Table Of ContentINTENSIVE ENGLISH LISTENING PRACTICE
FOR JAPANESE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS:
FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF
ENGLISH SOUNDS AND RHYTHMS
A Thesis
Presented to
The Faculty of the Department of English
Mie University
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Education
by
Kumi Nagaoka
March, 13, 2017
Approved by ________________________________________
Thesis Advisor
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Table of Contents
Abstract ⅳ
Acknowledgements ⅴ
Introduction 1
CHAPTER 1 Background
1.1 Successful listening 7
1.1.1 Process of listening 7
1.1.2 Two types of listening strategies 8
1.1.3 Knowledge required for L2 listening 9
1.2 L2 listening problems 11
1.2.1 Lack of phonological knowledge 13
1.2.1.1 Consonants and vowels 13
1.2.1.2 Variations in connected speech 13
1.2.1.3 English rhythm 15
1.2.2 The influence of L1 phonological knowledge on L2 listening 16
1.2.2.1 The influence of L1 phonemes on L2 listening 16
1.2.2.2 The influence of L1 rhythm on L2 listening 17
1.2.2.3 Interlangugae 19
1.2.3 Automaticity and speech rates 20
1.2.3.1 Automaticity and knowledge 21
1.2.3.2 Working memory 23
1.2.3.3 Speech rates 25
1.3 Teaching listening 28
1.3.1 Top-down and bottom-up approaches 28
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1.3.2 The examples of activities in the bottom-up approach 30
CHAPTER 2 The present study
2.1 Research questions and hypotheses 32
2.2 Pilot test 34
2.2.1 Subjects and procedure 34
2.2.2 Results 35
2.3 Main study 35
2.3.1 Subjects 35
2.3.2 Materials 36
2.3.3 Procedure 36
2.3.4 The way of evaluating the experimental data 36
2.4 Hypothesis 1 37
2.4.1 Materials 37
2.4.2 Procedure 39
2.4.3 Results and discussion 40
2.5 Hypothesis 2 46
2.5.1 Materials 46
2.5.2 Procedure 48
2.5.3 Results and discussion 49
2.6 Hypothesis 3 56
2.6.1 Materials 56
2.6.2 Procedure 57
2.6.3 Results and discussion 59
2.7 General discussion and conclusion 62
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Conclusion and suggestion 67
References 73
Appendix 1 Worksheet in Hypothesis 1 81
Appendix 2 Worksheet in Hypothesis 2 82
Appendix 3 Answer Sheet of Pre-test in Hypothesis 3 83
Appendix 4 Worksheet in Hypothesis 3 84
Appendix 5 Answer Sheet of Post-test in Hypothesis 3 85
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Abstract
The purposes of this paper are to identify what English listening problems that
Japanese high school students of English at the beginner level have and to explore the
effective ways of teaching English listening in class. According to the survey conducted by
the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2015), listening skills
that Japanese high school students obtain have not achieved their goal. Therefore, English
language teachers are required to foster their students’ listening skills.
In Chapter 1, previous research into English listening problems are discussed. In
bottom-up processes, lack of phonological knowledge and skills to decode speech quickly is
considered to cause problems inherent to listening. In addition, it is assumed that learners’
first language influences their second language listening comprehension. Furthermore,
instructions in teaching listening proposed by previous research are also discussed.
In Chapter 2, three hypotheses are examined in high school English classes. The
findings give us several suggestions. Firstly, slow speech rates did not promote the subjects’
perceptions of target sentences when they did not have sufficient knowledge of the sentences
that they heard. An exception was observed in listening to a long sentence. Secondly,
comparing listening to two kinds of English sentences with the mora in Japanese and English
rhythm, there was no difference in the subjects’ performance between the two cases. These
findings imply that lack of linguistic knowledge and its automatic use causes listening
problems for beginners under the influence of their working memory capacity. Finally, the
proposed intensive listening practice of English sounds and rhythms improved the subjects’
performance significantly between pre-and post-tests. However, the effectiveness of the
listening practice for a long term is not clear. In addition, it is not obvious either how students
come to perceive English sounds and rhythms through listening practice. Further study is
required to solve these problems.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to the following people:
To my supervisor, Professor Mitsuaki Hayase, who always encouraged me and gave me a lot
of valuable advice for my studies.
To Professor Nobuhiro Miyachi, Professor Hideo Nishimura, and Professor Hiroko Arao, for
their precious advice.
To Mr. Masatoshi Ishida, an English teacher at Kuwananishi High School, who gave me
supportive comments and helped me in evaluating the data for my studies.
To Ashley, M. G., an ALT in Mie Prefectural Board of Education, who helped me in making
the material for my studies.
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Introduction
Listening is one of the important skills in second language (L2) acquisition. In the
field of L2 acquisition, since Krashen (1987) proposed the importance of comprehensible
input (pp. 20-30), listening has been regarded as an even more important means for input. It
is also true of learning English as a foreign language in Japan. In fact, an English listening
test was introduced in the national center test for university admission in 2006.
Moreover, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
(MEXT) (2008, 2009) revised the course of study in high schools, which is the standard for
curricula through the school system in Japan, has brought the more exposure of English
language in high schools since 2012 (MEXT, 2012, 2013). This trend has led English
teachers in Japanese high schools to understand the significance of developing listening skills.
However, according to a survey of a random sample of 500 high schools conducted
by MEXT (2015), the results of English listening tests taken by final-year students show that
more than half of the scores remain at “Basic User A 1” level in CEFR criteria (the Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages). This level has not achieved the goal that
the MEXT established in 2013.
The survey also shows that the more time is spent for reading than listening in class.
