An EFL High Achiever’s Experience in Using English Captioned Videos on YouTube for Independent English Learning: A Narrative Inquiry

Abstract

This present study aimed at exploring EFL high achiever’s experience concerning his independent learning using English captioned videos on YouTube. Moreover, this study investigated the experience through a narrative lens to reveal in-depth detail and gain new insight into how an EFL high achiever uses captioned videos for the media of independent English learning back then until recently and the benefit that student get from it. The design used in this study is narrative inquiry. This design of study focuses on the struggle and the process that a single student encountered in his experience through the story that the student shared. This study examined the experience of a male EFL high achiever college student who has been studying on 8th semester at one of private Universities in Malang. The data were collected using narrative frames and narrative interview guide. For narrative frames, the participant wrote his story based on the designed frames by the researcher. For the interview, the researcher divided it into three sessions with different purposes of each interview. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis and then presented by the researcher in a narrative and sequential manner from each phase of student’s experience when using English captioned video on YouTube for his independent learning. The findings of this study revealed the struggle and the process that the student encountered in each phase of learning English through captioned video which was a new thing for him back then. In the beginning, the student faced a problem when he did not easily find the proper material for learning independently. However, after a couple of times using captioned, the student felt comfortable and even the student used some kind of strategies or tricks in the process. Nowadays, the student is more easily watch and understand the captioned video. Besides the process, the benefits that the student gets regarding his English skills are also pointed out by the student. The researcher revealed that the captioned videos gave a lot of benefits on student's listening skills, speaking skills, and vocabulary mastery. It is expected that this research can contribute to enhancing the utilization of English captioned video for students learning media, whether inside the classroom or outside it. For the next research, it is suggested that future researchers increase the number of participants and be more specific in choosing the targeted skill to gain more particular findings.

Key Words: Student’s Experience, English Captioned Video, Independent English Learning