Most people assume that subtitles exist for two purposes: to make foreign language content understandable and to assist those with hearing impairments. But these two reasons only touch the tip of the iceberg. Transcribed and subtitled content offers dozens of benefits for individuals and organizations in a wide variety of industries, including education.

If you’re a student, teacher, or administrator, there’s a good chance that you’ve never given much thought to how subtitled content could help. But both students and educational institutions can take advantage of speech to text software to improve learning skills, increase accessibility, and more.

If you’re involved in education, you owe it to yourself to reflect on some of these creative uses of subtitles for enhancing the learning experience. As you read, you’ll likely be surprised at the difference a subtitle can make.

Two students who are empowered by speech to text

Whether a student is in elementary school or university, they have one goal: to grow in knowledge and understanding. But achieving that goal isn’t always easy. That’s why it’s so important to offer students every tool possible for success.

While subtitles and transcriptions won’t make educational attainment any less demanding, they will empower students in a number of important ways. And Scriptix offers a simple process for doing just that.

female student views subtitels and captions from laptop

Make content accessible for deaf and hearing-impaired students

One of the most obvious ways that subtitles can help students is by making educational content accessible for deaf and hearing-impaired students.

You might assume that hearing loss is a rarity in children, teens, and twenty-somethings. But that simply isn’t the case. According to recent statistics, 20% of American teens suffer from some degree of hearing loss. So hearing-impaired students aren’t uncommon at all. Teachers can’t afford to assume that all of their students can hear and understand video content. This is why providing subtitles on all videos is absolutely essential.

But how can an educational institution afford creating accurate subtitles for all of the video content they provide their students? Scriptix can be used to automatically generate quality transcriptions and subtitles for all kinds of content, including lectures, recorded classroom discussions, and more. So, it’s never been easier for teachers to provide their deaf and hearing impaired students with the same material they provide everyone else.

Improve learning and comprehension skills

Over the past decade, numerous studies from around the world have shown that subtitled content improves literacy skills and reading comprehension. In one analysis, researchers reported that “captions helped children recognise and read more words, identify the meaning of those words, generate inferences regarding programme content and transfer these skills to a normative code‐related skill task.”

Another study found that “children who viewed with captions scored significantly higher on normative tests of word identification and passage comprehension when compared with non-caption viewers.” Other research has revealed that subtitles can help children who are economically disadvantaged, struggling with literacy, and trying to learn a foreign language.

In other words, there’s one surefire way to turn time spent in front of the television into educational enrichment: subtitles. In fact, there’s a whole organization that’s devoted to encouraging broadcasters and streamers to turn on the subtitles so kids can work on their literacy skills while watching video content.

While most of the research that’s been performed has involved young children, there’s reason to believe that many of these benefits also apply to older learners. In addition, subtitles help students who struggle with learning disabilities, dyslexia, autism, and more. To put it simply, subtitles are a quick and easy way to begin boosting literacy and reading comprehension rates throughout the world. And it all begins with content creators and educational institutions subtitling their content.

Unfortunately, creating accurate subtitles manually is cost and resource prohibitive. That’s why educational institutions should consider taking advantage of a service like Scriptix. Our models are designed to be as accurate as possible. And they can complete a complete transcription in a matter of minutes. It’s simply the easiest and most affordable way to subtitle your content so it can improve the literacy and comprehension rates of the students who depend on you.

group of students with multi media

Boost foreign language learning efforts

We’ve already seen how subtitles can boost literacy skills and reading comprehension. But this isn’t just the case for a student’s native language. It also applies to those who are learning a second language. Studies have shown that “you can improve your second-language listening ability by watching the movie with subtitles—as long as these subtitles are in the same language as the film.”

This fact can help teachers create a more effective learning environment in their classrooms and it can give students the ability to practice their foreign language skills in a more enjoyable manner. For example, teachers can show subtitled videos of conversations in the target language. Then, they can have students follow along aurally and visually, multiplying the impact of the material. And students can watch subtitled films and television shows – in class or in their own time – to further improve their foreign language skills.

While teachers may be able to find subtitled resources out there, they don’t have to stop there. With a service like Scriptix, they can automatically generate subtitles for any content they want. So, no matter what curriculum or material they want to use, they can take full advantage of the benefits of subtitles.

Improve content accessibility through lecture and class transcripts

As students move beyond high school and into university, lectures become an even more important part of the learning experience. Many classes consist almost entirely of readings and in-class lectures. While books and documents can be consulted and studied after the fact, accessing lectures depends on how well a student took notes. But it doesn’t have to.

Most teachers will allow a student to record classes for future reference. Having the audio is helpful, but turning that audio into a searchable text file is even better. They’ll be able to refer to it well after the fact, ensuring they have greater access to important class content. This can be particularly convenient when writing papers or doing other assignments that require referencing in-class lectures.

