L2 Listeners Research Articles

The Integration of Listening Skills into Curriculum

This study explores the incorporation of listening skills into language courses, reflecting the increasing demand for effective listening approaches that aid in language understanding in real-world situations. The study questions primarily focus on evolution, effective integration methods, assessment approaches, and the role of technology in incorporating listening into curriculum across varied educational contexts. This current study conducted a rigorous literature analysis and aggregated data from 100 empirical research on L2 listening, using stringent standards to identify recent achievements and gaps in the field. Data analysis used deductive text analysis to categorize methods based on efficacy, technology integration, and active learning. Key studies show that task-based learning and the incorporation of multimodal technology, such as podcasts and mobile apps, substantially enhance listening comprehension by providing immersive and interactive learning environments. These methods directly address the research questions, demonstrating that active, contextual listening activities promote profound engagement and retention. In conclusion, this study emphasizes the significance of multimedia and task-based methods, with implications for more inclusive, accessible curriculum design. Future research should focus on low-tech strategies to provide fair access to listening resources worldwide.

Linguistic correlates of second language users’ attitudes to Arabic and Chinese varieties of English: a verbal guise study

ABSTRACT Research into language attitudes suggests that L2 users often hold negative attitudes toward their own and others’ L2 accents. However, less is known about specific features that affect these attitudes. Beinhoff’s study explored consonantal variation and its impact on perceptions of L2 speakers, but this study further examines linguistic correlates of L2 users’ attitudes toward Arabic and Chinese varieties of English. Using the verbal guise method, Arabic and Chinese male and female speakers read a paragraph in English with varying L1 influences. Each sample was rated by 30 L2 listeners on a 6-point semantic differential scale assessing status, solidarity, and dynamism. Phonological and fluency analyses of the samples revealed that non-segmental features, such as prosody, play a more significant role in eliciting positive attitudes toward these English varieties than do segmental features. These findings highlight the importance of suprasegmental aspects in shaping listener perceptions of L2 English speech.

Second Language Listeners’ Emotion and Eye Gaze: A Web-Based Eye-Tracking Study

ABSTRACT While previous studies have shown that L2 listeners tend to focus more on videos with additional information, like presentation slides, the amount of eye gaze did not necessarily translate to higher listening test scores . Unlike previous research focusing on the benefits of additional visual cues, this study explores how emotions impact L2 listeners’ viewing behavior. Sixty-four adults completed the Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Scale (FLLAS), watched three academic lectures with their eye movements tracked, and answered comprehension questions. According to the results, listening anxiety was not a significant predictor of viewing videos. The relationship between viewing time and comprehension scores was non-significant. Interviews and survey responses highlighted diverse attitudes toward the videos. The findings suggest that individual differences in listening anxiety may not significantly influence how much participants look at the videos. Furthermore, adding context videos to listening tests to increase authenticity does not seem to affect comprehension scores, consistent with previous studies. The implications for developing video-based listening tests are discussed.

L1 listeners’ evaluations of LX speech: the role of listener expectations and personality traits

ABSTRACT LX speech tends to receive less favourable judgments, which can be attributed to its non-standard linguistic properties (e.g. foreign accents, grammatical errors). However, the evaluations of LX speech could also be affected by listeners’ expectations and their individual differences. This study extends research on the role of listeners’ expectations (cued by speech accent) and personality traits (Big Five), by examining the degree to which and how accent, grammaticality and listener personality interact to determine L1 listeners’ evaluations of LX speech. Sixty L1 English speakers (30 female) rated the acceptability of 40 English speech stimuli in a British or Polish accent; half of the stimuli were filled with English article errors. The listeners’ personality traits were self-reported via a short questionnaire of the Big Five factors. The significant interaction of accent, grammaticality and listener personality suggests that the occurrence of grammatical errors is less penalised in foreign-accented speech (vs. native-accented speech), unless the L1 listeners are highly conscientious or highly extraverted. The theoretical (expectation mismatch effect, Interpersonal Circumplex model), methodological (considering non-linear models and the moderation of contextual factors for personality effects) and potential practical implications (awareness training of personality effects) of the results are discussed.

