Postmodern picturebooks do not follow the established norms of traditional picturebooks and instead invite readers to navigate nonlinear structures and attend to metafictive devices, including counterpoint and multiple narratives, experimental typography, nonlinearity, intertextuality, and ambiguities in meaning. These qualities challenge readers…

Studies have shown that test-takers tend to use keyword-matching strategies when taking listening tests. Keyword-matching involves matching content words in the written modality (test items) against those heard in the audio text. However, no research has investigated the effect of such keywords in listening tests, or the impact of gazing upon…

The primary goal of the present systematic review was to examine the criteria and measures used for assessing students with "specific comprehension deficit" (SCD) who have adequate decoding skills but still perform poorly on reading comprehension assessments. From a systematic review of 32 studies, we found four predominant selection…

When we listen to human discourse, we do this in a context which may include the words themselves, tone of voice, stress on words, as well as gestures, visual context, facial expressions and interpersonal distance, which work to produce a multimodal message. The development of listening skills then implies focussing not only on audio input but…

The purpose of the present study was to examine: (1) the effects of audio-visual information; and (2) the role of temporal measurements associated with the perceptual ratings of fluency, accentedness, comprehensibility, pronunciation, and oral proficiency in second language (L2) speech samples of International Teaching Assistants (ITAs). American…

In this study, I investigate the construct validity and fairness pertaining to the use of a variety of Englishes in listening test input. I obtained data from a post-entry English language placement test administered at a public university in the United States. In addition to expectedly familiar American English, the test features Hawai'i,…

The purpose of this study is to determine whether a rich repertoire of meaningful, relevant comments posted on social media sites can facilitate or increase L2 listeners' comprehension of videos. The study utilized a quasi-experimental design with an experimental group (n = 29) that watched two YouTube videos and read comments, as well as a…

Research on intelligibility in international encounters has long focused on issues of pronunciation to the detriment of factors such as linguistic co-text and extralinguistic context, which are comparatively well-studied variables in intelligibility research concerning L1 listeners. This paper seeks to expand the scope of international…

Research Findings: The present study examined children's listening comprehension during a two-semester-long dialogic reading. We explored the extent to which the development of children's listening comprehension was accounted for by initial listening comprehension and whether children's engagement and the amount and level of their verbal…

Two widely studied language skills in relation to reading comprehension are listening comprehension skill and academic language proficiency. Although their constituent skills and theoretical accounts of how they are related to reading comprehension share a large overlap, they have been studied in separate lines of work. In this study, we…

Rather than focusing on age distinctions, a more organic approach in understanding individual differences is the life-span perspective (Williams & Nussbaum, 2001) which posits that more understanding is gained from studying individuals from a behavioral approach than from age distinction. Using this life-span perspective approach, this study…

Through providing an external support to speech, gesture observation may benefit a student's learning in a variety of areas, including narrative comprehension. Across two studies, we investigated factors that could moderate when gestures are most beneficial to narrative comprehension, including gesture type, task difficulty, and age, in order to…

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 volume presents research on oracy development in early language learning, with a particular focus on the pedagogical implications for growingly plurilingual classrooms. The chapters offer empirical results from diverse international contexts which reveal common and differing experiences of teaching methodologies and assessment practices,…

The study explored Engineering students' and their instructors' knowledge and use of tools, applications, and websites; their interests, abilities, and attitudes to using technology; and their views about the advantages and challenges of using technology in the academic listening classes. The participants were 184 undergraduate students of…