How is comprehension affected by intonation?
Graduation Thesis
Presented to
The Faculty of the Department of
English Language and Literature
Notre Dame Seishin University
In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirement of the Degree
Bachelor of Arts
By
Natsumi Okamoto
2013
Contents
Abstract
1
Chapter 1: The aspects of listening and pronunciation
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Listening
1.2.1 Six listening process stages
1.2.1.1 Hearing
1.2.1.2 Attending
1.2.1.3 Understanding
1.2.1.4 Remembering
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3
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4
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1.2.1.5 Evaluation
1.2.1.6 Responding
1.2.2 The difficulties of listening
1.3 Comprehension
1.3.1 How to comprehend
1.3.1.1 Bottom up
1.3.1.2 Top down
1.3.1.3 Schema
1.4 Pronunciation
1.4.1 Phonemes
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10
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1.4.2 Accent
1.4.3 Rhythm
1.4.4 Intonation
1.4.4.1 Segmental sounds
1.4.4.2 Prosodic sounds
1.5 Listening, pronunciation and comprehension
1.5.1 Relationship between listening and comprehension
1.5.2 Relationship between pronunciation and comprehension
1.5.3 Relationship between intonation and comprehension
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1.6 Research question
1.7 Summary
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Chapter 2: The experiment
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The experiment
2.2.1 Introduction to the experiment
2.2.2 Method
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1) Subjects
2) Test design
3) Procedure
2.2.3 Results
1) Comprehension data
2) Question difficulty
3) Difference between the 2 groups
4) The listening level of the subjects by department
5) The individual data by question
2.3 Summary
Chapter 3: Discussion of the experiment
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Summary of the results
3.3 Discussion of the results
3.3.1 The importance of listening for communication
3.3.2 The importance of pronunciation
3.3.2.1 The importance of teaching intonation in class
3.3.3 The importance for communication
3.4 Answering the research questions
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3.4.1 How much Japanese learners understand with and without intonation?
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3.4.2 Is intonation important for Japanese learners?
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3.4.3 What is efficient for listening comprehension?
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3.5 Implication for learning
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3.5.1 For listening
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3.5.2 For intonation
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3.6 Limitation of the experiment
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3.7 Further research
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3.8 Conclusion
References
Appendices
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Abstract
Listening is very important skill for language. We always listen someone’s speaking
and responding when we communicate. However, we have not so much time for practice
listening in our English class at school. We usually practice for reading or writing. Many
students miss the chances to practice listening, so they cannot understand fluently from
listening. To understand fluently, students should familiar with pronunciation. Among many
kinds of pronunciation, intonation can help our understanding smoothly. This thesis ask how
does the intonation affected to comprehension, and how we improve our listening
comprehension.
In Chapter One, we look at the listening, pronunciation, comprehension and
relationship among them. In the comprehension section, we see that native speaker make
groups of words to understand; and intonation is important for making groups of words.
In Chapter Two, we find how much subjects can understand with and without
intonation in the experiments. There are interesting data between with and without intonation
and the subjects who are in English Department or not.
In Chapter Three, we discuss result of the data in detail from the experiment; answer
the research questions. According to the experiment, the subjects who learn English longer
can understand fluently from listening, and others cannot. So finally, we look at how to
improve English teaching at class for Japanese students.
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Chapter One: The aspects of pronunciation
1. Introduction
Today, more and more Japanese people learn English as a second language, because
now that English is recognized as a kind of universal language so the government decided to
have English class at elementary school. The demand for English will become much higher,
and we should make our English skill better.
“It is found that among the four language skills, the most frequently used skill in the
course of a day in adult life is listening (42%), followed by speaking (32%), reading (15%)
and writing (11%)” (Flowerdew, 1994). So, listening is very important skill in our daily life.
However, when we study English at school, we may focus on grammar, vocabulary, and
reading, because one of our aims for studying English is to pass the test, like entrance
examinations. “The teaching of language should be aimed to acquire the skill of
communication, but Japanese people are taught English for examination.”(Watanabe, 1994) It
is important for us to learn English not only for examinations but also living English.
Many people may think that to acquire the pronunciation is difficult. The
pronunciation of English and Japanese are so different in many ways. However, if we acquire
good pronunciation, we can communicate in English smoothly. We also understand the
speakers feeling and true meaning. So, how does pronunciation affects communication?
2
1.2 Listening
1.2.1. Six listening process stages
There are six basic stages of the listening process: hearing, attending, understanding,
remembering, evaluating, and responding. (articlesfactory.com website, October, 2012)
1.2.1.1. Hearing
Hearing is to listening to sounds or others speaking. This response is caused by sound
waves stimulating the sensory receptors of the ear. Hearing is a physical response and
perception of sound waves. For example, we can hear of someone calling us by sound wave.
e.g.) A: “Robert! Mr. Smith is calling you.”
