Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the effects of using multimedia annotations on EFL readers’ word recall and text recall and to explore which type of multimedia annotations – L1 meaning, L2 meaning, sound, and image – would have a better effect on their recall of new words and text comprehension. The participants were 78 students who enrolled in an Intermediate EFL course at a university in the north of Thailand. Five instruments – a questionnaire, a vocabulary pre-test, a computerized log-file, and two posttests: a vocabulary test and a text recall test – were used to collect data. First, the participants responded to the questionnaire and the pre-test in the classroom. One week later, they read a hypertext equipped with multimedia annotations in the computer laboratory while the log files recorded their selections of words and annotations. Immediately after that, they answered the two post-tests. Three weeks later, a vocabulary test was given to the participants again without informing in advanced. The results revealed that (1) accessing multimedia annotations led to significantly greater vocabulary recall (42%) among Thai EFL learners; (2) their retention lasted at least three weeks after being exposed to the multimedia-annotated text; (3) they recalled words with images significantly better than those with no images; (4) they recalled about 31% of the text with multimedia annotations; and (5) no significant difference was found regarding the effects of using different types of multimedia annotations on learners’ word recall and text recall when compared between learners.

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