Sociolinguistic monitoring and L2 speakers of English

Abstract This study contributes to a growing body of research on the social meanings of linguistic variation with particular interest in the cognitive processes governing their emergence. Our research follows in the tradition of Labov et al.’s (2011) work on the sociolinguistic monitor, a cognitive mechanism hypothesized to track quantitative linguistic variation and prompt social evaluations (Labov et al. 2011. Properties of the sociolinguistic monitor. Journal of Sociolinguistics 15(4). 431–463). Previous research shows that L1 English listeners are sensitive to frequency variation, but it is unclear whether this also applies to L2 listeners. This study thus replicates Labov et al.’s (2011) original experiment in a context where English is primarily acquired through L2 instruction. To test the generality of sociolinguistic monitoring, we investigate L2 listeners’ sensitivity to quantitative differences in sociolinguistic variation (ing) as well as proficiency-based variation. Since participants were L1 speakers of (Austrian) German, we tested evaluations of varying realizations of /θ/ ([θ]/[s]), /d/ ([d]/[t]), and /w/ ([w]/[v]). Experiments included 135 participants, who rated several versions of newscaster test passages regarding professionalism. Our data shows that both sociolinguistic and proficiency-based variation are monitored and evaluated by L2 listeners, albeit to different extents. This supports the assumption that the focus of the monitoring process is socially meaningful variation that includes L1 sociolinguistic but also L2 proficiency-based features.

Perception of Mandarin tones across different phonological contexts by native and tone-naive listeners

Coarticulation is a type of speech variation where sounds take on phonetic properties of adjacent sounds. Listeners generally display perceptual compensation, attributing coarticulatory variation to its source. Mandarin Chinese lexical tones are coarticulated based on surrounding tones. We tested how L1-Mandarin and naive listeners compensate for tonal coarticulation using a paired discrimination task. L1 listeners showed greater perceptual sensitivity to tonal differences than tone-naive listeners. Yet, both L1 and tone-naive listeners showed differences in sensitivity to differently-coarticulated versions of the rising tone presented in the same tonal context. In different tonal contexts, both groups showed similar patterns of perceptual compensation for tonal coarticulation. Thus, although L1 and naive Mandarin listeners show different sensitivities to tonal variation, they display similar compensatory patterns for tonal coarticulation.

A Case Study on the Development of L2 Listening Inferencing Skills Through the Interactionist Dynamic Assessment

This case study aimed to explore how interactionist dynamic assessment (DA) grounded in sociocultural theory influences the development of inferencing skills in L2 listening comprehension. Dynamic assessment refers to a combined approach of assessment and learning. While interventionist DA provides uniform scaffolding predetermined by the instructor, interactionist DA presents learners with scaffolding contingent on emerging problems or difficulties. To date, while a handful of studies have shed light on the influence of the two DAs on L2 grammatical progress as part of L2 production skills, few have explored its impact on the progress of L2 listening comprehension or on the specific skill of inferencing that often poses obstacles to L2 listeners. Two tertiary-level students from an EFL general English class participated in weekly one hour-long Zoom-mediated interactionist DA sessions over 6 weeks with an experienced L2 listening instructor and researcher using TED Talks. The findings suggested that interactionist DA had a positive effect on the development of L2 inferencing skills. However, the trajectory of the development over the period exhibited a nonlinear pattern with an idiosyncratic repetition of growth and retreat in the development of inferencing skills. Pedagogical implications and directions for further research are discussed.

L2 listening in a digital era: Developing and validating the mobile-assisted self-regulated listening strategy questionnaire (MSRLS-Q)

Mobile technologies have transformed L2 listening. These technologies provide learners with an abundance of materials that transcend the limitations of traditional classroom instruction. Understanding how learners engage with such materials is crucial if teachers are to facilitate students' development of self-regulated listening strategies. This study reports on the development and validation of a new instrument, the Mobile-assisted Self-Regulated Listening Strategy Questionnaire (MSRLS-Q). Informed by a social cognitive understanding of self-regulation, items were generated from existing literature and semi-structured interviews with 16 Chinese undergraduate students. The questionnaire was validated through an exploratory factor analysis with 309 Chinese undergraduate students, followed by a confirmatory factor analysis with a separate sample of 327 students. Results confirmed a 31-item, five-factor model covering students' pre-, during- and post-listening strategies: Goal setting and mobile resource planning, Cognitive and metacognitive multimedia listening, Mobile-assisted motivational control, Structuring online social space, and Listening evaluation and adaptation. Structural equation modelling revealed that four of the five factors significantly predicted students’ international orientation to use English. The results emphasize self-regulated listening as a cyclical process reflective of cognitive, motivational, and social dimensions of strategy use. Implications for research and pedagogical use of the MSRLS-Q are discussed.