1.2.1.2. Attending
In this stage, we pay attention only to a certain amount of the sounds we hear. he
brain sifts out a little information to come into focus- these selective perception is known as
attention, an important requirement for effective listening; strong stimulation like bright lights,
sudden noise are easy to pay attention to. Attention to more commonplace or less striking
stimulation requires special effort. For example, when we hear someone’s calling, we pay
attention to the speaker.
e.g.) A: “Robert! Mr. Smith is calling you.”
3
In this text, Robert pays attention to what the person A saying.
1.2.1.3. Understanding
This stage is to understand what we heard, where we must analyze the meaning of
the stimulation we perceive. The stimulations are not only words but also sounds like hand
clapping and sights like blue uniform that have symbolic meanings as well. The meanings
attached to these symbols are a function of our past associations and of the context in which
the symbols occur; for successful interpersonal communication, the listener must understand
the intended meaning and the context assumed by the sender.
e.g.) A: “Robert! Mr. Smith is calling you.”
In this text, Robert understand that what the person A saying about.
1.2.1.4. Remembering
This stage is important in the listening process because it means that an individual
has not only received and translated a message but has also added it to the mind’s long term
memory. However, our remembering and memory are dependent on what kinds of attentions
are selected. What is remembered may be quite different from what was originally seen or
heard.
e.g.) A: “Robert! Mr. Smith is calling you.”
4
In this text, Robert memorizes the meaning that he is called and who calls him.
1.2.1.5. Evaluation
In this stage, we build our own opinion about what we have heard, paid attention to
and understood. We decide what to remember and whether we feel positive, neutral or
negative about it.
e.g.) A: “Robert! Mr. Smith is calling you.”
In this text, Robert feel positive or negative feeling like “What’s up?” or “Didn’t I do
something bad?”
1.2.1.6. Responding
In this stage, we will have to react to what we have heard and paid attention to. In a
conversation, we could either respond verbally (with words) or non-verbally (body language,
facial expressions). We can check whether we understood the speaker by asking questions or
we could give feedback on what we have heard. If you do not respond, the communication
usually stops.
e.g.) A: “Robert! Mr. Smith is calling you.”
R: “Ok, I’ll come soon.”
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1.2.2 The difficulties of listening
According to Negishi (1992), there are two cases of feeling difficulties of listening;
“Text can be understood though difficult to understand in listening”, and “Text cannot be
understood and difficult in listening too”.
In the case of “Text can be understood though difficult to understand in listening”,
some reasons can be considered. Some phonemes connect and make unknowing sound, or
listener cannot remember the meaning momently and keep up with the listening speed.
Sometimes, we cannot notice the drop sound like “t”, or assimilation like “going to” become
“gonna”.
In the case of “Text cannot be understood and difficult in listening too”, there are
some reasons too. Listeners do not know the words, expressions, knowledge of grammar, or
background of the text will be affected. This is relationship between comprehension and
schema. For example, when we understand the text, the theme which we know already is
much easier to understand. On the other hand, the theme which we do not know is hard to
understand though the text’s grammar and words are easy.
Other view of listening difficulties, Underwood (1989) gave three views about it.
(Kaneko, Hasegawa, 2007)
1.
Lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak.
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Speaking by native speaker is so fast that we could not catch up with the speed.
2.
Not being able to get things repeated.
In listening test, we cannot listen again. So, if a listener could not catch a part, he
might not be able to understand all.
3.
The listener’s limited vocabulary.
If we have less vocabulary, we could not understand what the speaker saying
though we could catch the sounds.
As we see these things, it seems that the best text for listening is “listener mostly
can understand by reading the text, and listener can guess by the prerequisite knowledge”.
Moreover, the listener should store vocabularies and practice for listening.
1.3 Comprehension
1.3.1 How to comprehend?
In the mechanism of reading and listening, the most efficient way is interaction.
There are two kind of explanation about interaction. (Grabe, 1991) One of them is interaction
of bottom up and top down, which is the way of working some skills at the same time. The
other is interaction of language process and recognition process, which is insisted as
interaction of schema and context. (Kadota, 2007) We always think with bottom up, top down,
schema and context. The bottom up system use context and the top down system use schema.
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For example, when we read or listen to some contexts, we use bottom up system to
understand, and then, use top down system and schema to understand or expect with other
information in our mind. We look at the system of bottom up, top down, and schema more
deeply.
1.3.1.1. Bottom up
Bottom up system is the way of processing which we recognize some letters or
sounds first, and then understand the meaning. This system leads us understanding only with
the letters and sounds we get, but with working about supposition and inspection in one’s
mind.
