Poster presentation at BAAL2013

1. Predictability of Consonant Perception Ability Through a Listening Comprehension Test:
an Experimental Study on Japanese EFL Learners
SUGAI, Kosuke (Kinki University), YAMANE, Shigeru (Kansai University), KANZAKI, Kazuo (Osaka Electro-Communication University)
Email: ksugai@kindai.ac.jp
1. Overview of our series of researches
1.1 Background
Sugai, et al. (2011): transcription tasks and interviews research
The learners judged to have a similar level of listening
comprehension actually differ in their overall and individual
perception skills.
1.2 General goal
(1): to clarify whether common English listening comprehension
test properly measures learners phonetic/phonological ability or
not
Research plans
- to examine learners abilities in consonant perception:
on-line phoneme judgment task (current research)
- to explore learners abilities in perceptions of syllable
constructions
- to examine learners abilities in stress perception
2. Listening comprehension test
2.1 The test items:
2nd, pre-2nd, and 3rd level of STEP test (one of the most popular
English proficiency tests in Japan)
(The test items whose vocabulary level was too high were
avoided.)
- Part1 (30 items): 4-choice multiple questions using dialogue type
of listening materials
- Part2 (30 items): 4-choice multiple questions using monologue
type of listening materials
2.2 Elaborating the test
107 Japanese EFL learners took this 60 item-test and, out of 60
test items, the most appropriate 30 items were selected based on a
Rasch-model analysis using Winsteps.
This test highly correlates with the test takers TOEIC IP score (r = .
86) and it is valid enough to asses the participant listening
proficiency (α = .929)
(2): if yes, to develop listening tests to assess learners phonetic
proficiency
4. Result
3. Experiment
3.1 Purpose
to examine learners perception abilities of syllable-initial
consonants
Hypothesis 1: A typical listening comprehension test, which is
composed of multiple-choice comprehension questions,
cannot predict learners English phoneme perception skills.
Hypothesis 2: Learners judged to have a similar level of listening
comprehension actually differ in their overall and individual
consonant perception skills.
3.2 Participants
22 Japanese EFL learners whose mean scores in the preliminary
test ranging from 25 to 27 (out of 30) were selected (Their
TOEIC score is around 550.)
3.3 Materials
Seventeen minimal pairs were chosen based on the results in
Sugai (2006).
4.1 Judgment score analysis
- learners the number of correct answers
F (df = 22): 10.63, p < .001, η2 = .01 (small effect size)
Between learners differences is not necessarily large.
- consonants the number of correct answers
F (df = 33): 3382.63, p < .001, η2 = .36 (large effect size)
There are significant differences between the stimuli.
4.2 Reaction time analysis
preliminary arrangements
- excluding the data of incorrect answers
- excluding the 379 data over 2SD per learner (4.69%) which were regard
as outliers
Two-way ANOVA (factors: learners, stimulus sounds)
- the learners RT
F (21, 7679) = 179.27, p < 0.01, η = .57 (large effect size)
There is a significant difference between the learners.
Seventeen minimal pairs
1
b
v
2
b
w
3
ʧ
j
4
d
ð
5
d
z
6
ð
z
7
f
h
10
l
r
13
r
w
16
ʃ
θ
8
f
v
11
l
w
14
s
ʃ
17
v
w
9
h
v
12
m
n
15
s
th
- 34 consonants above were embedded in (/_ad/) syllable,
making 34 stimuli
-The test materials were synthetically created on a text-to-speech
software called Natural Reader ver.3.0.
A B C D E
F G H I
J
K L M N O P Q R
S T U V W
Participant
3.4 Procedure
- stimulus sounds were presented through sound-isolating
headsets
- each target stimulus in the minimal pair was presented more
than 10 times
- The participants responses were recorded with SuperLab 4.0
- In each session, two possible consonants were visually
presented on the computer screen, while one-syllable sound was
given to them aurally. The participants were asked to press a
button (RB-830 response box) corresponding to the onset
consonant they heard as quickly as possible. Their judgments
and reaction time were recorded.
- consonants RT
F (33, 7667) = 15.20, p < 0.01, η = .25（small effect size）
There is a significant difference between the consonants.
Consonants differ in their duration and the onset of perceptional key
elements, and this data may not be meaningful.
5. Conclusion
From the results above both hypothesizes were supported:
(1) Common listening comprehension tests cannot predict the learners
perceptual ability to discriminate English consonants.
(2) In addition to the overall consonant perception ability, each
consonant perception ability varies between the learners even their
listening comprehension skill being evaluated equal.
This
file
is
on
Slideshare.
h0p://www.slideshare.net/KosukeSugai/20130905-­‐baal

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Acknowledgment
This
research
was
parEally
supported
by
a
Grant-­‐in-­‐Aid
for
ScienEfic
Research
(C)
(No.
22520637)
of
The
Ministry
of
EducaEon,
Science,
Sports
and
Culture,
Japan.