Conducting L2 listener verbal reports: Common missteps by novice researchers and ways to address them

We have conducted second language (L2) listener verbal reports (VRs) for many years, and during that time have also advised or trained colleagues and research assistants to use these VRs. Based on these experiences, this article outlines various common missteps we and our trainees have made in conducting the VRs and how these missteps were, or could be, addressed. Through this approach, we provide advice to novice researchers planning to use this method to study L2 listeners. This advice is given as a series of recommendations in the following areas: the type of texts to use in the VR and how to select and trial them beforehand; how to prepare the participants for their VR; the language to use in the VR (L1 or L2); and procedural advice when conducting the VR. In addition, there's an extended section advising on the use of researcher questions to help elicit information from the participants about their listening behaviors during the VR. This is followed by advice on how to generally help train a novice researcher to conduct listener VRs. The article concludes by identifying some possible future research directions for addressing validity threats to listener VRs.

L2 Listening, Word Gain, and Learner Perspectives through Partial Dictation vs Reading-while-listening

Purpose: This study explored how the partial dictation of key words with L1 glossing (PDGL1) and reading-while-listening with the words boldfaced and underlined (RWLBU) while listening to audiovisual TED talks differently influence L2 listening, word gain, and learner perspectives.
 Methods: Fifty-six beginner learners took part in the study who were randomly assigned to the two groups. Data collection consisted of a pretest for selecting target words (TWs), a pretest for listening comprehension, two times of interventions, two immediate posttests for TWs, and a retrospective questionnaire.
 Results: The results showed that overall the PDGL1 group yielded significantly more immediate word recall and delayed retention in receptive and productive knowledge as well as listening comprehension, while RWLBU only contributed for immediate receptive word recall. Both groups showed positive perspectives on word learning and affective factors such as motivation and interest with no significant differences.
 Conclusion: The beneficial results from PDGL1 appeared to be attributed to language-focused partial dictation of key words with L1 glosses, which promotes learners to pay attention to form-meaning connections and cognitive processes. This could encourage beginner learners to be involved in better language performances, resulting in positive perspectives (Dankook University).

The Impact of Virtual Reality Assisted Listening Instruction on English as a Foreign Language Learners’ Comprehension and Perceptions

Virtual Reality (VR) as an interactive, illustrative, and immersive learning environment has ample opportunities for the development of language skills. Despite a growing literature on VR-assisted language learning, the benefit of VR for L2 listening is in need of further investigation. To fill this lacuna, the current study surveyed the impact of using 360° monoscopic VR videos as pre-listening tasks on language learners’ development of listening comprehension. Sixty English as a foreign language (EFL) learners participated in the study as the control and the experimental groups. Their entry level of listening comprehension was evaluated by the B1 Preliminary listening paper before the study. Listening was taught to both groups by the comprehension-based model consisting of a pre-during-post listening cycle. The pre-listening activities of the experimental group included watching and working on 360° VR videos related to the topics of the listening parts of the textbook. The pre-listening phase of the control group included the warmup activities of the textbook. Both groups’ listening comprehension was evaluated again at the end of the study. The quantitative data analysis revealed a significant difference between the participants’ listening comprehension in favor of those who had worked with VR video as pre-listening tasks. Also, larger effect sizes for Parts 3 and 4 of the test that focused on understanding monologues were evident. The experimental group members were asked to express their perceptions of the experience of working with 360° VR videos in listening instruction by taking part in a structured interview. The results showed that almost all participants found the activities to be inspiring and pedagogically valuable.

Perceptie van een anderstalig accent: Een experimentele studie naar de perceptieve aanpassing aan een exogeen geaccentueerd Nederlands klinkercontrast

This study examines whether Dutch L1 listeners adapt to Italian accented Dutch vowels, and how short-term experience with one L2 speaker’s accent might help these listeners to understand novel words and other L2 speakers with a similar accent. 100 Belgian Dutch L1 listeners were exposed to 40 Dutch target words, in which the front vowel had been replaced by an ambiguous sound in between /ɪ/ and /i/. These stimuli were produced by a female Italian speaker of Dutch. To assess perceptual adaptation and generalization, participants were asked to identify the vowel in five Dutch /ɪ/-/i/ minimal pairs across two speaker conditions: stimuli were either produced by the same female speaker or by a digitally generated male-sounding speaker. For neither speaker did we find perceptual adaptation, hence no generalization to novel situations could be observed. The results highlight the importance of stimulus selection and the need for a detailed background questionnaire for listeners, including information on their familiarity with L2 accents.

