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Factors That Influence Listening and Reading Comprehension
... Scholars contend that once a new written word is decoded phonologically, the link between phonology and semantics provides the meaning ( Chall, 1967;Perfetti, 1985;Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987). According to Bozorgian (2012, p. 3), reading and listening researchers ( Bae & Bachman, 1998;Park, 2004;Samuels, 1987;Vandergrift, 2004Vandergrift, , 2006) agree upon the following similarities of the two skills: 1. Both entail fundamental language process and world knowledge and are engaged in comprehension and decoding. ...
This paper investigates the effect of the mode of reception (listening vs. reading) on the comprehension of literary texts of different degrees of linguistic complexity in German, testing schoolchildren in Grade 8. To this end, two texts were used: the grammatically and lexically comparatively more complex novella Das Erdbeben in Chili by Heinrich von Kleist, and the comparatively less complex novella Kleider machen Leute by Gottfried Keller. Thus, in contrast to previous studies on schoolchildren’s reading and listening comprehension, which often use very short texts composed specifically for the purpose of the study, a major aim of the current study is to test authentic literary material, which German students are regularly confronted with at school. Students read or listened to excerpts of these novellas and subsequently filled in a questionnaire containing questions on the correct comprehension of the respective texts, thereby addressing both local and global aspects of comprehension. The results are twofold: First, listening comprehension is better than reading comprehension, regardless of the complexity of the text (i.e. for both the Kleist and the Keller text). Second, the first effect is even stronger for global text comprehension than for comprehension of local details.
In learning environments text can be presented auditorily or visually. Therefore the question arises whether listening and reading comprehension lead to similar or different mental representations. Although many studies over recent years have examined the role of modality in learning with text and pictures, the differences between listening to text and reading text have not been sufficiently clarified. In this paper we give all overview of studies which focused oil differences between listening and reading comprehension in the construction of mental representations. Based on the results of these studies, we present an integrated model of listening and reading comprehension. In this model we try to integrate the presented research results concerning the extent to which listening and reading are unitary or different processes. To summarize, the findings show that there are differences in learning results after listening and reading under specific conditions. However, it is thought that these modality effects derive from differences at lower levels of information processing, whereas at higher levels it is assumed that mainly common processes for listening and reading comprehension exist.
Listening comprehension plays a key role in language acquisition, yet little is known about the variables that contribute to the development of second language (L2) listening ability. This study sought to obtain empirical evidence for the impact of some of the learner variables and the degree to which they might predict success in L2 listening. The learner variables of interest included: first language (L1) listening ability, L1 vocabulary knowledge, L2 vocabulary knowledge, auditory discrimination ability, metacognitive awareness of listening, and working memory capacity. Data from 157 Grade Seven students in the first year of a French immersion program indicated a significant relationship among most of the variables and L2 listening ability. A number of path analyses were then conducted, based on hypothetical relationships suggested by current theory and research, in order to uncover relationships between the variables in determining L2 listening comprehension ability. The best fit to the data supported a model in which general skills (auditory discrimination and working memory) are initially important, leading to more specific language skills (L1 and L2 vocabulary) in determining L2 listening comprehension. In positing a provisional model, this study opens up useful avenues for further research on model building in L2 listening.
The authors’ interest in the associations between beginners’ reading and writing performance led them to devise an index of children's meaning construction in reading by increasing the specificity of the Reading Miscue Inventory meaning change index to include finer discriminations between superficial and meaning disruptive miscues potentially reflective of beginners’ writing errors. Additionally, the authors inserted textual disruptions in a story to examine the children's meaning making under formative textual challenges frequently encountered in emergent literacy engagements. Fifty-one 2nd-grade students participating in a longitudinal early literacy project read a story, the last quarter of which contained meaning disruptions. Participants’ adaptations of these latter disruptions were compared with their meaning change miscue scores based on their nondisrupted reading performance. Adaptation scores were related to meaning change scores, suggesting that skill in adaptation to disruptions also reflects meaning construction processes, opening a door for manipulating textual discrepancies in order to document formatively, and thus find avenues for ameliorating, specific reading/writing difficulties.
