Many studies in language learning have indicated that listening comprehension plays an important role in the learning process. In spite of its importance, listening has been ignored in second language learning, research, and teaching. The purpose of the present article is to define the terms listening and listening comprehension, review the components of listening, explain teachers’ role ...

In order to explore high school students’ English learning anxiety in Chinese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classrooms, this study surveyed and analyzed 105 students from a high school in Dezhou City, Shandong Province, China. The results indicated that students indeed had comparatively high anxiety in English learning. Males have higher anxiety of English classes than females. And it was...

With Grey relational analysis (GRA), the paper examined the sensitivity of eight variables influencing test performance at branch level. The eight variables involved included language proficiency, test anxiety, self-esteem, achievement motivation, achievement goal, English proficiency test anxiety (EPTA), state anxiety and trait anxiety. Results showed that: (a) Besides language proficiency, mo...

This study sought to explore the possible relationship between reading anxiety and reading proficiency and also between reading anxiety and language learners’ use of reading strategies. The majority of studies on language anxiety have been quantitative to date. This study was conducted in two phases. The first phase was quantitative, and the second consisted of a series of case studies using in...

TAKASHI OTAKE Dokkyo University, Soka, Japan Japanese listeners detect speech sound targets which correspond precisely to a mora (a phonological unit which is the unit of rhythm in Japanese) more easily than targets which do not. English listeners detect medial vowel targets more slowly than consonants. Six phoneme detection experiments investigated these effects in both subject populations, pr...