This study investigates the production and the perception of suprasegmental phones by native speakers of English and Japanese university students. In Experiment 1, various types of sentences pronounced by native speakers (NS), non-English major Japanese (NEM), and English major Japanese (EM) were analysed acoustically: Duration and fundamental frequency (F0) were computed and contrasted across the three groups. For all sentences excepting for declarative sentences, NEM produced utterances with fairly a longer duration than the other groups. Differences between NS and EM were small. As for F0 range, the two Japanese groups had smaller values than the native speakers, particularly in cleft, imperative, and exclamatory sentences. In Experiment 2, English naturalness was judged by using synthesized speech in two perception tests. The first test examined rhythmic patterns of a complex sentence in which the durations of stressed vowels were varied. The second test investigated intonation patterns of an interrogative sentence in which sentence-final F0 was varied. In both tests the native English listeners were more sensitive in perceiving vowel length and F0 range than the Japanese listeners. These results suggest that more emphasis on prosody is necessary in the study of English for Japanese learners of English.

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This paper uses student class evaluation questionnaire responses to determine if there are population differences between learners from the same universities and faculties taking required and elective English courses. Both the experimental (elective course learners) and the control (required course learners) groups were taught by a single instructor using identical methods. The results indicted that although both groups evaluated their instructional program highly, the experimental group rated their instruction higher on all measures, thus indicating that there are indeed differences between the two populations.

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This paper reports the findings about university freshman students' notes in a listening class. This listening class, officially called "Listening Lab (LL)," is part of the English Language Program (ELP) at International Christian University (ICU) and aims to help students improve their listening and note-taking abilities. Notes taken by 130 students who watched a video segment on a biomedical issue were analyzed to determine differences among high scorers, intermediate scorers, and low scorers in the quiz. The results suggest that the notes by the high scorers tended to exhibit the following features that helped them answer the quiz: the frequent appearance of key words, the appropriate arrangement of information, and coherent organization.

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The purpose of the present study is to test the following three hypotheses: 1. Japanese EFL learners make more listening errors at unstressed syllables than at stressed syllables in interstress interval (ISI, henceforth), 2. Rhythmic instruction will be effective for students' listening ability, 3. The number of listening errors made at unstressed syllables will decrease with rhythmic instruction. Further study will be done to find out how learners' errors depend on the number of unstressed syllables, ranging from one to four, by measuring duration of each ISI. The present study will also suggest that rhythmic instruction for EFL learners is more effective at earlier stages of learning by examining the relationships among progress, proficiency, and motivation.

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In teaching listening comprehension of English as a foreign language, the following were examined: 1) the effects of teaching methods utilizing shadowing and dictation, 2) the interaction between the shadowing method and learners' listening comprehension ability, 3) the interaction between the dictation method and learners' listening comprehension ability. On the basis of this experiment it was found that: 1) The shadowing method was more effective than the dictation method. 2) The use of the shadowing method or the dictation method was more effective than listening alone. 3) The shadowing method was more effective with learners of low listening comprehension ability than those with high comprehension ability. 4) The dictation method was less effective with learners of low listening comprehension ability than those with high comprehension ability.

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This study will look at how an approach to listening activity can affect the levels of students' oral production. The paper will also focus on how motivation, specifically extrinsic motivation, (external motivating factors) can have an affect on students' production. One particular listening activity will be used to demonstrate how an approach to the activity by previewing the lesson and explaining the purpose and the aim of the task to the students can increase the success rate of comprehension and production. To determine the effectiveness of these factors, participants were put into two categories. One group, the informed group, was given the explanation of purposes and goals, and the other group, the uninformed group, was not given any pre-information. Subjects were divided into three English proficiency levels; upper, middle and lower. The statistical analyses are presented in the study using a one factor ANOVA. The results demonstrated a significant difference in comprehension and production. Within this group, middle and lower level students were greatly effected by the task. Finally the results of this study strongly suggest the extrinsic motivating factors, such as explaining the purposes and goals before the lesson, will enhance the students' productivity.

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Some researchers insist that there are similarities for their information getting strategy (or process) between reading and listening. But, as for Japanese learners of English, even the students who can understand words in print often cannot make out the words when listening to them. What factors contribute to the listening comprehension abilities? The factors are supposed to involve the following three abilities: the ability to understand the proposition of sentences in listening; the ability to perceive the sounds of the words; and ability to read quickly. And based on the factors, I conducted an experimental study on the correlation between reading and listening. The subjects participating in this experiment were the 111 students from Yamanashi University. They took three kinds of tests which measured the aforementioned three abilities. Their tests were analyzed by the correlation analysis system.

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Based on mathemagenic functions, behaviors that increase learning, this experiment was conducted to determine if the location and type of picture used in listening exercises would affect EFL university students' comprehension and recall of listening materials. A5×2 factorial design was used to examine two independent variables. The pictorial variable consisted of five conditions: no picture, a relevant picture before listening, a relevant picture afterwards, an irrelevant picture before, and an irrelevant picture afterwards. The listening proficiency variable consisted of two levels: intermediate and low. Three hundred university students participated in 10 treatment groups. Comprehension and recall of unillustrated expository prose information were measured by a post-test that consisted of 12 multiple-choice questions, and a retention test of the same questions that was administered a week later. Results showed that students who saw a relevant picture before listening scored highest, while students who saw an irrelevant picture afterwards scored lowest.

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To determine whether or not computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is an effective medium of instruction, the present study focused on assessing the effects of CALL on one aspect of language learning at a higher level of education, as well as learners' attitudes toward CALL activities. Thirty-nine female Japanese junior college students majoring in English served as subjects. They took two speed reading tests and completed a questionnaire. A one group pre-test/post-test design revealed that the group enrolling in a computer-assisted speed reading course experienced significant improvement in their reading speed over a period of time. Moreover, the questionnaire to assess students' attitudes toward CALL showed a great deal of positive feedback: the students' speed reading skill benefited from the new technology; there was little difficulty in computer use; CALL was an innovative learning style over conventional instruction.

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'Listening is not a passive activity, but an active one', would be a concept widely accepted by many researchers. One of the evidences supporting the concept of listeners' active participation is 'back channeling'. Listeners not only 'perceive and recognize' a given message, but they 'feed back' their evaluation of it by responding with a short utterable, such as 'yes' or 'huh'. This study is conducted to examine the listeners' back-channel performance and to reveal the strategies in the use of back channels in an intercultural conversation between Japanese and a native speaker of English so as to gather the fundamental data for developing more interactive machines in language laboratories.

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This paper shows that visual aids are extremely effective when teaching certain speech sounds such as lip-rounding. Humans not only hear, but see the physical manifestations of sound, and the vital role played by this visual input should not be overlooked. Japanese students are given visual as well as auditory materials when practicing the difficult /w/ sounds, leading to a dramatic improvement in pronunciation.

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