Discusses activities for developing students' listening comprehension in English-as-a-foreign-language classrooms in China. The activities have proved successful, and students participating in these courses have done well on the National Test for English Majors Band 4. (Author/VWL)

Compares Chinese Students' listening comprehension rates for video texts using a variety of techniques: advance organizers, captions, a combination of both, and none of the foregoing. Results showed that more effective comprehension occurred when a combination of techniques were used. (Author/VWL)

Discusses various methods for music teachers to adjust and prepare themselves for teaching prekindergarten students. Provides the two-track approach for teaching these younger students where the students work in large-group circle time experiences and also have opportunities to explore music on their own; singing, listening, moving, and playing…

Examined the effectiveness of a year-long integrated language and music program (the Expressive Language and Music Project) to enhance Singaporean kindergartners' English oral-language competency. Found that the natural communicative setting and creative use of resources and activities based on the Orff and Kodaly approaches facilitated language…

Examines K-2 teachers' perceptions and evaluations of how students (who spoke marginalized or stigmatized varieties of English) in a low-income, multiethnic, inner-city school answer classroom questions. Finds ambiguity in teacher questions which created problems for students accustomed to different discourse practices. Works with the teachers to…

Following pretraining with everyday objects, 14 children aged from 1 to 4 years were trained, for each of three pairs of different arbitrary wooden shapes (Set 1), to select one stimulus in response to the spoken word /zog/, and the other to /vek/. When given a test for the corresponding tacts ("zog" and "vek"), 10 children…

This paper investigates how authentic web-delivered video can inform ESL online instruction and enhance the incidental acquisition of vocabulary and listening comprehension. A total of 24 adult learners of English as a Second Language enrolled in a listening comprehension class at a major Midwestern university participated in the study. The…

Looking at printed pages is no longer the only way to enjoy a story or learn facts. Today there's a wealth of titles being produced as sound recordings, and teachers can use these audiobooks to improve listening skills, to arrange an audio author visit, and to provide an extra set of vocal chords in the classroom. Recorded books can help educators…

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…

In an effort to facilitate students' understanding of films in the target language, many instructors turn to films with English subtitles. Viewing films subtitled in English does not encourage learners to use their previously acquired listening skills, but rather allows them to rely on reading English instead of making the extra effort required to…

Conditions producing stress are present in all colleges and universities. In this paper we report on an investigation utilizing heart rate as an indicator of stress in students when participating in activities encountered in a college classroom or laboratory. The activities included presenting an oral report, taking an exam, and participating in a…

Although fundamental beginning reading skills are highly related to later reading success (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000), it remains unclear how these beginning reading skills impact the social adjustment of kindergarten through second grade children. Therefore, the purposes of this study were: (a) to examine the…

Using both proficiency tests and self-assessment measures, this study investigated (a) whether 3 subgroups of Japanese heritage language (JHL) learners would demonstrate language behaviors distinctively different from those of traditional Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) learners, and (b) which domains of language use and skills would…

This study examines the perception of paralinguistic intonational meanings deriving from Ohala's Frequency Code (Experiment 1) and Gussenhoven's Effort Code (Experiment 2) in British English and Dutch. Native speakers of British English and Dutch listened to a number of stimuli in their native language and judged each stimulus on four semantic…

In this study we identify some of the phonetic parameters that correlate with nonnative speakers' (NNSs) perceptual judgments of accent in English and investigate NNS listener perceptions of English from a World Englishes point of view. Our main experiment involved 3,200 assessments of the perceived degree of accent in English of two speaker…