Activities that formally introduce new vocabulary and word-study exercises will
contribute a great deal to student’s repertoires of familiar words. However, knowledge of
vocabulary is not enough to make students good listeners; they must also be able to use syntax
to help them recognize the relationships among the words they have heard and to retain
utterances in memory long enough to understand them. Formal exercises focusing on the
recognition of syntactic structures are essential to the development of this skill. Thus,
knowledge of the vocabulary is not enough to understand the meaning, and pronunciation
help us to find syntactic structures. (Wang, 2004)
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1.3.1.2. Top down
Top down system is way of processing which we build up a hypothesis about the
context choosing information and inspect the hypothesis using schema and script as a
background knowledge. In this way, we cannot catch the writer’s real intention to understand
only the meaning of words.
The efficient way of comprehension is not to understand all of the information, but to
choose only a few essential key of understanding, expect, and inspect the hypothesis with
reading. (Goodman, 1970)
There are three main benefits if students get some information before they listen to.
First, an introduction helps students to recall any information that they may already know
about the topic, either from personal experience or other reading or listening. If the students
keep this knowledge in mind as they listen, they increase their opportunities to make sense of
the information they find in the listening material.
Second, getting the students to start to
think about the topic should increase their interest in the topic and thereby motivate them to
listen to the material. Third, if the introduction activity is conducted in the target language, it
will also review or introduce the relevant vocabulary for the topic. Pictures, photographs and
brainstorming in this stage can also help to make listening comprehension in the main
listening stage much easier for the students. (Wang, 2004) These are the same as when we
solve the problem in Japanese. It is easier for us to solve if there is an introduction.
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1.3.1.3. Schema
Schema processing is a expecting the meaning of a context using relevant
information database, which is the information listener have in their mind such as common
sense or knowledge about specific area. (Kadota, 2007) Schema is a kind of saving
information in our mind. We hear some words like “Snow”, “December”, “Present”, “Santa
Clause”, and we can expect “Christmas”.
Here are some determinations of schema mentioned by Rumelhart & Ortony (1977).
1. Schema is made from some variable. For example, think the notion of “buy”. It
contains the variable of “seller”, “buyer”, “goods”, and “money”.
2. One schema consist a hierarchy, because a schema can be connected with other
schemas. For example, the schema for “face” contains subschemas like “eye”, “nose”, “mouth”
and “ear”; and these subschemas contain lower subschemas. For example, a schema “eye”
contains subschema of “eye brow”, or “eyelash”.
3. Schema can express various levels of abstract general terms. For example, the
schemas, which contain name of things or properties as variables like verb schema “buy” or
“face schema”, or another schema, which express continuity of action like “restaurant
schema”, reflect the different levels of abstraction.
4. Schema does not have any strict determination, but is considered to express
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normal and typical knowledge like encyclopedia, and to be flexibility. Besides, schema can be
different depending on a reader’s cultural background. When we can understand the content, it
is familiar with his cultural background smoothly. However, we may misunderstanding the
content, which is unfamiliar, because we have own cultural schema which deferent from the
schema of content.
When we understand the context, we need many background knowledge, which is
like grammar knowledge, social knowledge, cultural knowledge, specific knowledge and so
on. Carrell & Eisterhold insisted that learner’s input is promoted by mapping with new
information and schema that the learner already has. (Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983, 1984).
Carrell et al studied which top down process and bottom up process is more efficient to
comprehension, but the interaction is much more efficient. (Carrell et al, 1988)
1.4 Pronunciation
There are several aspects of pronunciation. In order to study how something works it
is often useful to break it down into its constituent parts. The following diagram shows a
breakdown of the main features of pronunciation. In the next section we will look at each
aspect in detail.
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Teaching pronunciation consists of two fields
Phonemes
Vowels
Suprasegmental features
Consonants
Accent
Intonation
1.4.1 Phonemes
The phoneme any one of the set of smallest units of speech in a language that distinguish one
word from another. (Oxford English Dictionary) As we know, Japanese has 5 vowels (/a/, /i/, /u/, /e/,
/o/) and 14 consonants (/k/, /s/, /t/, /h/ /ɡ/, /z/, /d/, /b/ /p/ /n/, /m/, /r/ /j/, /w/). We make sounds
with only vowels or one consonants ＋ one vowel. On the contrary in English, it has
21vowels and 24 consonants. English sounds are made up not only of vowel ＋ consonant,
but also consonant ＋ consonants can be made. For example, rhythm is made by only
consonants; but when Japanese people say this word as Japanese English, it becomes ri-zu-mu.
This is one of the reasons that “Japanese English” is difficult for native speaker.
1.4.2. Accent
Accent is one way of emphasizing the stress in words. It is the term we use to
describe the point in a word or phrase where pitch changes, vowels lengthen, and volume
increases. When we say qualify, banana, and understand, we try to say them as QUAlify,
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baNAna, and underSTAND. All of them have three identifiable syllables, and one of the
syllables in each word will sound louder than the others. (Gerald, 2000)
The place of accent can help tells us the parts of speech like noun or verb and
meaning. The noun has a stress on the first syllable and the verb has a stress on the second
syllable. For the sake of simple presentation we will put accents over the normal written form.
