Listening Activities Research Articles

Annotations in captioned animation: Effects on vocabulary learning and listening skills

This study investigates whether the availability of annotations for captioned animation in multimedia listening activities aids L2 vocabulary acquisition and facilitates listening skills. Fifty Arab-speaking adult EFL learners watched an audiovisual animated story under one of three conditions: (a) animation + captions + keyword annotation (ACA), (b) animation + captions (AC), and (c) animation alone (A). After viewing the animation, the learners completed computerized vocabulary recognition and listening comprehension posttests, as well as non-computerized (i.e., written) vocabulary production and listening recall tests. All four tests were administered to the students four weeks after the treatments. The results from the mixed ANOVAs indicated that the ACA group significantly outperformed the AC group on the vocabulary recognition and vocabulary production tests and that the AC group in turn substantially outperformed the A group on the same tests. Conversely, the annotations did not significantly improve listening comprehension and recall over time. The A group significantly outscored the ACA and the AC groups in listening comprehension and recall over time. The pedagogical implications of this study suggest that annotations in captioned animation facilitate vocabulary acquisition but hinder listening comprehension and recall.

The Effect of Task-Based Listening Activities on Improvement of Listening Self-Efficacy among Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners

This study aimed at exploring the role of task-based listening activities in augmenting EFL learners’ listening self-efficacy. To this end, 70 male and female Iranian EFL learners in Kish Air English Institute, Mashhad, Iran, participated in the study. To homogenize the participants’ level of proficiency, the Interchange/Passages Objective Placement Test was employed and the participants with the intermediate level of proficiency were selected. Accordingly, the number of the participants was reduced to 50. To measure the participants’ level of listening self-efficacy at the pre- and post-tests, a listening self-efficacy questionnaire (20 items) was applied. Then, the participants were randomly divided into two groups: experimental (N=26) and control (N=24). The experimental group received task-based listening activities during the 19 sessions (30 minutes) of instructions, and the control group received the traditional practices (a question-and-answer approach). The results of independent t-test revealed that the participants’ levels of listening self-efficacy in the experimental group was significantly higher than those in the control group (P=0.05).

Making Listening Instruction Meaningful

Listening to, analyzing, and describing music, is perhaps the most difficult standard to present effectively in allotted classroom time. The purpose of this literature review is to better understand what constitutes effective listening instruction by examining students’ listening practices, receptiveness, attentiveness, and activities that lead to more meaningful listening experiences. Early elementary school is the best time to introduce unfamiliar genres. As children age, teachers should select music that is applicable to the students’ lives by seeking out familiar music or accessible classical music. A variety of directed listening activities should be used to reach all learners, including the use of visual listening maps and movement activities. Active conditions on music listening tend to heighten participation and attentiveness.

Les Chansons de la francophonie Web Site and its Two Web-usage-tracking Systems in an Advanced Listening Comprehension Course

The Les Chansons de la francophonie web site is based on French songs and was developed using HTML and JavaScript for the advanced French Comprehension Course at the Second Language Institute of the University of Ottawa. These interactive listening activities include true-false and multiple-choice questions, fill in the blanks, paragraph writing, and reading comprehension based on external web links related to the themes of the songs. Because there was no tool readily available to track students' use of these web pages, they were temporarily integrated into WebCT until eChanson, a more sophisticated tracking function, was developed. Sample pages from Les Chansons de la Francophonie are presented along with a description of how the two tracking and assessment methods are integrated into them--both internally via JavaScript and CGI and through the WebCT and eChanson shells.

Computerized pre-Listening Activities and the Comprehension of English Narrative Texts.

This study investigated 60 female and male learners in 3 groups of 20 who were selected by a Nelson test, to determine whether computerized pre listening activities, the use of key vocabulary and pictures, have a significant effect on the comprehension of English narrative texts. Also, was there any significant difference between the two computerized pre- listening activities in terms of their effect on comprehension of English narrative texts? To do this, a computer assisted language learning (CALL) software, RFLX 2013, was employed for the purpose of the study. All participants listened to four different narrative passages via a computer. Each experimental group was exposed to one of two computerized pre listening activities. After listening, subjects answered a five item true-false test and a five item multiple-choice test. Finally an ANOVA and a t-test were used to analyze the data. The results of this study showed that both types of computerized activities have significant effects on the listening comprehension of English narrative texts. Using multimedia software can help listeners to make a bridge between what they already know and what they are supposed to learn.

