According to Salomon(1979), when a video is viewed alone, the information can easily be processed in a mindless, shallow way. In other words, when English sub-titles are present on the bottom of the television screen during a foreign film, what Salomon believes may occur. The students that watched the foreign film enjoyed the experience, but they were not successful in learning new vocabulary or perfecting grammar syntax. They, unfortunately, made little connection between the target language and the English text, thus resulting in no apparent improvement in their language ability.

When watching a film with the aid of an interactive multimedia program, students can do things with a foreign film that they cannot do with video technology. They have the benefit of what foreign films already enrich in the language learning process, i.e. comprehensible input, language in a meaningful context. But the interactive and multimedia capabilities of the computer give students immediate feedback and allow them to select the topic (vocabulary, grammar, etc.) that they wish to review instead of only presenting learning in a linear fashion. A variety of learning styles is accommodated as well. Students select only the exercises that they find useful and spend only the amount of time they want on them. The flow of dialog can be easily interrupted at any point for repetition or to obtain the kind of help that students need such as an on-screen dictionary. In other words, a multimedia program is a means of letting students take control of the learning process.

A multimedia program permits simultaneous viewing of picture, text and reference tools in conjunction with the audio, thus unifying these learning aids in a powerful way. Though it cannot transform language learning by itself, this technology can become an remarkable resource for language teachers and can create a learning environment that will extend the use of foreign films to beginning and advanced language learners alike and improve second language proficiency at all levels.