An Observation on Features of Listening Activities in Two Types of Classrooms

Abstract

This paper deals with listening activities in a university in southern Japan. There are two types of classes involved: an elective English phonetics course at CALL (computer-assisted language learning) and compulsory courses targeting four skills on English communication in normal classrooms. Participants are all female students from second-year to fourth-year in the former and first-year in the latter. Each course includes listening sections with multiple-choice questions and partial dictation. After learning fundamental information in class, students were offered listening assignments. Prospects will be introduced with practical class situations, related to various linguistic approaches including pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and reading context. The general impression will also be discussed in order to grasp tendencies of students’ issues to discover better strategies and consequently make use of them for future education.