BECKETT AND THE BBC THIRD PROGRAMME

This article aims to demonstrate how Samuel Beckett's work for radio was produced within a very particular context: as part of cultural experiment in radio broadcasting undertaken by Third Programme, and how there were concerted efforts on part of BBC Drama Department to encourage Beckett to write for them, resulting in work he wrote specifically for radio medium between 1956 and 1962. It also explores responses to Beckett's radio work recorded by Audience Research Reports, discussing them in relation to processes of listening as regards mass and minority broadcasting.Cet article se propose de montrer que le travail de Beckett pour la radio s'est fait dans un contexte bien particulier. Il a constitue une partie integrante d'une experience culturelle lancee par le Troisieme Programme de la BBC, la redaction du Drama Department deployant tous ses efforts pour encourager Beckett a ecrire pour cette station. Aussi a-t-il contribue avec predilection a leur production entre 1956 et 1962. En meme temps on procede a une analyse des reactions du public que le travail de Beckett a suscitees, pour les situer par rapport au media de la radiodiffusion de masse et a celui de la radiodiffusion pour un public restreint.Beckett was contacted by BBC in 1956 to discover if he would be interested in writing a play for them. Their interest followed success of En attendant Godot (1952). The result was All That Fall (written in 1956; first broadcast in 1957),1 which was followed by Embers (written and first broadcast in 1959), Words and Music (written in 1961; first broadcast in 1962), Cascando (written in 1962; first broadcast in 1963 [ORTF]; 1964 [BBC]) and Rough for Radio (written in early 1960s;2 first broadcast in 1976). Thus Beckett's writing for radio medium took place during very short time span of six years, yet plays have been produced and broadcast widely, with repeats by BBC, and productions in many countries around world. As recently as 2006 all these radio plays were produced by Gare St. Lazare Players on Irish radio (RTE Radio One). There are only five plays (six if Rough for Radio is included), and yet they have an important, if neglected, place in his oeuvre and a considerable significance in relation to his future work for stage, television and his prose fiction.Beckett's work is eminently suited to radio medium. Mary Bryden quotes Beckett's words to Andre Bemold: I have always written for a (32). This focus on voice, and its all-important corollary - silence - can be traced to his very first published story, Assumption (1929). Bryden comments on how the twin functions of listening and speaking are in Beckett's writing often given more weight as attestors of presence than is function of seeing (25). The significance of voice and act of listening is clear in work preceding his radio pieces, such as Watt (1953). In writing that followed his first and subsequent radio work focus on voice and listening activity increased. The tape recorder provided by BBC for Beckett to listen to All That Fall was his first introduction to this machine, and he heard Patrick McGee's 'cracked voice' in broadcast readings from Trilogy - leading directly to Krapp's Last Tape (1958). This play, alongside others, such as teleplay Eh Joe (1967), and stage plays Footfalls (1976), That Time (1976) Rockaby (1981) and Ohio Impromptu (1981), places act of listening as central focus. The audience watches a figure that listens, and, significantly, listens alongside figure. In prose fiction listening activity is often foregrounded, and in entry Voice in The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett his use of voice in Company (1980) is discussed in radiophonie terms: the enigmatic disembodied sound that swells out of darkness like a radio transmission, for all its paradoxes and ambiguities, for all its irresolutions, is SB's most profound and complex literary creation (Ackerley and Gontarski, 614). …

Academic Listening in Foreign Languages: Lexical Processing of Spoken Texts in Speciality

