外国語リスニングにおける視聴回数と聴解度の関係 : DVDによる話者映像提示と学習者の受け止め

The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which watching a speaker on a monitor screen improves listening comprehension in a second/foreign language. One hundred and twenty-four Japanese university students participated in the study and listened to three-minute lectures under three different conditions: (1) listening to the talk while watching the speaker three times ("audio-visual 3" condition), (2) listening to the talk without watching a speaker three times ("audio-only 3" condition), and (3) listening to the talk while watching the speaker two times ("audio-visual 2" condition). Under the "audio-visual 3" condition, the students obtained better scores in listening comprehension tests than the students under the other two conditions. The data were then analyzed by dividing the participating students in each condition into two groups based on their English listening proficiency. Watching a speaker promoted understanding regardless of the students' English proficiency, and the students under the "audio-visual 2" condition got similar scores to those under the "audio-only 3" condition when comprehending the short lectures; no significant difference was found between the "audio-only 3" and the "audio-visual 2" conditions. A questionnaire was also passed to the students to find out how they feel and what they think about watching a speaker when listening in their L2. The results show a positive desire for having more audio-visual listening materials in L2 classrooms in addition to audio-only ones. The findings in this study suggest that providing visual information by allowing the students to watch a speaker improves L2 listening comprehension, even if there are no visual clues to the content of the talk, and that teachers can reduce the amount of time that students work on some listening materials in class.