Using captions in the classroom
Captions differ from foreign language subtitles in that they are coloured and positioned to indicate who is speaking, and provide information on music and sound effects which may be crucial to the understanding of the program. Subtitles are simply a translation of a foreign language into English which appears on the bottom of the screen.
All of this provides contextual information for the student. The use of captions in mainstream classes is essential for those students who are Deaf or hearing impaired, and is also of great benefit for other students. Captions primarily can be considered to improve learning outcomes by assisting information acquisition and reading skills.
The benefits of captioned educational material are many and varied. At the end of 2009, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on the HSC success of Susan Murphy, a profoundly Deaf and legally blind student who completed her HSC with the assistance of captioned content.
If you do not have access to captioned content, look at our finding captioned content page.
Captions on DVDs
DVDs are sometimes released to the market with captions. Foreign language subtitles can also be used as a form of access for Deaf and hearing impaired people, although these are simply a translation from one language to another and do not include sound effects or music descriptions.
Roughly 55% of new release rental DVD titles are captioned. This rate varies for retail releases (of which there are many more titles) and also on Blu-ray. It is important to understand how to identify whether a title is captioned.
As the captions are an integral part of the DVD, you do not need any special kind of decoder to access them, just a standard DVD player. This video from Media Access Australia provides an overview of how to turn on DVD captions.
Captions on TV
There are a range of captioned programs available on both free-to-air and subscription television. Captions are available on all TV programs shown between 6.00pm-10.30pm, and all news and current affairs programs, on the primary channels of all the free-to-air networks (e.g. ABC1, SBS1, Seven, Nine and Ten and regional channels).
There are also many programs captioned outside prime time. The free-to-air networks are currently committed to captioning 80% of programs screened on their primary channel between 6am and midnight (or 60% across 24 hours).
Media Access Australia has a range of videos designed to assist people in their use of captions on television.
Captioned downloads
There are a variety of multimedia resources which are downloadable from the Internet. To access captions, the media player through which a video is played must be configured to display closed captions. If a player is capable of displaying captions a 'CC button is displayed on the menu bar of the player. Alternatively there may be an arrow at the base of the player which, when selected, displays a CC button.
What do I do if the content is not captioned?