The aim of the present paper is to analyze the perception of recorded spoken texts in a foreign language by undergraduate students in ESP classes. The study explores the role of the background knowledge and pragmatic information in recognizing lexical units in the stream of speech. The paper describes a case study of undergraduate students’ performance in acquiring special vocabulary in ESP classes while listening to a recorded text in the field of speciality. The two main tasks of the listener in word recognition are the identification of words and activation of knowledge of the meanings of words. There are two models of comprehension processes of spoken texts: bottom-up and top-down. Top-down listening infers the meaning from contextual clues and from making links between the spoken message and various types of the knowledge of the world or the background knowledge. Listening takes place in real time, learners listen and have to comprehend what they hear immediately. There is no time to go back and review, look up for unknown words, etc. Consequently, non-native listeners with partial linguistic knowledge are in the situation that requires them to use their background knowledge in the form of schemata and scripts. The activation of the background knowledge helps to compensate for the lack of the linguistic knowledge in a foreign language that is necessary to understand the meaning of lengthy spoken texts. Language learners have to apply the previous knowledge of the world and the knowledge of the context trying to infer the meanings of words in the context. Thus in the educational settings, where a listening activity is partly de-contextualised, pre-listening activities stimulate students’ knowledge of the world in the form of schemata, and they use it to infer the meaning of unknown words or words they cannot recognise in the stream of speech in a foreign language. There are three processes that account for a word in a foreign language being remembered: noticing, retrieval and generative use (Nation, 2003). “Noticing” means creating the awareness of the word, “retrieval” involves recall of the previously studied or noticed words, “generating” means a creative use of the word in different tasks. During the study the undergraduate students of Economics, Latvia University of Agriculture, participated in vocabulary knowledge tests that checked their knowledge of lexical units acquired incidentally during listening activities, which involved pre-, while- and post-listening tasks with repeated opportunities to meet the same vocabulary in the process of the listening activity. The method called the “time series design” was applied in the case study. It can be represented graphically in the following way: T1 X PT1+PT2, where “T1” is the pre-test, “X” is the treatment (the recorded spoken text + exercises), PT1 is the 1st post-test after the treatment and PT2 is the 2nd post-test after another two weeks. The results of Post-test 1 show a noticeable increase in students’ specialised vocabulary knowledge. There is a slight decrease in the knowledge of the target lexical units in Post-test 2 in comparison with Posttest 1, but the specialised vocabulary knowledge retained was superior to the knowledge the students had before listening. Students have to compensate for insufficient phonological, lexical and syntactic knowledge of foreign language. The creation of the context and the activation of the background knowledge in the pre-listening stage helped students to notice the boundaries of the unknown words of the specialised vocabulary in the stream of speech, guess their meaning and later retrieve them. Consequently, in the educational environment, it is very important to pay attention to 1) activating the background knowledge of students, 2) giving information about the context of situation, 3) providing students with repeated opportunities to meet the same lexical units during the listening session to enhance the comprehension process of the spoken text in a foreign language. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7220/2335-2027.1.12

Learners' attention to input during focus on form listening tasks: the role of mobile technology in the second language classroom

This study explores the differential effects of medium of delivery of aural input during listening tasks on learners noticing and type of comprehension (top-down and bottom-up) of Spanish object pronouns during focus on form listening tasks. Twenty-two college students enrolled in second year Spanish in a technology-enhanced classroom participated in the study. Two types of medium of delivery of input were compared: mobile assisted language learning (MALL), which is learner manipulated, and instructor manipulated language learning (IMLL). A quasi-experimental design was used – treatment and immediate tests – in order to measure participants' reported noticing and type of comprehension. Noticing was operationalized using think-aloud protocols, and measured on the post-test exposure comprehension assessment tasks. The findings of the study, interpreted within the attentional SLA framework, indicate that learners in the MALL group demonstrated significantly higher levels of reported noticing, bottom-up comprehension, and top-down overall comprehension than learners in the IMLL group. Directions for future research as well as pedagogical implications of the use of mobile technology and task-based listening activities are offered.

Do Older Adults Have Social Lifestyles That Place Fewer Demands on Hearing?