Thus we write i’nsult (noun) and insu’lt (verb). People tend to think of stress as being a matter
of loudness, but higher pitch plays a part too in the realization of stress at least in most
varieties of English. (Blake, 2008)
1.4.3. Rhythm
Language has a rhythm. Rhythm is a pattern which we feel some prominent element
(stress in English, mora in Japanese, syllable in Spanish) at regular intervals. In English,
syllables appearing which have stress at regular interval makes rhythm. (Nishihara, Matsubara,
Nanjyo, Toyoshima, Takahashi, 2005)
1.4.4. Intonation
“By intonation we mean the rise and fall of the pitch the voice when we speak”
(Armstrong & Ward, 1931)
This is said to be the general determinant of intonation.
According to Watanabe, Kenyon (1950), Kurath (1964), Catford (1988) had almost the same
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explanation.
“The term intonation refers to the way the voice goes up and down in pitch when we
are speaking. It is a fundamental part of the way we express our own thoughts and it enables
us to understand those of others. It is an aspect of language that we are very sensitive to, but
mostly at an unconscious level. We perceive intonation, understand it and use it without
having to examine the intricacies of everything we say or hear.” (Gerald, 2000) We can see
that intonation is important for understanding the expression of others and thoughts. To see
intonation, there are 2 kinds of sound in language, segmental sounds and prosodic sounds.
1.4.4.1. Segmental sounds
Segmental sounds are the smallest unit of sound like vowels and consonants. For
example, there are three segments in cat, /k/, /æ/, /t/. It is difficult for Japanese learner in
segmental sounds to distinguish consonants like /r/ and /l/, /b/ and /v/.
1.4.4.2. Prosodic sounds
Prosodic sounds are like stress, pitch, duration, and intonation. People do not always
understand what others saying by words, but by passages or dialogue. “Generally, the changes
of prosodic sounds affect comprehension of meaning much more than segmental
sounds.”(Kadota, 2007)
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1.5 Pronunciation and comprehension
Pronunciation has some aspects like accent, rhythm and intonation, and we see that
pronunciation is important to catch information and understand the expression and thoughts of
speakers. We look at the relationship between pronunciation and comprehension.
1.5.1 Relationship between listening and comprehension.
Tenma (1989) explained comprehension by listening and reading, “People
understand the passage by chunking some groups of words into settled unit which make
meaning. Thus, people store a unit including the words, which have strong and important
connection of meaning, into a temporary working memory, and construct the meaning
considering the context before and after the unit” We can see that people do not understand
the passage from each word, but each unit; and when we speak or listen the passage,
intonation makes the units.” (Oishi, 2006) According to this, intonation tells us the settled
units of words and helps us to understand by each unit.
Moreover, Brown and Yule (1983) suggested that when a speaker speaks in English
to someone, who is a native speaker of English, the listeners tries to find out the intensions of
what the speaker want to say. The listeners do not always understand and memorize all of
what speakers say, but they chose the information along their interests, and make a mental
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model of what they say. (Oishi, 2006) According to this, people always try to catch the
intonation and understand the meaning or what the speaker want to say.
1.5.2. Relationship between pronunciation and comprehension.
Pronunciation has some features like accent, rhythm and intonation, and we see that
pronunciation is important to catch information and understand the expression and thoughts of
speakers. So, which has the strongest connection with comprehension?
There are three mentions about pronunciation and speaker’s intention.
a. “It is necessary to invoke accent as a focus of interest.” (Bolinger, 1985)
b. “Sentence accents are, it could be argued, placed on words that the speaker
considers sufficiently important for them to have accents.” (Gussenhoven, 1983)
c. “Sentence accents are the expression of the speaker’s communicative intentions.”
(Gussenhoven, 1985)
It means that we say words with accents if we have some interests, information, feelings and
intentions. These accents were put and make intonation in sentences. So, to catch the accents
and feel the intonation is the key of understanding what the speaker’s true intentions of
saying.
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1.5.3. Relationship between intonation and comprehension.
According to Brown and Yule (1983), listeners consider the speaker’s intension first
in their native language. In the perspective of listening like speech, listeners do not memorize
all of the words, but they choose the information according to their interests and make mental
model in their own way or style, to collect information.
Whether the intonation rises or falls, it depends on the speaker’s intensions and it
changed the meaning of the passage. So, in order to understand the meaning correctly by
intonation, people should have common understanding. To see these points, intonation does
not change obscurely, but it has constant pattern. (Watanabe, 1994) We can see that native
speakers already know when intonation rises up or falls down in their mother tongue, they
understand the meaning and intensions of speaker. So intonation is one of the very important
tools of comprehension for native speaker. Conversely speaking, if there is a few or no
intonation, it may difficult to understand what the speaker says.