In addition, teachers can improve the accessibility of their classes by transcribing their lectures and providing transcriptions to students. That way, any absent students can still benefit from the content. And all other students can easily review what was discussed after the fact.

All of this and more is possible through the power of Scriptix. Our speech to text models strive for accuracy and efficiency, so students can know that the searchable, transcribed content on the page is the same as that which was shared in class.

student enjoys following a lecture from her educational institution

Surveys have shown that over 98% of students prefer subtitled content over non-subtitled content. We’ve already noted several reasons why that’s the case. But there are a number of other reasons that students like subtitles. According to data that’s been collected by 3PLAYMEDIA, students report the following benefits of subtitled content:

  • Subtitled content helped students focus on and follow what was being said. This is one of the reasons that subtitles improve comprehension and foreign language acquisition. By involving multiple senses, subtitles hold the attention of students better than audio alone.
  • Similarly, subtitles were said to help students retain information. This is likely because they’re more focused on the material. As a result, they remember it better.
  • Subtitles make unclear audio understandable. Obviously this is most true for those with deafness or hearing loss. But even those with great hearing know the frustration of watching a video that has poor audio quality. Subtitles overcome that problem.
  • Subtitles and captions help students understand and learn difficult vocabulary.

When you consider all of these benefits – along with the ones we’ve already reviewed – one thing becomes clear. Transcribed and subtitled content should be the norm in educational institutions, including universities.

It’s easy to see the myriad of benefits that subtitled content offers students. But what may not be quite so obvious at first glance are the many benefits that universities and educational institutions can enjoy. Obviously, when an educational institution’s students benefit from something, the university benefits as well. But that’s not the only good thing schools gain from subtitles. They enjoy their own benefits, independent from the success of their students.

Create an archive for universities and other educational institutions

One of the simplest ways that speech to text technology can benefit educational institutions is by empowering them to create an archive of lectures and classes that can be easily indexed and searched.

Just imagine how convenient it would be to search through all of a university’s offered classes for a particular topic, idea, person, or event. Students, teachers, or administrators could immediately find specific classes and lectures without combing through hours of video. And if such an archive was created with Scriptix, every transcribed word would include a timestamp in milliseconds that’s linked to the original video so that users could find the precise moment a word was mentioned. This could be used in dozens of creative ways to benefit those within a particular educational institution.

If you’re involved in a university, school, or other educational institution, and you’d like to learn more about archiving your lectures or other content, visit our archive guide. It’s the perfect place to learn how you can get started making your content more accessible than ever before.

Make content available for foreign language speakers

As the competition among educational institutions continues to grow online, colleges and universities will need to find ways to stand out from the crowd. They’ll also want to consider ways that they can serve a wider group of people. One of the ways they can accomplish both goals is by making their offerings more available for people who speak other languages. And how can they do that? Through subtitles.

Subtitles make it possible for universities and other educational institutions to tailor content for foreign language speakers. The biggest problem with this endeavor is creating the subtitles. First, someone will need to listen to the content and transcribe it. Then, someone will need to translate it all and create the subtitles. But if you use a speech to text solution like Scriptix, you can automate the first step, so all you have to do is take the automatically generated transcription that Scriptix provides and have someone translate it. This makes it far easier to provide foreign language content to students who need it.

Yes! Research from around the world has shown that subtitles improve literacy skills and reading comprehension. By offering viewers multiple ways to engage with content simultaneously, students are able to focus better, retain more, and comprehend more effectively. In short, subtitles are a simple way to have a big impact on student literacy.

Deafness and hearing loss are the most obvious challenges that subtitles empower students to overcome. But they aren’t the only ones. In addition to helping hearing impaired students, subtitles also have been shown to help students who struggle with dyslexia, autism, and other learning disabilities.

Absolutely. Research has made it clear that subtitled content can be a great help for picking up a foreign language. However, in order to take advantage of this benefit, you’ll need to watch the foreign language content using foreign language subtitles rather than translated ones. This will engage your mind in the other language more effectively and improve your understanding.

With a speech to text solution like Scriptix, students can have audio or video recordings of their classroom lectures transcribed into text. This makes the content easier to review and it allows students to search the transcribed document for particular words and phrases.

Subtitles and captions don’t just help students with hearing loss or learning disabilities. Surveys have shown that students report subtitles help them achieve higher levels of focus, better information retention, greater understanding, and more.

Universities can use speech to text technology to transcribe classroom lectures, meetings, and other video content. Then, they can create a searchable archive that will allow students, teachers, and administrators to quickly look for specific words and phrases used in that content. And since every transcribed word includes a timecode that’s tied to its video, users can immediately locate the context of every mention.