This research aims to examine the effects of the use of summary writing as a listening task for Japanese learners of English. The samples of this study were 204 junior college English major students. They were divided into three groups: 1) writing summaries only, 2) taking partial dictation only, and 3) both writing summaries and taking dictation. Four listening test scores were analyzed to measure the effects of the treatments. The students' comments on the teaching materials and treatments were analyzed to support the finding that summary writing is a good way to build students' positive listening attitudes. Students' written summaries were also analyzed to gain insights into their listening problems.

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It may be commonly accepted by many researchers that listening is not a passive activity but an active one. Although many researchers acknowledge that listeners play an important role in our daily talk, it has been long ignored how the listener behaves and composes a talk together with the speaker. The present study examines Japanese backchannel strategies based on the analytical unit 'floor' and reveals the gender difference in their backchannel performance. The findings will provide some fundamental data for developing more interactive machines in language laboratories in future.

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This paper identifies the factors related to assessment of listening comprehension abilities focusing on oral communication. The criteria used for making a listening test focusing on oral communication is given. The study also reports the formation of a reliable and valid listening test, and the results of the scores of Japanese and Korean high school students are analyzed. The test data were obtained with the help from many high school teachers both in Japan and in South Korea who offered to administer the test in their classes. The test results of our research indicate that there are no significant differences between the scores of Japanese subjects and Korean ones, though some differences are found to be statistically significant in the performance of certain aspects of listening skills.

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This study investigates the production and perception of the effects of focus on intonational attributes of fundamental frequency (F_0) and duration in English declarative sentences. In Experiment 1, the utterances under focus, as well as the neutral conditions produced by native speakers of English (NS), good Japanese speakers of English (GJS), and poor Japanese speakers of English (PJS), were analyzed acoustically. NS produced the focused word with large increase in duration, but the two Japanese groups showed a small increase. The duration of the utterance was almost the same as that under neutral conditions for NS, while for the Japanese speakers it decreased. The F_0 range (F_0 maximum minus F_0 minimum) of the focused words was wider than that of those defocused in NS and GJS, but it was not always the case for PJS. In Experiment 2, the perception of prominence (focus) was examined by changing both the F_0 range and duration by small steps using the analysis and resynthesis technique. The native listeners perceived prominence with a larger increase of vowel length and the F_0 range than the Japanese listeners. This was fairly compatible with the results of the analyses in Experiment 1. These indicate that Japanese learners of English are less dependent on the increment of duration and the F_0 range in producing and perceiving English sentential focus.

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Few studies have used standardized measures concerning L2 listening comprehension (Rubin, 1994), and only a few studies have been done on the effects of music on listening comprehension in either LI1or L2. Mann (1979) confirmed that the addition of music and sound effects to recorded presentations increased the listening comprehension of L1 children. Kiji (1992) testified that using both verbotonal filter and alpha-wave music with body stretches was much more useful for the long term memory retention, not only short-term memory retention. Ando (1997) did an experiment on the effect of alpha-wave music upon listening comprehension. The results showed no statistically significant difference but descriptively better listening test scores in the experimental group through listening to alpha-wave music for 3 minutes, compared with the control group. In this study, the hypothesis was tested that the increased time of listening to alpha-wave music (for 6 minutes) would enhance the scores of the condition through listening comprehension tests. The STEP 2nd Grade Test was employed for the tests, as in Ando (1997). With the within-treatment experimental design, a total of 48 subjects were tested. The results show a statistically higher score of the condition by listening to alpha-wave music, compared with the control condition.

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