This study aimed to examine whether overall English proficiency influences the relative predictive power of reading fluency and listening comprehension abilities in explaining the reading comprehension of Korean EFL learners within the simple view of reading framework, when the age factor is controlled for. One hundred sixteen eleventh-grade Korean high school students consisting of two highly distinct groups in general English proficiency―55 Most Highly Capable Students (MHCS) and 61 Capable Students (CS)―were tested on measures of reading fluency, vocabulary knowledge, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension. The findings indicated that reading fluency and listening comprehension abilities were significantly related to the reading comprehension of both MHCS and CS groups. However, the results from a series of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that while listening comprehension was a stronger predictor of reading comprehension of the MHCS group, it was reading fluency that explained more variance in comprehension of the CS group. Implications for reading instructions are discussed.

This research aims to review and analyse articles on listening comprehension published in English Teaching over the past 50 years. A total of 71 such research articles were published from 1965 to 2015 in the journal, and they were analysed from the following five perspectives: I) historical trends in listening research, 2) main topic areas of the papers, 3) research subjects' levels, and 4) research methodology. The results of this review study are as follows. First, the volume of listening research gradually increased over the first 40 years ofthe journal's history, but it has dropped drastically over the past decade. Second, 'listening strategies' and 'evaluation' were researchers' favoured topics, while listening research on pronunciation has been actively conducted in recent years. Third, research with university students outnumbered research done with elementary and secondary students. Finally, research using quantitative methods dominated the research methodology. A sharp decline in the number of articles on listening research in recent years and unbalanced research in terms of its topic, subjects' levels, and research methodology are noteworthy.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of information transferring activity on listening comprehension and the affective domains of high school students. A total of 140 students participated in this study, and they were divided into two groups: The control group taught to follow traditional listening instruction, and the experimental group taught to transfer information in listening text to visual materials. The results showed that there was a statistically significant difference in understanding aural texts between the two groups, indicating the positive effects of the use of information transfer technique on listening comprehension. In addition, short-answer and multiple choice techniques produced different results, suggesting a significant test method effect on test results. Lastly, the participants provided generally positive responses to the usefulness of information transfer technique.

This study aimed to investigate Korean high school students’ comprehension level and attitudes towards three different English accents: American-accented, Malaysian-accented, and Korean-accented English. The experiment was conducted with 340 female high school students in Gyeongsangnam-do. The data collection in this study consisted of the results of three listening comprehension tests and two survey questionnaires. The results show that speakers' various English accents affected the participants’ listening comprehension: The participants understood the American-accented and the Korean-accented English better than the Malaysian-accented English. The study also shows that there is no interaction between the English accents and the participants' L2 listening proficiency levels. In addition, the results indicate that the participants display more positive attitude toward American-accented English, followed by Malaysian-accented English, and finally Korean-accented English. This paper therefore suggests that Korean students need to be exposed to various English accents in order to become familiar with the concept of World Englishes.

This study investigated the relationship between phonemic awareness ability and performance in English listening comprehension. For the purpose of this research, two tests―a specially designed phonemic awareness test and an English L/C test―were used and a total of 268 high school students (132 males and 136 females) participated in this experiment. The statistical result clearly demonstrated that the ability to identify English phonemes was highly correlated with the English listening ability. It was also shown that there was a significant correlation between the two factors in a group of students showing a high level of L/C ability, whereas no significant correlation for the students with a low level of L/C ability. In addition, no major difference in the correlation was found between the male and female students.

This study aimεd to ìnvestigatε the relationship between phonemic awareness and listening comprehension ability. For this paπIC비ar research purpose thζ English name test and TOEFL LlC tests were employεd and a total of 34 university students participaκd in this εxpεriment. The English name tεst consisting of relativεly unheard 26 English namζs was specially dεsigned and adminisκrεd for the participants to depend on their own phonemic awarenεss ability, not applying their cognitive prior knowlεdge. whεn they transcribε:d the n잉nεs using the phonεtic alphabεts. Thε statistical result showed that thε Pearson's product-moment correlation coεfficient was .550* and its coefficient of determination was .303. This result c1ζarly demonstrated that the phonemic awareness ability was highly correlatεd with the overall Iistening comprεhension ability and implied thε need for implεmεnting the so-called bottom-up method for developing students' phonζrnic awareness ability at primary or secondary school levels.

This study is to investigate the relationship between teaching and testing restricted on English listening comprehension processing. 726 listening activities in three textbooks of High School English and 80 questions in four nationwide English listening comprehension tests for high-school first grades were analyzed and classified into micro-skill categories of top-down, bottom-up and interactive processing. The results revealed that the tests put emphasis on the top-down processing in contrast to overemphasis of the textbooks on the bottom-up processing, whereas interactive processing took up a small portion both in the textbooks and tests. While the number of questions requiring bottom-up processing reduced in the tests, all the questions of bottom-up processing were focused only on one specific micro-skill, comprehending details. Further, despite diverse demonstrations of top-down micro-skills, each micro-skill question for top-down processing in the tests took some specific forms, which might lead students only to studying for preparation for the specific forms rather than for enhancing general comprehension abilities. Further pedagogical suggestions and implications for listening teaching were suggested.

This paper is a case study of the strategic behaviors of younger Korean students. Three Korean elementary students are examined in this study. An interview was used to collect retrospective verbal data on listening processes as well as listening strategies, and a listening strategy questionnaire was used to gather additional information regarding general listening strategic behaviors. A coded strategy report was tabulated, and the mean and percentage were used to render a strategy profile for each participant. The results of this study revealed that the participants, in most case, used all four groups of strategies: cognitive, compensation, metacognitive and affective strategies. However, they differed in their use of strategies within each group of strategies as well as in how often they used each type of strategies. The differences in the strategic behaviors were closely related to listening proficiency level, text difficulty and listening situation. A highly proficient participant used more strategies compared to less proficient participants. The highly proficient participant typically used top-down strategies more often. In contrast, the less proficient participants used bottom-up strategies more often. They typically relied heavily on familiar words and translation when they listened to a more difficult text. Cognitive strategies were reported the most in the interview and compensation strategies were marked as highest in the LSQ.

This study aims to investigate the effects of various types of input modification on English listening comprehension by Korean high school students. The participants of the study were assigned to three different types of listening input: one time listening, repetitive listening, and elaboration. They listened to five types of genres such as descriptive, narrative, comparison/contrast, causal/evaluation, and problem/solution This study examined how these different types of input and genres affect the students’ listening comprehension in terms of comprehension of main ideas and details, and inference, The results of the study revealed that different types of input modification and repetition influenced the students’ listening comprehension. For instance, repetitive listening and elaboration did not have a significant effect on the high-level students’ listening comprehension, whereas these types of input resulted in improvement in the low-level students’ listening comprehension. In addition, different input types had effects on the students’ listening comprehension according to the students’ proficiency levels. On the basis of the results, some pedagogical implications on the teaching of listening skills are presented.