This dissertation study explored the feasibility of using authenticated spoken texts to test L2 Chinese listening comprehension. The spoken texts used in the study were created using an "authenticating" technique, in which scripted spoken Chinese texts were infused with characteristics of real-world, unscripted spoken Chinese. In the…

This study examined the effects of watching gestures and lip movement on second language (English) listening comprehension. The participants were 30 high and 22 low proficient learners of English. There were six listening tasks combining two variables: modality and difficulty. The modality consisted of three types of assessments: Body (the upper…

Text length is considered as one of the factors that cause listening task difficulty along with others such as speech rate, clarity of voice, accents, text genre and topic. Despite all these factors, teachers sometimes consider text length as the single reason for a listening activity's difficulty. Not many studies have focused on the length as a…

In today's environment of growing class sizes due to the prevalence of online and e-learning systems, providing one-to-one instruction and feedback has become a challenging task for teachers. Anyhow, the dialectical integration of instruction and assessment into a seamless and dynamic activity can provide a continuous flow of assessment…

Whether visual information belongs in second language (L2) listening tests has long been a subject for scholarly debate, with L2 learners' performance on and perceptions of video-based tests being the primary sources of evidence. The research into L2 teachers' perceptions, however, is scarce, as is the research into stakeholders' views of content…

In this review article, we discuss the construct of second language (L2) comprehensibility, which refers to listeners' judgments of ease or difficulty in understanding L2 speech. We first briefly describe intelligibility and comprehensibility, two measures that capture listener understanding of L2 speech. We then present evidence that supports the…

Current second language (L2) listening research has lacked detailed accounts of L2 listeners' difficulties comprehending texts comprising orthographically known lexis. In the current study, 15 first language (L1) Japanese English language learners of three English proficiency levels listened to sentences and a narrative text. A two-task diagnostic…

This study aims at comparing the effect of single- and dual-annotation modes, working memory (WM), and three tasks of different involvement loads (sentence writing, close deletion, and paragraph writing) on passive and active vocabulary development of proficient English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. While listening to an expository text,…

The present paper reports on a small investigation that took place in the author's teaching environment to highlight her students' academic lecture comprehension needs related to the new subject matter of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). The aim of this research endeavour was to ponder over students' perspective of the difficulties emerging…

Listening has long been recognized as a challenging skill for teachers, students, and researchers working within the English as a Second Language (ESL)/English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. Moreover, up until the recent past, it was the least researched of the four language skills in second language acquisition studies. One of the issues…

This study investigates the effects of adding stem preview to an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) multiple-choice listening assessment. In stem preview, listeners may view the item stems, but not response options, before listening. Previous research indicates that adding preview to an exam typically decreases difficulty, but raises concerns…

The purpose of this study is to examine the appropriateness of using the "TOEFL Primary®" tests to evaluate the language abilities of students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) through an online-delivered curriculum, the VIPKid Major Course (MC). Data include student test scores on the TOEFL Primary Listening and Reading tests…

This paper investigates the effect of sentence complexity, specifically lexical and syntactic surprisal, on L2 listening difficulty. Psycholinguistic studies revealed that surprisal cases correlate with textual comprehension difficulty. Based on surprisal theory, these cases are less probable or expected, considering the precedent context, thus…

Integrated test tasks, such as listening-to-speak or reading-to-write, are increasingly used in second language assessment despite relatively limited empirical insights into what they assess. Most research on integrated tasks has primarily focused on the productive skills involved; studies exploring the receptive skills mostly investigated tasks…

This study examined the influence of formulaic language on second language (L2) listeners' lower-level processing, in terms of their ability to accurately identify the words in texts. On the one hand, there were reasons for expecting the presence of the formulas to advantage the learners, because the learners would process these formulaic words…