of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science REAL-WORLD EVALUATION OF MOBILE PHONE SPEECH ENHANCEMENT ALGORITHMS By William Thomas O’Rourke December 2002 Chairman: John G. Harris Major Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering This work evaluates the performance of two new classes of ...

Captioning is widely used by second language learners as an assistive tool for listening. However, the use of captions often leads to word-by-word decoding and over-reliance on reading skill rather than improving listening skill. With the purpose of encouraging the learners to listen to the audio instead of merely reading the text, the study introduces a novel technique of captioning, partial a...

A listening test system designed to measure the threshold of audibility of the decay time of low frequency resonances is described. The system employs the Parameter Estimation by Sequential Testing (PEST) technique and the listening test is conducted on calibrated headphones to remove factors associated with the listening environment. Program signal, replay level, and resonance frequency are be...

This study investigated the interrelationships among EFL learners’ self-efficacy, autonomy and listening comprehension ability. Ninety female learners of intermediate level participated in the study. They were between 16 and 24 years old. In order to obtain the required data on the three variables (i.e., self-efficacy, autonomy, and listening comprehension ability), the researchers, after admin...

The accessibility of video technology has made it possible to utilize both the auditory and visual channels to present listening texts in the second language (L2) classroom and on L2 listening tests. However, there has been little research investigating the extent to which L2 listeners actually watch the video monitor when presented with a listening video text. The current study investigated te...

in most general and special english courses of the iranian universities, reading comprehension is the main component of the syllabus. nonetheless, in an attempt to improve listening and speaking skills, some general english courses were accompanied by oral presentations, according to which each student had to give a lecture lasting for nearly 10 minutes. the main objective was to investigate th...

It is commonly believed that task performance is improved by listening to Mozart’s music. Although this so-called Mozart effect is not often discussed in scientific literatures, those psychological experiments that have addressed it tend to confirm its existence. For example, college students who listened to Mozart’s Sonata KV.448 scored 8 to 9 points higher on the IQ test than students who had...

This research study investigated the development of listening proficiency level by the aid of different media- tional artifacts in Systemic Theoretical Instruction (STI). The study considered whether exposing learners to different types and various numbers of mediating artefacts would increase their awareness towards listen- ing concepts after two months, and consequently promote their listenin...