ARELE: Annual Review of English Language Education in Japan
Online ISSN : 2432-0412
Print ISSN : 1344-8560
ISSN-L : 1344-8560
The Time Domain Factors Affecting EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension: a Study on Japanese EFL Learners
Kousuke SUGAIShigeru YAMANEKazuo KANZAKI
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JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

2016 Volume 27 Pages 97-108

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Abstract

A bulk of research has been conducted to clarify the effect of speech rate and pause duration on listening comprehension. Some previous studies have shown that a slower speech rate facilitates listening comprehension, while others have yielded opposite results. The conflicting results imply that it is very difficult to specify the most appropriate speech rate for every EFL listener. This study aims to clarify experimentally how pause duration and articulation rates affect EFL learners’ listening comprehension by precisely controlling the two parameters: articulation rate and pause duration. Through two listening tests given to Japanese EFL learners, we obtained the result that longer pauses (450 ms) facilitate the listening comprehension of lower intermediate EFL learners, while slower articulation rate does not necessarily have a positive effect on learners’ listening comprehension. This means a pause inserted in a passage provides listeners with additional information processing time and thus enhances the comprehensibility of the aural input.

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© 2016 The Japan Society of English Language Education
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