Listening demand, or auditory lifestyle, is an important factor that needs to be considered when selecting a hearing aid and specific amplification features. Although elderly adults often report having fewer listening demands, auditory lifestyles of people in different age groups have not been objectively quantified and compared. Although it is assumed that the social lifestyles of older adults, e.g., retirement, place fewer demands on hearing, this assumption has not been examined empirically. The purposes of the current study were to (1) objectively characterize and compare the auditory lifestyle of younger and older adults with hearing impairment and (2) examine the relationships between age, social lifestyle, and auditory lifestyle. This is a nonexperimental study using a correlational design. Twenty-seven adults with bilateral hearing impairment aged 40-88 yr were recruited and served as subjects. To objectively quantify auditory lifestyle, participants carried noise dosimeters to measure sound levels in their daily lives for 1 wk. To help interpret the dosimeter data, participants used paper-and-pencil journals to describe their listening activities and environments. The auditory lifestyle was also subjectively quantified by the Auditory Lifestyle and Demand Questionnaire (ALDQ). Three self-report inventories were used to characterize participants' social lifestyles: Social Network Index, Welin Activity Scale, and Social Convoy Questionnaire. A total of 1,267 journal entries covering 2,032 hr of dosimeter recordings were obtained from participants for analyses. Although younger and older participants reported spending comparable time in a given category of listening event, the dosimeter-measured sound level was higher for younger listeners. For auditory lifestyle quantified by dosimeter, correlation analyses revealed that older age was associated with lower Social Network Index scores (smaller social networks) and fewer listening demands. Regression models further indicated that the Social Network Index score more accurately predicted listening demand than age. Finally, path analysis suggested that the effect of age on listening demand was mediated by the Social Network Index score. Self-report auditory lifestyle measured by the ALDQ was not associated with age and social lifestyle. The results indicate that older listeners tend to encounter quieter listening situations than younger listeners. The data are also consistent with the hypothesis that older adults have less active social lifestyles that place fewer demands on hearing. Therefore, the current study suggests the important role of social lifestyle in listening demand and the need to consider this factor in clinical management of hearing loss.

Auditory communication for deaf children: a guide for teachers, parents, and health professionals

Development of listening skills in a hearing-impaired child is the basis for successful spoken language, communication, and conversation. Auditory Communication in Deaf Children presents a rationale and framework for auditory learning in childhood and describes a wide range of practical listening activities that adults can apply during everyday interaction with the child.

Acceso Digital Learning Environment (review)

Reviewed by: Acceso Digital Learning Environment Deborah Gill Acceso Digital Learning Environment. The University of Kansas Collaborative Digital Spanish Project. http://www2.ku.edu/~spanish/acceso/ Platform: Both PC (Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 with Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher) or MAC (OSX 10.6+ [Snow Leopard] and Safari 5.0+) needed for MySpanishLab component Acceso is a free, open-access intermediate Spanish language and culture program provided by the University of Kansas as a standalone program to replace commercial textbooks and to provide materials that help students meet learning outcomes crucial to successful language study. The Home Page for Acceso contains rotating images representing the Spanish speaking world. It is enticing and provides a plethora of information, starting with links on the upper right-hand side, which provide detailed information about the project, its staff and how to contact them, the goals and objectives (“About Acceso”), and a link to the Instructor Resource page. Links to the eight units (geographical regions)—the United States, Spain, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, South America I, South America II, and South America III—are listed across the page, along with grammar and vocabulary sections which can be accessed there or within each of the separate geographical regions. Acceso is divided into two parts. The first is for students (as well as the public at large). It is made up of the eight units, each divided into six sections. The first is “Aperturas,” the starting point for each unit. Here, the student will find interesting themes, grammar, and active vocabulary used in that particular unit. The “Aperturas” section of each unit may include a reading and/or listening activity with multiple choice questions (e.g., the United States and Mexico), while others consist of clickable maps of different countries to include specific information about that country (e.g., the Caribbean and the three South American units). The next section, entitled “Voces,” contains short video clips and/or perspectives of different speakers from the country (countries) which are the focus of each unit, as well as a final link which provides information about characteristics of the Spanish of the region(s) being studied. Each video includes comprehension questions and there is a notation that transcripts will be provided in the future. The third section is called “Almanaque,” and includes a number of current cultural themes related to the everyday life, language, and demography of each region. Included here are readings and/or videos with multiple choice questions and, in many instances, a final part with questions that students can research to bring information to class for oral discussions. Although Acceso is intended for intermediate Spanish courses, many of the videos and links included are in English, with the questions appearing in Spanish. The next section is entitled “Sucesos.” Within this section, past events and successes that have helped to shape the countries in that unit are presented through numerous video clips and/or articles, generally accompanied by multiple choice questions. The fifth section is “Un paso más,” in which students are provided an opportunity to look more in-depth at cultural issues which have been presented within the unit. The final section, “Perspectivas,” provides thought-provoking short videos and/or readings (with comprehension questions) on different themes related to the unit (for example, under “United States,” the “Perspectivas” section studies immigration). The videos and readings found within each of the sections are interesting, with clear pronunciation from around the Spanish-speaking world. The comprehension questions are well thought out and provide an excellent opportunity for students to check their understanding of the material being presented, as well as stretch their language skills through critical thinking. [End Page 365] Each unit is also accompanied by relevant grammar explanations and vocabulary. The grammar explanations are presented in English, with examples provided in Spanish with an English translation. In some instances, a practice exercise is included; in others, links to more explanations are provided or a reference to practice exercises in MySpanishLab (discussed below) is given. Finally, a set of “active vocabulary” words are presented for each chapter. The vocabulary word is given, with its function, a definition, related words, and an audio...