1.6. Research question
We can see that intonation is important for understand what people say for native
speaker of English. However, Japanese pronunciation has different intonation from English
one. So, this thesis will research how different comprehension is for Japanese learners who
learn English as a second language with and without intonation.
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1 How can much Japanese learners understand with and without intonation?
2 Is intonation important for Japanese learners?
3 What is efficient for listening comprehension?
1.7 Summary
Listening, which is very complex process, is one of the most important skills in
language learning. We have seen how humans comprehend language and why pronunciation
is important for understanding what they hear. When we listen, we do not catch all of the
words, but we choose the information only we need or being interested. Also, when we
choose information, to chunk some groups is easier to understand. Thus, pronunciation is
important for our comprehension in listening. In Chapter Two, we will look at the experiment,
and find out the importance of intonation.
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Chapter 2; the experiment
2.1 Introduction
In chapter one, we see that the pronunciation has some kinds, and the importance of
them. Especially, intonation is much important to understand what the speaker saying. In this
chapter, we look at how much important of intonation is for comprehension.
2.2 The Experiment
2.2.1 Introduction to the experiment
The aim of this experiment is how much people can understand the story with and
without intonation. Some Japanese people read English text without intonation. This is
because of the Japanese pronunciation. Japanese people always speak Japanese not to change
pitch widely. So, Japanese people get used to listening monotonous intonation. However,
English has widely pitch and extreme changing intonation on the contrary. We listen to
spoken English by CD, TV, radio, native speaker and English learner with typical English
intonation. Though Japanese people get used to listening monotonous intonation, extreme
changing intonation must have an effect when we listen to English and understand the
content.
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In this experiment, there are two kinds of tape. One tape is recorded the speech of a
story with intonation at first and without intonation in the later half. The other one is opposite,
it is recorded the speech of a story without intonation at first and with intonation in the later
half. The subjects listen to the speech and take the comprehension test.
2.2.2 Method
1) Subject
34 Japanese were subjects in this experiment. 21 people are students of English
department at Notre Dome Seishin University and five people are other department students.
The age of them is 18-24. All of them study English at least six years at high school and
junior high school.
2) Test design
Tapes were separated to group A and B. The content of the story is a part of “Little
Princess” from Oxford Bookworms Library. It takes two minutes and 30 seconds and 412
words, so 164.8 words per minute. Tape A was recorded with intonation in a first half (text
1), and without intonation in a second half (text 2). Tape B was recorded without intonation in
a first half (text 1), and with intonation in a second half (text 2). The speaker was a native
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speaker. The subjects listened to the story and then took comprehension test. The
comprehension test had 10 questions. Questions were one to five from a first half, and six to
ten from a second half. All of the questions had three choices. Here are some examples.
1. For who is this big party held?
For Miss Minchin / For all the girls at school / For Sara
2. Who’s lawyer is the visitor to the school?
Miss Minchin / Sara / Sara’s father
6. According to Miss Minchin, where does Sara have to go?
Street / Lesson / Party
7. What color of dress does Sara ware?
Black / Blue / Red
3) Procedure
These data were taken from students of Notre Dame Seishin University and other
University students like Okayama University. The subjects were separated in two groups A
and B. The subjects in group A listened with intonation first, and without intonation in the
second. The subjects in group B listened without intonation first, and with intonation in the
second. After the subjects finished listening to the tape, they took comprehension test
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immediately. Then the data were put in Excel and calculated them.
Rotated design
A
B
Text 1 (the first half)
With intonation
Without intonation
Text 2 (the second half)
Without intonation
With intonation
2.2.3 Results
First, we look at the data of Group A and B, and how the score was different. Then,
we will find what kind of information can the subjects understand or cannot understand.
(a) Comprehension data
Table 1 was total the data from the experiment. The subjects listened to the tape with
intonation at first, and then, listened to without intonation in Group A; and the Group B was
the opposite. The average of correct answer was 43 percent. We could see that Text 1 was
higher score than Text 2 in both Group A and B. The percentage of correct answer in Text 1
was 56 percent; in Text 2 was 30 percent and 46%. The difference between Text 1 and 2 was
26 percent in Group A and 16% in Group B.
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Table 1 Comprehension scores by group with or without intonation
Group A
Group B
Text 1 (With)
Text 2
(Without)
Text 1
(Without)
Text 2 (With)
Average
2.8
1.5
2.8
2.3
Percentage
56%
30%
56%
46%
Subject
Percentage
43%
51%
(Max = 5)
To see this data, the score of Text 1 has no different between with and without
intonation. However, the score of Text 2 has a 16% of difference.
(b) Question difficulty
Table 2 shows that which questions are more difficult to understand. Question
number 4, 6 and 7 is low score both group A and B. So, the test score is lower in Text 2 than
Text 1. Text 2 might be more difficult than Text1, so the sore of Text 2 is lower. Question
number Two, Three and Six are higher in without intonation.
