The purpose of the study was to compare the effectiveness for listening comprehension of listening once, twice, and three times without a pause, and listening once with a pause inserted. Seventy-two second grade Japanese senior high school students, whose English proficiency was low, participated in the experimental study. Thirty-seven students listened to the listening material once, twice, and three times, and every time they listened to the material they answered questions. Thirty-five students listened to the pause-inserted listening material once and answered the questions. The results showed that by listening twice they obtained the highest score, followed by three times, the pause-inserted version and listening just once. There was a significant difference between listening once and twice, but no significant difference between listening once and the pause-inserted version. Possible reasons for the results are discussed.

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This paper reports how a major Japanese corporation conducts the testing of English proficiency for its employees. The main instrument used for assessment is the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication). Despite some employees requiring both productive and receptive linguistic skills, the TOEIC is a discrete item test of listening and reading. Decisions made on the basis of TOEIC scores alone have been brought into question through the findings of studies comparing TOEIC scores with those of independent speaking and writing tests. Data generated by these investigations fail to support claims made for the TOEIC by ETS and indicate that Japanese corporations may be overly reliant on the TOEIC. It is suggested that the TOEIC needs to be supplemented with direct tests of speaking and writing, if companies are to make reliable decisions about the suitability of employees for positions requiring English proficiency.

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The aim of this study is to clarify whether or not EFL learners' brilliant rhythm perception is advantageous for dividing spoken language into meaningful units, chunking during listening. One hundred and seven Japanese high school students were classified into three levels based on a rhythm perception test. As a result, the high level and the low level group's chunking test scores differed significantly. Further analysis revealed that regardless of the level of rhythm perception, the chunking scores decreased significantly when the speed increased while the passage length was constant and when the passage length increased but the speed remained the same. Therefore, the speed and the listening passage length affected the chunking test scores more than rhythm perception did. Moreover, a 2 (slower or faster speed) × 2 (short or long passage length) × 3 (the rhythm perception groups) three-way ANOVA revealed significant interactions. The results indicate that regardless of the level of rhythm perception, chunking scores decrease significantly if the speed becomes fast while maintaining the same length. Also, regardless of the rhythm perception level, chunking is more difficult in longer segments than in shorter segments, when the speed remains constant.

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