In fact, due to the limited amount of class time, it seems that reading has a higher priority in
class than listening. Moreover, in practical teaching, it seems that only repeated listening is a
common strategy for teachers of English and the way of teaching listening has been discussed
less than that of teaching reading. Although listening skills in acquiring English proficiency
are regarded as important, it seems that teaching English listening should be paid more
attention to by teachers in Japanese high schools. In teaching L2 listening, Field (2008b)
points out as follows:
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At the moment, instructors tend to seriously underestimate the importance of listening
practice. When they find themselves short of time, it is quite often the listening
session that gets cut. . . . Spoken language is less tangible and more difficult to handle
than written. There is also the dead hand of the methodology we use, which seems
ineffectual in its present form. (p. 334)
It is considered that Field’s (2008b) argument can be also applied to teaching English in
Japan.
In my experience of teaching English at Japanese high schools, I observed that my
students found difficulty in listening comprehension in class. They did not comprehend the
text in listening as well as they did in reading. They knew words and sentence structures in
the text, but they seemed to have problems in listening comprehension. It is obvious that the
amount of time the students spent in listening to English sounds was less than the counterpart
in reading. Therefore, in the circumstance of the limited amount of class time, I think that it is
necessary to explore the effective way of teaching listening in class. In particular, my
experience led me to understand the importance of acquiring listening skills by Japanese high
school students of English at the beginner level since the skills are the basis of English. I
think that solving listening problems is related with students’ proficiency in English as a
whole.
In order to find the effective instructions in listening to English, it is necessary to
recognize what listening problems Japanese high school students have. A considerable
number of studies on this subject have reported that L2 listening problems are caused by
various factors. Some of the factors are considered to be lack of several types of required
knowledge for listening comprehension. For example, Rost (2011) suggests five types of
required knowledge for listening skills: “Phonological [K]knowledge”, “Syntactic
[K]knowledge”, “Semantic [K]knowledge”, “Pragmatic [K]knowledge” and “General
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[K]knowledge” (pp. 210-212). In particular, it is suggested that lack of phonological
knowledge influences the problems inherent in listening comprehension (Rost, 2011;
Takefuta, 1989). According to Rost (2011), “Phonological [K]knowledge consists of
knowledge of phonemes, allophonic variation, prosody, intonation, and stress. It also includes
the application of this knowledge to recognize words in the stream of speech” (pp. 213).
Although L2 learners need to obtain phonological knowledge of their target language, their
first language (L1) interferes with the acquisition of phonological knowledge (Yumitani,
2011). Fukazawa (2000) mentions that Japanese learners unconsciously try to listen to and
speak English on the basis of their L1 sound system (pp. 11-12). Minakuchi, Yuzawa, and
Sixian (2013) found that monolingual Japanese students segmented English word sounds by
employing the mora in Japanese. Thus, it is not easy for Japanese learners of English to
acquire phonological knowledge.
In addition to the difficulty of obtaining the L2 sound system, Takefuta (1989) points
out that L2 learners have difficulty in keeping pace with speakers. From the viewpoint of
speech rates, Griffiths’s (1990, 1992) studies show that slow speech rates at a certain level
support lower-intermediate L2 listeners’ comprehension. However, very slow speech rates do
not always facilitate L2 listening comprehension because information from each lexical
chunk in speech must be processed within a certain amount of time (Kohno, 2001). In this
respect, Yuzawa and Yuzawa (2014) mention that retaining information from speech and
processing it are required in listening comprehension and employing the two skills is related
to the role of human memory (pp. 104-106).
As shown above, there are many studies on required knowledge and speech rates as to
English listening problems. However, it seems that some studies tend to focus on each factor
in listening problems. In this respect, Fujinaga (2002) points out that making a comparison
between English and Japanese can allow us to predict listening problems that Japanese
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learners of English face but the prediction has not been verified in a concrete way. Fujinaga’s
(2002) experimental study investigated Japanese college students’ errors in listening to
English and the results showed that the common factors found in the students’ errors were
phonemes, sound changes, and reduced sounds in unstressed words or syllables in English.
Furthermore, the results also showed that when the students misheard English words, the
ratios of phonemes, sound changes, and reduced sounds in unstressed words or syllables were
45.7%, 21.7% and 21.0% respectively. However, Fujinaga’s (2002) investigation only
focused on the aspect of phonological knowledge in listening problems. Therefore, it is still
not clear how required knowledge for listening and speech rates affected each other and
caused listening problems. Moreover, although Griffiths’s (1990, 1992) studies, as mentioned
above, showed the effectiveness of slow speech rates for lower-intermediate L2 listeners, can
we attain the same result as this in the case of beginner-level learners? My students, who are
at the beginner level, often commented that what they heard in class was too fast for them to
comprehend. Do slow speech rates help Japanese students of English at the beginner level to
improve their listening skills?
Furthermore, in previous research it is suggested that acquiring phonological
knowledge such as English sounds and rhythms is difficult for Japanese learners due to their
L1 interference. To be sure, my students seemed to understand English utterances with
katakana pronunciation easily. Then, is it easier for them to listen to English pronounced with
Japanese rhythm? The answers to this question are seen in previous research, but most of
them are descriptive and are not proved in experiments.
As mentioned above, Field (2008b) states that the ways of teaching L2 listening
should be improved. Previous studies have proposed various types of listening instruction in
light of top-down and bottom- up approaches. However, Berne (2004) points out that the
Description:Do slow speech rates help Japanese students of English at the beginner level to improve their listening skills? Furthermore, in previous research it is suggested that acquiring phonological knowledge such as English sounds and rhythms is difficult for Japanese learners due to their. L1 interference