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Table 2 The percentage of correct answer in each question
Group A % correct
Group B % correct
Question 1
70%
29%
2
82%
100%
3
29%
64%
4
23%
11%
5
76%
70%
1-5 Average (Text 1)
56%
56%
6
35%
23%
7
11%
11%
8
23%
58%
9
41%
70%
10
41%
70%
6-10 Average (Text 2)
30%
46%
(c) Difference between the two groups
Compare the Group A and B, there was no difference about the score in Text 1.
However, there was 16% of difference in Text 2. Moreover, the higher score in Text 2 was
Group B, which is without intonation.
To see about the subjects, the percentage of the subjects in English Department were
88%, and others were 12% in Group A. The subjects in English Department were 65%, and
others were 35% in Group B. So, Group A has more subjects, who are in the English
Department. However, Group B is higher in the test score.
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(d) The listening level of the subjects by Department
In the case of this experiment, some are in English department at Seishin University,
but others are not. Everyone study English at least six years in their junior high school and
high school, but after they graduate, the subjects who are not in English Department will have
opportunity to study English only a few. In the experiment, 21 subjects are in English
Department at Seishin University, and 13 subjects are other department students and do not
study English more than English Department students. Table 4 is comparing the score of
subjects who in English Department or not.
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Table 3 The score of the subjects who are in English department and others.
English
department
others
Subject
with
without
with
without
1
5
1
3
4
2
3
2
0
0
3
4
2
2
2
4
3
2
4
3
5
2
0
1
0
6
4
2
1
2
7
3
4
1
4
8
4
1
2
3
9
3
0
2
2
10
3
1
1
3
11
3
0
0
3
12
1
1
0
3
13
1
1
1
2
14
3
1
15
3
4
16
0
2
17
3
3
18
4
3
19
4
3
20
2
1
21
3
4
Sum
61
38
18
31
Average
2.9
1.8
1.3
2.3
percentage
58%
36%
26%
46%
percentage
47%
37%
To see this table, there is not so big difference between subjects who are in English
Department or not, or rather, the subjects who are not in English Department got higher score.
In addition, compare with and without intonation, the subjects who are in English Department
26
got higher score with than without intonation. However, the subjects who are not in English
Department got higher score without than with intonation.
Table 4 The score of the subjects who are in English department and others in group A and B
Group A
English
Department
Group B
The other
Text 1
Text 2
Text 1
(with)
(without)
(with)
Sum
45
22
3
4
Average
3
1.5
1.5
Percentage.
60%
30%
30%
subjects
Text 2
English
Department
Text 1
The other
Text 2
Text 1
Text 2
(with)
(without)
(with)
15
16
28
14
2
2.5
2.6
2.5
1.2
40%
50%
52%
50%
24%
(without) (without)
We will see this data in detail more. Table 6 is divided table 5 into Group A and B.
There are two differences about them. The subjects who in Group A got lower score in Text 2.
So, it means that it is difficult for them to understand without intonation. We can see that
Group B has more subjects who are not in English department, and Group A has less. Group A
has more skillful person and Group B in not. Therefore, skillful person includes native
speaker will not be able to understand well without intonation. The other things, the subjects
who are in Group B got higher score in without intonation. As we see that Group B has more
subjects who are not in English Department. It might be because that these subjects caught the
sounds, but did not understand. We saw the listening process in Chapter 1, and there was a
border between attending and understanding. So, the reason why they got higher score in
27
without intonation might be said that the subjects could not understand, but they could answer
the question based on what they heard though they did not understand.
When we listen, only to catch the word is no mean. We have to understand the
meaning of the sounds. We saw the relationship between listening and comprehension, and
pronunciation and comprehension in Chapter 1, to make chunks is easy to understand and
pronunciation includes intonation help to understand what the speaker says. The subjects, who
are not in English Department, might try to catch the sounds of words and not to make chunks,
but the subjects, who are in the English Department, might get used to make chunks and
understand by the group of words. To understand, making chunks is easier. So, in Group A,
which has more skillful person, the subjects got higher score with intonation.
(e) The individual data by question
We can see from Table 2, that that number Two and Five are easier, on the other hand,
number Four and Seven are more difficult. The average of correct answer in Text 1 is 57
percent, and in text 2 is 32 percent.
The Questions number Two, Three, and Six are higher in without intonation. So, let’s
look at them specifically.
Question Two is the easiest question; 31/34 people can answer correctly, and all of
them choose correct in group B. The Question is here.
28
2. Who’s lawyer is the visitor to the school?
Miss Minchin / Sara / Sara’s father
In Group A, subjects, who choose incorrect answer, choose “Sara” (two subjects) and “Sara’s
father” (one subject). I guess that two subjects choose “Sara”, because they may find that Sara
is main character of this story. The subject, who choose “Sara’s father”, may have schema that
parents will employ a lawyer; because adults employ a lawyer is natural case at least in Japan.
So, they may choose incorrect answer.