This article reports on a small-scale study of Singaporean school students’ listening problems in oral English communication situations and their strategies for tackling the problems. Data were elicited from 10 students’ diaries. Analysis of the data located six problems, which included fast speech rate, poor communication ability of the interlocutor, accent and pronunciation, communication anxiety, vocabulary, and topic familiarity/background knowledge. The students reported strategies for tackling five of the six problems. The results gave some evidence in support of the observation that, although English is taught and learned as the first language in Singaporean schools, some students still have difficulties in understanding English. The article ends with some pedagogical implications.
Reading is a language art! In acquiring competence in reading we build on proficiencies already available in the primary (spoken) language system. Language is made up of three primary components that impact on reading—phonology, or the sound structure of language including syllables and phonemes; syntax, or the rules governing the sequential ordering of words in phrases and sentences; and semantics, or the meaning system that is attached to words and phrases as a consequence of experiences in a variety of contexts. All three depend upon adequate short- and long-term memory capacities and functioning for their growth and refinement. Additionally, the bridging of speech to print, or the task of establishing sound/symbol correspondences in beginning reading draws not only upon phonological competencies and memory, it is also dependent upon the discovery that words are made up of smaller and isolable parts. This knowledge is often referred to as auditory segmenting which is one aspect of metalinguistic awareness.
This paper will discuss these five language roots of reading. The authors will report on research that demonstrates that children, upon school entrance, do not all possess equal levels of competencies in these five critical language areas. Since success in beginning reading is dependent upon the adequate development and functioning of each of the five language areas noted above, early school experiences should be directed toward language development, as well as reading instruction, if we are to reduce the incidence of reading difficulties in our schools. Finally, we will offer suggestions for enhancing language competencies that will support and promote the acquisition of reading.
Assessment of students with reading comprehension difficulties should include measurement of both listening and reading comprehension of extended discourse in order to begin to identify the reason or reasons for their deficits. The problems of developing an effective comprehension test are discussed. An experimental screening test, Profiles in Listening and Reading (PILAR), is presented as one approach to assessing comprehension. Its potential as a screening and diagnostic test is considered, using students' profiles from two studies.
Free recall is commonly used to assess reading comprehension in research studies and school practices. Students with learning disabilities (LD) perform less well on recall measures than their nonLD peers. However, memory or expressive language requirements of recall tasks may affect the ability of students with LD to show their understanding of passages. An exploratory investigation was designed to determine whether sixth- and eighth-grade students with LD attending general education science classes performed less well than their nonLD peers on recall of science passages, when differences in passage understanding and domain vocabulary were controlled. The results showed that this was the case. Productivity and recall of main ideas were explored as possible reasons for difficulty with recall tasks. The groups did not differ in productivity, but the sixth and eighth graders with LD were less able to understand and use idea structure for purposes of remembering passage information than their nonLD peers. The results suggest that task requirements of recall measures may pose particular problems for students with LD.
The past three decades have seen a growing body of research into language learner metacognitive knowledge, strategy use, and the relationship between them. However, the correlation between knowledge about strategies and strategy use in ESL listening and speaking has not been explored. This study investigates 278 Singaporean students’ knowledge and use of 40 listening and speaking strategies, and the relationship between these two variables. Distinctions were made among use-focused and form-focused learning strategies, comprehension strategies and communication strategies. The results showed that the students tended to believe in the usefulness of all four groups of strategies but seemed more often to use use-focused ones. Of the 40 strategies, 32 were perceived as useful by half the students, whereas only 13 were reported as used frequently. The discrepancy indicates that, while the students were generally aware of the usefulness of the strategies, they were not yet conscious and confident strategy users. There seems to be a need to increase their repertoire of strategies. Correlations were found between perceptions of the usefulness and perceived use of the strategies. The paper ends by considering teaching implications and future research.
