Describes part of in-service program for Dutch teachers in which they interview native English speakers to collect material to be used in the classroom. Teachers were able to use their non-native status to elicit as much or as little language as they wanted and to build clarification devices into the interviews. (BK)

Describes use of radio segments as a method for teaching French in Spain in order to develop listening comprehension while exposing students to global perspectives through use of authentic pieces. (BK)

Describes use of Authentic French Radio (FRA) as a means of teaching French to beginner, intermediate and advanced French language students. Suggests that this exercise improves listening comprehension, while deepening the student's knowledge of France and French. (BK)

Describes a method of preparing students for "fluent" foreign language radio listening by making them aware of current affairs and by actually training them to listen. The first part consists of getting students to recognize cognates, the second expands into noncognates. The course outline is given. (PJM)

This study of 11 listeners with sensorineural hearing loss examined the ability to separate simultaneous spoken sentences of speakers of different gender and the ability to separate pitch patterns in a sequential stream segregation task. Results suggest that the importance of streaming in the perceptual separation of speakers may depend on the…

Studies the relationship between decoding and comprehension in the oral and written modalities. Shows that poor decoders scored lower than average and good decoders on all comprehension tasks. Suggests a high degree of interdependence between listening comprehension, reading comprehension and decoding. Interprets results in favor of the…

Six core profiles were identified on four fluid reasoning to comprehension knowledge constructs previously found to be both theoretically and empirically linked to children's reading acquisition: auditory processing, crystallized ability, processing speed, and short-term memory. Cluster analysis was used to develop this taxonomy and the…

Investigates the interaction between lexical knowledge and listening comprehension in a second language. Examines how 59 Japanese university students of low-intermediate to advanced English ability were tested using first-language recall protocols as comprehension measures. Concludes that efficient listening strategies may make comprehending…

The study with 10 agrammatic aphasic (Broca) adults examined their difficulties using determiners in sentence comprehension. Results included the findings that printed rather than spoken presentation yielded significant improvement for the proper noun/common noun distinction, and that performance was poorer for the mass noun/count noun…

Evidence is reviewed that demonstrates the importance of information derived from kinesic behavior to the activity of listening in the native language and the possible effects of an absence of this visual information. Implications are considered for the development of second-language listening skills. (76 references) (Author/LB)

Examines the role of vocal cues in children's cognitive representations of texts. Finds that, in general, vocal cues influenced the speed and likelihood of constructing inferences but that cues failed to enhance memory for explicit text concepts. Discusses developing a model specifying the relationship between vocal cues and text understanding.…

A 2-microphone dereverberation technique was evaluated by obtaining speech recognition measures and preference judgments from 10 normal-hearing adults and 7 older adult hearing-impaired listeners. Both groups had higher scores at the shorter reverberation time than at the longer reverberation time. Hearing-impaired subjects performed significantly…

Reviews research on native language (NL) listening, and discusses the importance of listening in second-language (L2) acquisition, factors that influence success or failure of comprehension of first-language or L2 messages, the role of listening in the L2 curriculum, posited models of NL and L2 listening comprehension, and proposed taxonomies of…

Rate-controlled recorded text can be used not only to facilitate listening comprehension through reducing speech rate, but it can also help language learners become accustomed to increasingly rapid deliveries. First- and second-language research on temporal variables relevant to facilitating listening comprehension is described, and practical…

Physical aspects of listening skills are described, including speech rate, syllable tone, word-word separation vs. joining, listening for "focus," word clues per message, and intonation. (LB)