THE ROLE OF SPEECH-IN-NOISE IN JAPANESE EFL LEARNERS’ LISTENING COMPREHENSION PROCESS AND THEIR USE OF CONTEXTUAL INFORMATION

Author(s):  
Ryoko Fujita
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-54
Author(s):  
Wed Nasser Al Harbi

Despite of the importance of listening in EFL learning and teaching, this skill is not getting as much attention as other skills. Therefore, learners are less motivated to depend on their listening comprehension as a tool to help them in the process of language learning. Social media, especially YouTube and Snapchat, can be effectively used as a pedagogical tool to enhance the listening skills of EFL learners, compared with other traditional audio recording tools. The objective of this research is to investigate the role of social media (YouTube and snapchat) as a method of teaching, in order to enhance EFL Saudi learners' listening comprehension skills. The primary goal of this study is to know whether social media is capable of developing EFL listening comprehension skills, and gaining the deeper understanding of the presented materials. In addition, using these tools makes them familiar with the target language culture and it's native speakers. In order to achieve this objective; the researcher used a mixed method to ensure the research validity: a questionnaire and a post-test.The participants of the study were 50 female students studying in English Language Centre at Taif University. They were randomly selected and they divided into two groups: the experiment group consisted of 20 female students and the control group consisted of 30 female students. The experiment group was instructed using (YouTube and Snapchat) as the control group using traditional audio method. Then there is a post-test is given to both groups to measure their listening comprehension performance. The findings of the study showed that using social media (YouTube and Snapchat) can enhance the listening skill of Saudi EFL leaners. The researcher recommends conducting more studies on other samples from different studies, age levels and from different environments like the schools or training institutes.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wed Nasser Al Harbi

Despite of the importance of listening in EFL learning and teaching, this skill is not getting as much attention as other skills. Therefore, learners are less motivated to depend on their listening comprehension as a tool to help them in the process of language learning. Social media, especially YouTube and Snapchat, can be effectively used as a pedagogical tool to enhance the listening skills of EFL learners, compared with other traditional audio recording tools. The objective of this research is to investigate the role of social media (YouTube and snapchat) as a method of teaching, in order to enhance EFL Saudi learners' listening comprehension skills. The primary goal of this study is to know whether social media is capable of developing EFL listening comprehension skills, and gaining the deeper understanding of the presented materials. In addition, using these tools makes them familiar with the target language culture and it's native speakers. In order to achieve this objective; the researcher used a mixed method to ensure the research validity: a questionnaire and a post-test.The participants of the study were 50 female students studying in English Language Centre at Taif University. They were randomly selected and they divided into two groups: the experiment group consisted of 20 female students and the control group consisted of 30 female students. The experiment group was instructed using (YouTube and Snapchat) as the control group using traditional audio method. Then there is a post-test is given to both groups to measure their listening comprehension performance. The findings of the study showed that using social media (YouTube and Snapchat) can enhance the listening skill of Saudi EFL leaners. The researcher recommends conducting more studies on other samples from different studies, age levels and from different environments like the schools or training institutes.


Accurate pronunciation has a vital role in English language learning as it can help learners to avoid misunderstanding in communication. However, EFL learners in many contexts, especially at the University of Phan Thiet, still encounter many difficulties in pronouncing English correctly. Therefore, this study endeavors to explore English-majored students’ perceptions towards the role of pronunciation in English language learning and examine their pronunciation practicing strategies (PPS). It involved 155 English-majored students at the University of Phan Thiet who answered closed-ended questionnaires and 18 English-majored students who participated in semi-structured interviews. The findings revealed that students strongly believed in the important role of pronunciation in English language learning; however, they sometimes employed PPS for their pronunciation improvement. Furthermore, the results showed that participants tended to use naturalistic practicing strategies and formal practicing strategies with sounds, but they overlooked strategies such as asking for help and cooperating with peers. Such findings could contribute further to the understanding of how students perceive the role of pronunciation and their PPS use in the research’s context and other similar ones. Received 10th June 2019; Revised 12th March 2020; Accepted 12th April 2020


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-17
Author(s):  
Mahsa Assadi

This study reports a pre-experimental research on the impact of metacognitive instruction on EFL learners’ metacognitive awareness and their listening performance. To obtain the goal of the study, a group of 30 Iranian intermediate EFL learners, including 14 males and 16 females, were selected randomly. Their ages range from 20 to 24. The participants took part in 16 weeks’ intervention program based on metacognitive pedagogical sequence consisted of five stages. The metacognitive awareness listening questionnaire (MALQ), and a listening test were also used to find changes in metacognitive awareness and listening performance before and after the treatment. The results of comparing pre and posttests scores revealed that metacognitive instruction raised the learners’ metacognitive awareness and helped them improve their listening comprehension ability.


Relay Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 228-235
Author(s):  
Paul J. Moore ◽  
Phil Murphy ◽  
Luann Pascucci ◽  
Scott Sustenance

This paper reports on an ongoing study into the affordances of free online machine translation for students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) at the tertiary level in Japan. The researchers are currently collecting data from a questionnaire, task performance, and interviews with 10-15 EFL learners in an English Language Institute in a university in Japan. The paper provides some background on the changing role of translation in language learning theory and pedagogy, before focusing literature related to technical developments in machine translation technology, and its application to foreign language learning. An overview of the research methodology is provided, along with some insights into potential findings. Findings will be presented in subsequent publications.


ReCALL ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Chi Yang ◽  
Peichin Chang

AbstractFor many EFL learners, listening poses a grave challenge. The difficulty in segmenting a stream of speech and limited capacity in short-term memory are common weaknesses for language learners. Specifically, reduced forms, which frequently appear in authentic informal conversations, compound the challenges in listening comprehension. Numerous interventions have been implemented to assist EFL language learners, and of these, the application of captions has been found highly effective in promoting learning. Few studies have examined how different modes of captions may enhance listening comprehension. This study proposes three modes of captions: full, keyword-only, and annotated keyword captions and investigates their contribution to the learning of reduced forms and overall listening comprehension. Forty-four EFL university students participated in the study and were randomly assigned to one of the three groups. The results revealed that all three groups exhibited improvement on the pre-test while the annotated keyword caption group exhibited the best performance with the highest mean score. Comparing performances between groups, the annotated keyword caption group also emulated both the full caption and the keyword-only caption groups, particularly in the ability to recognize reduced forms. The study sheds light on the potential of annotated keyword captions in enhancing reduced forms learning and overall listening comprehension.


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