Students in Grades 4, 5, 7, and 8 (N = 1,343) took part in a study to determine whether students with learning disabilities (LD) would benefit from having mathematics test items read aloud. Two 30-item alternate forms of a large-scale multiple-choice mathematics test were administered. One form was presented in standard format; the other was read aloud to students from a video monitor. Using linguistic features, 4 or 5 Difficult Reading items were selected from each form. The performance of students with LD on these items was compared to that of a randomly selected group of general education students. Analysis of variance showed mixed results. Elementary school students with LD tended to perform better when test items were read aloud; general education students at this level did not receive this benefit. No significant interactions were found at the middle school level. Results are discussed in relationship to previous studies.
Listening as a language skill is widely required in instructional settings at any level. It is proposed to view listening as an active process, involving patterns of behavior which can be categorized as content-, self-, and speaker-related activities. A questionnaire (N = 554) and a qualitative survey (N = 32) were conducted to investigate the knowledge about listening strategies among university students. Results show that the scope of listening skills is rather limited even among experienced listeners and that there is considerable room for modifying listening behavior. Consequences for conceptualizing listening expertise are discussed and areas for further reaearch, both empirical and theoretical, are addressed.
This study investigates the interaction between lexical knowledge and listening comprehension in a second language. Fifty-nine Japanese university students of low-intermediate to advanced English ability were tested using first-language recall protocols as comprehension measures, and dictation as measures of lexical familiarity on four texts of increasing amounts of low-frequency lexical words. Comprehension correlated with text-lexis familiarity at .45; acceptable comprehension levels were significantly associated with higher text-lexis familiarity; good comprehension seldom occurred with text-lexis familiarity levels lower than 75 percent, but occurred frequently at 90+ percent levels. This pattern was observed equally for learners of high, middle, or low second-language listening proficiency. It is concluded that efficient listening strategies may make comprehending lexically complex texts possible, but most learners seem to need very high lexical familiarity for good comprehension.
This study examined the hypotheses that (a) the relationship between listening and reading comprehension becomes stronger after decoding mastery; (b) the difference between listening and reading decreases with increasing grade level; and (c) similar patterns of relationship and difference are obtained with narrative and expository texts. The sample included 612 students in Grades 2, 4, 6, and 8. Students read and listened to two narratives and two expository texts and completed corresponding comprehension tests that were in the form of sentence verification tasks. The findings confirmed the first two hypotheses but not the third one. In the case of expository text, the relationship between listening and reading comprehension was weaker than the corresponding one with narrative text, and performance levels were comparable across all elementary grades. Moreover, reading comprehension levels were higher than listening comprehension levels in Grade 8, regardless of text type. The implications of these findings with respect to the dominant unitary process model and the assessment and instruction of oral and written language comprehension are discussed.
A frequently discussed hypothesis concerning the source of cross-linguistic communication difficulty in written discourse is conflicting organizational patterns (Kaplan, 1966, 1987). Extending the argument to oral discourse, Young (1982) argued that spoken English discourse produced by Chinese speakers evidenced a discourse-level topic-comment structure that native English speakers find difficult to follow. However, Tyler (1988) argued that the perception of incoherence might better be understood as the cumulative result of interacting miscues at the discourse level, that is, miscues in syntactic incorporation, lexical discourse markers, tense/aspect, and lexical The study reported here aims at testing these competing hypotheses. One hundred fifteen subjects rated four versions of the Chinese-produced English discourse presented in Young's study for comprehensibility. Results indicated that the effect of discourse miscues on comprehensibility was highly significant (F = 70, p <.0001). However, there was no significant effect for order of ideas (F = .47, p <.49).
