible input in second language acquisition '' ( Guillory, 1998, p.91 ) and (b) the multi-sensory presentation of iformation; the study attempts to investigate how far studenta can benefit from captioning . It is believed that pairing the spoken dialogue and script can be advantageous because words are presented in two sensory modalities rather than one ( Tabbers, 2002 ) . In addition to investigating the effect of captioned movies on the listening skill from the cognitive perspective, the study also investigates the effect of
captoned movies o listening anxiety which is one of the affective filters that inhibits students 'performance in EFL listening .