Lexical encoding of second language tones in English learners of Mandarin

The study investigates how native and non-native differences in tone perception influence lexical encoding of second language (L2) tones. Previous work shows that tone language listeners perceived tones as phonemic categories while non-tone language listeners relied more on psychoacoustic cues such as pitch height to discriminate stimulus tones. However, little is known about the influence of such differences in perception on L2 tonal encoding. In the present study, two experiments were conducted with nineteen English learners of Mandarin and 20 Mandarin native speakers. Experiment 1 was an ABX task. Results showed that while native speakers’ overall performance was superior to L2 listeners’, both groups poorly discriminated tone pairs with shared tone contours (i.e., T2-T3). Experiment 2 was a medium-lag repetition priming task. In the repetition condition, significant facilitations were observed in both language groups. In the minimal-tone-pair condition, despite T2-T3 contrasts posing greater challenge for both groups to accurately distinguish than other tonal contrasts as shown in Experiment 1, positive priming was observed only in the L2 group. The findings from the two experiments suggest that the L2 listeners, although quite proficient in Mandarin, have yet to achieve native-like competence in regard to lexical tones.

Lexical recognition processes in L2-dominant bilingualism

To comprehend speech, listeners must resolve competition between potential candidate words. In second-language (L2) listening such competition may be inflated by spurious activation; the onsets of “reggae” and “legacy” may both activate “leg” for Japanese listeners, or the rhymes of “adapt” and “adept” may activate “apt” for Dutch listeners, while only one in each pair triggers competition for L1 listeners. Using eyetracking with L2-dominant bilingual emigrants, we directly compared within-language L1 and L2 lexical activation and competition in the same individuals. For these listeners, activation patterns did not differ across languages. Unexpectedly, however, we observed onset competition in both languages but rhyme competition in the L2 only (although the same stimuli elicited rhyme competition for control listeners in both languages). This suggests that L1 rhyme competition may disappear after long-time immersion in an L2 environment.

Research on the learning/teaching of L2 listening: A bibliometric review and its implications

This bibliometric study examined the development of research on the learning and teaching of second language (L2) listening from 1948 to 2020 (73 years). Specifically, the study involved: (1) a search and analysis of all the noun phrases to identify important research topics in the abstracts of the published journal articles on L2 listening over the 73 years (divided into three periods) using self-made Python scripts and (2) three co-citation analyses of the references in these articles regarding highly cited authors, publications, and journals, respectively, via the VOSviewer program. The keyword/phrase analysis produced results that helped uncover and delineate the research trends in L2 listening across the three time periods. The co-citation analyses identified the most highly cited authors, publications, and journals as well as the interrelations among the most highly cited items in each of the three categories illustrated with network maps. The results of the analyses and their implications are discussed.

Alignment in ASR and L1 Listeners’ Recognition of L2 Learner Speech: French EFL Learners & Dictation.Io

This study is an extension of Inceoglu et al.’s (2023) study on Google Voice Typing as a pronunciation learning tool. We used the Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) tool on the dictation.io website (Agarwal, 2022), and our participants were L2 English learners of a different L1, but similar proficiency level. Twelve L1 English listeners assessed the L2 English from four L1 French speakers in terms of intelligibility and comprehensibility, measured by word transcription and Likert scale ratings respectively. Their scores were compared to ASR output. The goal was to determine how accurate the tool is, and to what extent its accuracy correlates with human listeners. The results were generally consistent with those of Inceoglu et al. (2023), with few exceptions which we discuss in the current study.

The Language-Specificity of Phonetic Adaptation to Talkers.