Question Three, 16/34 people can get correct answer. Compare the results of Group A
and B, the subjects Group B people get correct more than Group A. The question is here.
3. Why was Miss Minchin not happy?
The party is expensive / Sara has no money / The party is noisy
16/34 people can get correct answers. However, 12/34 of the people choose “The party is
expensive”; 7/17 in Group A and 5/17 in Group B. This is because the passage “‘This party is
expensive for us,’ Miss Minchin said to her sister Amelia”; the subjects may misunderstand
the reason of Miss Minchin’s anger.
Question Six is here.
6. According to Miss Minchin, where does Sara have to go?
Street / Lesson / Party
10/34 people got correct answers; 6 in Group A and 4 in Group B. In this question, 19/34
29
people chose “Party”; 9 in Group A and 10 in Group B. This question’s situation, Sara wares a
blue dress and birthday party was held. So, many people might have schema of connection
among birthday and dress and “Party”. On the other hand, three people in Group B chose
“Lesson”. The reason of their choosing it might they know that this story’s location was
school and the characters had their lessons at there.
Which is better score with or without intonation? Table 1 shows the average score of
the experiment. Compare with and without intonation, we see that with intonation is higher.
(With intonation in Text A and B; 2.8＋2.3＝5.1, Without intonation in Text A and B; 2.8 ＋
1.5＝4.3) So, intonation do not a little affect comprehension.
2.3 Summary
We saw the experiment and its result, and find that without intonation was higher
than with intonation in Group B. We will see why it happens and what is important for
listening comprehension in chapter Three.
30
Chapter 3: Discussion of the experiment
3.1 Introduction
In the Chapter One, we saw that aspects of listening, pronunciation, and
comprehension, and relationship among them. We found that pronunciation, especially
intonation must be important for our comprehension. In the chapter two, the experiment was
taken to find out the importance of intonation. In this chapter, we will look at the analysis of
experiments carefully.
3.2 Summary of the results
In the experiments, the subjects listened to the tape of with and without intonation.
The result of this, the score of with intonation is higher than without in Group A, but the score
of without intonation is higher in Group B. This is different from hypothesis that with
intonation is much higher than without. However, compare with and without intonation in two
groups, with intonation is higher. So, intonation does not a little affect comprehension.
However, much other reason must be affect.
3.3 Discussion of the results
The hypothesis “Pronunciation will be very important for communication, and
31
intonation will be much helpful for our comprehension.” is different from the result of the
experiment. It is sure that with intonation is important, but there is not so big difference.
3.3.1. The importance of listening for communication.
We have not so much time for listening in class, but listening is much more important
skill for communication. In this experiment, the subjects got around half score though the text
is easy for reading. So, the school should have more teaching for listening not only for
examination, but also for communication. Also, teaching materials will be important. We
often have CDs, which are attachment for text book. However, the speed of CD sounds is too
slow. The speed of CD sounds should be faster for the upper grades students at least the speed
level for listening test of entrance examination or TOEIC.
3.3.2. The importance of pronunciation.
3.3.2.1. The importance of teaching intonation in class
When we are listening, many people may concentrate to catch the words one by one.
However, only to catch the word is not the same meaning as understand what the speaker said.
It is important and easy to understand with making chunks as we saw 1.4.1 in Chapter 1.
When we hear our first language, we always make chunks; and that is easier to understand. So,
32
teachers should teach intonation in his class; and intonation leads better comprehension.
3.3.3. The importance for communication.
According to the results of this experiment, there is not such a big difference between
with and without intonation. However, the subjects who belong to the English department got
higher scores in with intonation, and lower without intonation. Of course, native speakers live
with English with intonation. In this experiment, the subjects who are in English Department
and the others can be change in the wording native speaker and Japanese speaker. If Japanese
people speak without intonation, native speaker must be confused. So, when we speak to
native speaker or skillful people, speaking with correct intonation makes communication
smoother.
3.4 Answering the research questions
The research questions for this thesis were
1 How much can Japanese learners understand with and without intonation?
2 Is intonation important for Japanese learners?
3 What is efficient for listening comprehension?
33
3.4.1 How much can Japanese learners understand with and without intonation?
Comparing the score of with and without intonation in this experiment, the score of
with intonation is 42%, and the score of without intonation is 41%. All of them get around
40%. So, there is not so big difference between with and without intonation for Japanese
learners.
3.4.2. Is intonation important for Japanese learners?
There is very interesting result in the experiment. The subjects who learn English
more than usual people got higher score in with intonation. However, the subjects who do not
learn English after they graduate from high school got higher score in without intonation.
3.4.3. What is efficient for listening comprehension?
As our hypothesis, intonation will be much helpful for our comprehension. In this
experiment, we could not see it clearly, but the subjects who are in English Department and
the others have decisive difference the way of comprehension. The subjects who are in
English Department tried to make chunks and understand with the group of words. Surely,
intonation is helpful for them to comprehend the text. On the contrary, the subjects who are
not in English Department try to catch the word and answer the question, without
understanding by any chances. Therefore, it is efficient for making better comprehension to
34
learn intonation and practice understanding with chunks.