The study reported here extends Tyler and Bro's (1992) investigation of the sources of native speakers' perceptions of incoherence in English text produced by nonnative speakers. Using paper-and-pencil tasks, the original study examined two competing hypotheses: (a) The primary source of interference was the order in which the ideas were presented versus (b) the primary source of interference was mismatches in discourse structuring cues. They found no effect for order of ideas but a strong effect of discourse structuring cues. In the present study, 80 subjects were tested on the same texts as those used in Tyler and Bro (1992) but using microcomputers. Subjects rated the text for comprehensibility and answered three questions concerning the propositional content. The computer format represented a more sensitive measure of subjects' reactions to the text because it did not allow looking back and because it provided information concerning differences in reading time for each manipulation. Once again, the results of the comprehensibility ratings showed a strong effect for miscues and no significant effect for order of ideas. Results of the true/false questions indicated that presence of miscues affected subjects' comprehension of the propositional content but that order of ideas had no discernible effect. Finally, reading time results also showed a strong effect for miscues and a mixed effect for order of ideas, suggesting that order of ideas does make a minor contribution to comprehensibility.
This article describes the development and validation of a listening questionnaire designed to assess second language (L2) listeners' metacognitive awareness and perceived use of strategies while listening to oral texts. The process of instrument development and validation is described, along with a review of the relevant literature related to metacognition and learners' regulation of listening comprehension strategies. An exploratory factor analysis of the responses of a large sample (N= 966) of language learners and a subsequent confirmatory factor analysis with another large but different sample (N= 512) resulted in a 21-item instrument with robust psychometric properties. Five distinct factors emerged: problem-solving, planning and evaluation, mental translation, person knowledge, and directed attention. The reliability and factorial validity of the instrument are presented along with evidence for a statistically significant relationship between student response on the instrument and L2 listening comprehension success. The article concludes with a discussion of the potential uses of the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ).
This article reports on a study exploring the respective contributions of first language (L1) listening comprehension ability and second language (L2) proficiency to L2 listening comprehension ability. The participants were 75 Grade 8 English-speaking students learning French. The students completed tests in French and in English that required them to listen to authentic dialogues and to complete a number of multiple choice comprehension questions. Multiple regression analysis indicated that both L1 listening comprehension ability and L2 proficiency contributed significantly to L2 listening comprehension ability, with L2 proficiency having about twice as much common variance. A further analysis by question type indicated that, although the relative contribution of L2 proficiency to the combined variance continued to be higher for both question types, the relative contribution of L1 listening comprehension ability to answering literal questions was greater than for answering inferencing questions. The results are discussed in light of the linguistic threshold and the linguistic interdependence hypotheses and similar research on this same question for L2 reading. This article initiates an exploration of the ability/proficiency debate as it relates to L2 listening comprehension ability, discusses implications for L2 pedagogy, and suggests important avenues for further research.
This paper illustrates the importance of various cognitive factors involved in perceiving and comprehending synthetic speech. It includes findings drawn from the relative psychological and psycholinguistic literature together with experimental results obtained at the Fondazione Ugo Bordoni laboratory. Overall, it is shown that listening to and comprehending synthetic voices is more difficult than with a natural voice. However, and more importantly, this difficulty can and does decrease with the subjects' exposure to said synthetic voices. Furthermore, greater workload demands are associated with synthetic speech and subjects listening to synthetic passages are required to pay more attention than those listening to natural passages.
Zusammenfassung. Seit Erfindung der Schrift stellt sich die Frage, inwieweit sich das Hor- und das Leseverstehen voneinander unterscheiden. In der vorliegenden Studie wurde untersucht, ob beim Hor- und Leseverstehen unterschiedliche Lernleistungen erzielt und unterschiedliche mentale Reprasentationen konstruiert werden. Zudem wurde uberpruft, welchen Einfluss Sprecherwechsel bei der auditiven Textprasentation haben. Dabei wurden auch der Kommunikationsschwerpunkt von Personen und die subjektiv eingeschatzte Modalitatspraferenz berucksichtigt. Das experimentelle Untersuchungsdesign bestand aus dem Faktor Art der Textprasentation (Lesetext, Hortext mit einem Sprecher und Hortext mit mehreren Sprechern) und dem Faktor Bildung (Berufsschuler und Studenten). Anhand von 104 Versuchspersonen konnte gezeigt werden, dass Leser/innen besser beim Erinnern von Detailwissen abschnitten. Der in anderen Forschungsarbeiten gefundene Vorteil von Horern bei der Reprasentation von visuell-raumlichen Sachverhalten und Verste...
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