Emotional Reactions to Music in a Nationally Representative Sample of Swedish Adults: Prevalence and Causal Influences

Empirical studies have indicated that listeners value music primarily for its ability to arouse emotions. Yet little is known about which emotions listeners normally experience when listening to music, or about the causes of these emotions. The goal of this study was therefore to explore the prevalence of emotional reactions to music in everyday life and how this is influenced by various factors in the listener, the music, and the situation. A self-administered mail questionnaire was sent to a random and nationally representative sample of 1,500 Swedish citizens between the ages of 18 and 65, and 762 participants (51%) responded to the questionnaire. Thirty-two items explored both musical emotions in general (semantic estimates) and the most recent emotion episode featuring music for each participant (episodic estimates). The results revealed several variables (e.g., personality, age, gender, listener activity) that were correlated with particular emotions. A multiple discriminant analysis indicated that three of the most common emotion categories in a set of musical episodes (i.e., happiness, sadness, nostalgia) could be predicted with a mean accuracy of 70% correct based on data obtained from the questionnaire. The results may inform theorizing about musical emotions and guide the selection of causal variables for manipulation in future experiments.

Emotional reactions to music in a nationally representative sample of Swedish adults

Empirical studies have indicated that listeners value music primarily for its ability to arouse emotions. Yet little is known about which emotions listeners normally experience when listening to music, or about the causes of these emotions. The goal of this study was therefore to explore the prevalence of emotional reactions to music in everyday life and how this is influenced by various factors in the listener, the music, and the situation. A self-administered mail questionnaire was sent to a random and nationally representative sample of 1,500 Swedish citizens between the ages of 18 and 65, and 762 participants (51%) responded to the questionnaire. Thirty-two items explored both musical emotions in general (semantic estimates) and the most recent emotion episode featuring music for each participant (episodic estimates). The results revealed several variables (e.g., personality, age, gender, listener activity) that were correlated with particular emotions. A multiple discriminant analysis indicated that three of the most common emotion categories in a set of musical episodes (i.e., happiness, sadness, nostalgia) could be predicted with a mean accuracy of 70% correct based on data obtained from the questionnaire. The results may inform theorizing about musical emotions and guide the selection of causal variables for manipulation in future experiments.