Listeners adapt efficiently to new talkers by using lexical knowledge to resolve perceptual uncertainty. This adaptation has been widely observed, both in first (L1) and in second languages (L2). Here, adaptation was tested in both the L1 and L2 of speakers of Mandarin and English, two very dissimilar languages. A sound midway between /f/ and /s/ replacing either /f/ or /s/ in Mandarin words presented for lexical decision (e.g., bu4fa3 "illegal"; kuan1song1 "loose") prompted the expected adaptation; it induced an expanded /f/ category in phoneme categorization when it had replaced /f/, but an expanded /s/ category when it had replaced /s/. Both L1 listeners and English-native listeners with L2 Mandarin showed this effect. In English, however (with e.g., traffic; insane), we observed adaptation in L1 but not in L2; Mandarin-native listeners, despite scoring highly in the English lexical decision training, did not adapt their category boundaries for /f/ and /s/. Whether the ambiguous sound appeared syllable-initially (as in Mandarin phonology) versus word-finally (providing more word identity information) made no difference. Perceptual learning for talker adaptation is language-specific in that successful lexically guided adaptation in one language does not guarantee adaptation in other known languages; the enabling conditions for adaptation may be multiple and diverse.

Insights into L2 connected speech segmentation: A gating experiment with listeners of different English proficiency levels

The relative contribution of bottom-up (i.e. acoustic-phonetic) and top-down (i.e. contextual) cues for successful L2 online segmentation is still a matter of debate. This study used the gating paradigm to investigate the segmentation processes of adult L2 English listeners with different proficiency levels, by looking at the type of cues they exploit and how they revise their hypotheses as connected speech is progressively revealed. Twenty-one French and Tunisian undergraduates were selected from a larger pool (n=226) and identified as skilled (n=11) and unskilled (n=10) listeners based on their scores on standardized English listening and vocabulary tests. Descriptive statistics, analysis of variance and qualitative analysis were performed on the obtained data. Overall, this study provides supporting L2 evidence for the hierarchical nature of the multiple speech segmentation cues (Mattys et al., 2005). The results indicated an early effect of context on segmentation that was independent of L2 proficiency when the context is constraining. In non-constraining contexts, successful segmentation is delayed for both groups with L2 unskilled listeners needing far more bottom-up information to process input and revise their segmentation hypotheses. We conclude that, in online L2 speech segmentation, what distinguishes proficient from non-proficient listeners is their efficient processing of bottom-up cues. Pedagogical implications are provided hoping to help L2 English teachers (and materials developers) focus on bottom-up training to improve their learners’ real-time comprehension competence.

Processing of English Coda Laterals in L2 Listeners: An Eye-Tracking Study.

This study explores speech processing of English coda laterals (dark L's) in second language (L2) listeners whose native language does not permit laterals at syllable coda positions. We tested L2 listeners' (native Mandarin) perception of coda laterals following three Australian English vowels differing in phonological backness, including /iː/, /ʉː/, and /oː/, which represent a front vowel, and central vowel, and a back vowel, respectively. L2 listeners first completed an AX task which tested their ability to discriminate between /iː/-/iːl/, /ʉː/-/ʉːl/, and /oː/-/oːl/, and then they completed an identification task with eye-tracking which tested their ability to distinguish vowel-lateral sequences and bare vowel categories using explicit phonological-orthographical labels. The results show that vowel backness plays a key role in L2 listeners' perceptual accuracy of English coda laterals, whereas the eye-tracking and identification data suggest some paradigmatic differences between the two tasks. Mandarin listeners show excellent discrimination and identification of coda laterals following a front vowel and poor performance following a back vowel, whereas the central vowel has led to intermediate patterns.

The role of pragmatic markers in perceptions of L2 fluency in dialogue

This matched-guise study helps identify the features of interaction that contribute to perceptions of fluency in L2 dialogue. We focus on pragmatic markers (PM) that occur frequently in L1 interaction but relatively less so in L2 English learners' speech (Fung & Carter, 2007), namely, interpersonal (e.g., I see, okay) and cognitive PMs (e.g., I mean, well, I think). Despite evidence of their functional value in interaction (McCarthy, 2009), they are often considered markers of disfluency and rarely introduced in L2 classrooms. Speech samples of highly proficient L2 interaction were digitally manipulated to control for interpersonal and cognitive PMs simulating expert speaker-like PM use. L1 and L2 English listeners (N = 231) rated and commented upon interlocutor's fluency. The quantitative results suggest that listeners generally perceived speakers as more fluent when using PMs, although the magnitude of the effect was relatively small and driven by L1 raters. Raters' qualitative comments suggest covert influence of PM use on fluency perceptions and uncovered a bias favoring English L1 speaker PM use. Results support the potential value of explicitly addressing PMs in teaching L2 fluency and help researchers in understanding the construct of spoken fluency in dialogue to guide in its measurement and assessment.