| Summary: | Nowadays, there are different methods that students can use to learn English as a foreign language. One of them is through using multimedia at The University of Cuenca on the newly implemented multimedia course. However, a lack of information to demonstrate whether these courses are effective or not led to the development of this study, which consists of a comparative analysis between a regular course and a multimedia course, both developed at the University of Cuenca. Twenty students on the intensive course and ten students on the multimedia course were chosen as subjects for this research. Three data-collection instruments were used: listening and speaking pretests, classroom observations, and listening and speaking posttests. A bibliographic method was used in this research in order to develop the theoretical background, and qualitative and quantitative methods were used for data collection and analysis by means of observations of intensive and multimedia classes during a one-level period, and the application of a pretest and posttests focused on two skills: listening and speaking. The findings show that, although both groups improved their grades on both the listening and speaking posttest compared to the pretests, students of the multimedia course demonstrated slightly better performance than students of the intensive course in both skills analyzed. The main reason why students improved their performance on the posttest could be linked to the activities and resources used for each course, suggesting that a multimedia course can be as effective as any regular EFL course if not more so.
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