Enhancing Phonological Patterns of Young Children With Highly Unintelligible Speech

Enhancing Phonological Patterns of Young Children With Highly Unintelligible Speech

LEARNING TO SPEAK WITH EFFORTLESS ENGLISH SYSTEM

This article discusses an introduction to the new teaching system in the speaking classroom. This system is known as the Effortless English System. It is a system which relies much on listening activity. In recent years, most English students in schools have been stuck on a grammar-translation method. In practice, the students focus more on grammar rules teaching and translation. The results of this method show no improvement to their speaking skills. They tend to always think and translate before they speak. It obviously prevents them from being fluent and confident when speaking to other English students or to native speakers. On the other hand, Effortless English system teaches the students with fun and interesting stories. The system does not teach grammar rules consciously and analytically, instead it uses mini-story lessons to learn grammar intuitively. The major focus on this system is learning to speak by listening not by speaking. Speaking is optional after one listens to a lot of comprehensible inputs to his/her brain. Forced speaking is not recommended because it may damage final results. Listening to things that are always right will build the language right while saying things that are always wrong will build it wrong. The key to excellent speaking is listen to one thing many times not listen to many things one time. If students follow these rules, they will end up speaking English like a native. Keywords : Effortless English System, Comprehensible Inputs, Forced Speaking, Listening Activity

When laughter is not enough. Responding to teasing and self-denigrating humour at work

This paper focuses on response strategies to humour as listener activities. Drawing on authentic discourse data collected in two workplaces, one in Hong Kong and one in New Zealand, we explore the complex and versatile listener activity of responding to two particularly ambiguous and thus interesting types of humour: teasing and self-denigrating humour. Using the framework of rapport management ( Spencer-Oatey, 2000) we look at how these types of humour are responded to in relationships that are unequal in terms of power: we explore some of the ways in which subordinates in our workplace data deal with the potentially face-threatening situation that emerges when their superiors use self-denigrating humour or teasing. A particular focus is on listeners’ strategies to resolve this tension and to manage sociality rights as well as to do face-work (by considering interlocutors’ quality and identity face). Our analysis indicates that by employing and often combining various different response strategies, listeners achieve a range of functions simultaneously: they signal recipiency, respond to the hierarchical relationship between interlocutors, and they attend to their own as well as their superiors’ face needs. However, members of the different workplaces differ substantially in their choice of response strategies. We argue that analyses of response strategies in asymmetrical relationships and rapport management strategies in general need to take into consideration both the wider socio-cultural context in which they occur as well as the specific norms and practices that characterise interlocutors’ communities of practice (CofPs).

On active listening in person-centred, solution-focused psychotherapy

According to Rogers a therapist can foster growth in the client by creating a facilitative climate but can also undermine and inhibit that growth through evaluative and judgemental listening ( Rogers, 1957, 1959, 1995). This paper uses conversation analytic research methods to examine how a person-centred, solution-focused psychotherapist actively listens to her clients using continuers and in doing so supports them and keeps them speaking in a way appropriate to the therapy. Specific styles of listening became evident by investigating the vocal aspect of the listening activity made manifest through continuers. It was found that both positive and negative features of the therapist's listening style can be explicated by examining how therapists use continuers. The possibility that different schools of psychotherapy use continuers differently is considered.

Speaker–listener neural coupling underlies successful communication

Verbal communication is a joint activity; however, speech production and comprehension have primarily been analyzed as independent processes within the boundaries of individual brains. Here, we applied fMRI to record brain activity from both speakers and listeners during natural verbal communication. We used the speaker's spatiotemporal brain activity to model listeners' brain activity and found that the speaker's activity is spatially and temporally coupled with the listener's activity. This coupling vanishes when participants fail to communicate. Moreover, though on average the listener's brain activity mirrors the speaker's activity with a delay, we also find areas that exhibit predictive anticipatory responses. We connected the extent of neural coupling to a quantitative measure of story comprehension and find that the greater the anticipatory speaker-listener coupling, the greater the understanding. We argue that the observed alignment of production- and comprehension-based processes serves as a mechanism by which brains convey information.

The effects of self-directed web-based listening activities on listening performance and motivation

The effects of self-directed web-based listening activities on listening performance and motivation

Discovering Music through Chick Corea in Early Learning Centers in Spain: Proposals and Materials

A description of a listening activity for Children’s Song, a piece by Chick Corea, is introduced and developed. The use of materials and strategies for music making in early childhood settings was developed as a result of a teacher training and consultancy program implemented in a network of early learning centers in Spain. The main lines of thought that underpin the program’s resources and achievements are explained in this article.