3.5 Implications for learning
The data suggest that the teaching, we were taken at the school, is not enough for
listening and intonation skill for comprehension. We should practice listening more; and the
practice should be with intonation.
3.5.1. For listening
From the above, we can see that students should try to find out about their listening
skills. Listening skill will be different for each listener. However, how we measure the
listening skill? Rzadkiewicz (2012) explains that the determining how well we actually listen.
1.
Identify your listening style. Are you an active listener or a passive listener?
According to Verderber (2012), active listeners make a conscious effort to understand what is
being at the time, afterward they can paraphrase what they heard. In contrast, passive listeners
are unable to recall what the other person said, except for bits and pieces. So, in order to
measure your listening skills, after a conversation let them write and see just how much they
can recall of what the other person said.
2.
Check your message comprehension. Gordon (2012) says that good listeners
"try to understand what the sender's message means or what the sender is feeling." Therefore,
35
in order to measure your listening skills, ask the speaker if you correctly interpreted his
feelings.
3.
Evaluate your resistance to distractions. People are easily distracted when
they're supposed to be listening. They're distracted by both external and internal noise.
External refers not to only actual sounds (music, chatter, traffic noise) but also things like
room temperature (too hot or too cold) or a distracting smell. Internal refers to things like
physical discomfort (hunger pangs, headache), preoccupation with other matters and
daydreaming. Therefore, ask yourself if you're allowing yourself to be distracted by either
external or internal noise.
4.
Determine your attention to nonverbal clues. According to Verdeber (2012) ,
people can interpret a sender's message more accurately by "observing the nonverbal
behaviors accompanying the words." Nonverbal behaviors include tone of voice, facial
expressions and body gestures; and these nonverbal behaviors provide listeners with insight
into what a speaker really means compared to what they might "think" the speaker means.
Therefore, pay attention to the speaker's body language, make a mental note of your
observations and then ask him if you "read" him correctly.
5. Test your listening skills. In order to ascertain just how well you listen, have a
friend tell you about his typical workday, for example: what time he clocks in for work, the
names of his supervisors and/or coworkers, his morning schedule, what time he goes to lunch,
36
his afternoon schedule and what time he clocks out. Next, have him ask you questions about
his workday, write down your answers and assign each question a point value. Finally, review
the questions with your friend, see how many you answered correctly and then score yourself.
In this experiment, the subjects did not write their own about the story, so we could
not see the listening skill in determination one. In determination two, it would not be catch in
the story. The story is short and there are not so many emotional feelings. In determination
three, it might be no internal distraction, but they could have some external distraction. In
determination four, we have no nonverbal communication, only listening. In determination
five, it probably examined in this experiment. The subjects answered what happened in the
story though they chose the answer. Therefore, to check the subjects listening skill,
determination five is the most influential in this experiment.
3.5.2. For intonation
We saw the intonation for comprehension. If we could comprehend like native
speaker, we could understand easily and communicate more smoothly. However, our English
class at school, teaching for intonation is only a little. Here are some strategies by Jeremy
(2011).
1.
Play a game. The concept of intonation can be hard, but students are quick to
know what’s wrong when they’re listening for it. So, create a dialogue and then
37
and read it for the class. Read some lines of the dialogue with the wrong
intonation. Have the students note which ones are wrong. The person/ team that
correctly identifies all the wrong intonation wins.
2.
Dialogue Tree Lots of times, you can use rising or falling intonation, but the
meaning changes. (For example: “I bought a car” –vs– “I bought a car?”.) Have
the students write a dialogue on some theme. Every third line, they should write
two possible replies—one with rising and one with falling intonation—and then
continue on writing both dialogues. Make the dialogues short or they’ll run out
of paper quickly.
3.
I only go up Give the students a discussion topic, but tell them one partner can
only use rising intonation. (So, one partner will need to ask lots of one word
questions.) They should discuss the question for two minutes and then switch.
4.
Identify the weakness and make it go away Do your students have trouble with
some specific intonation pattern? If so, force them to practice it in creative ways.
For starters, they should write dialogues that use the pattern. Then give them
discussion questions that use the pattern or discussion questions that might elicit
the pattern for the answer.
5.
Just the intonation, please After students write a dialogue ask them to label it in
a way that will let them know the intonation patterns. (For examples, they can
38
put and “up” or “down” arrow on each word. Then, they should cross out all the
words and read the dialogue without words. They can just make neutral sounds
(e.g. grunts) or hum the sentences.
In this experiment, we found that Japanese students are not familiar with intonation.
Teachers should have more chance to listening, and understand with intonation.
3.6 Limitations of the experiment
We got some finding in this experiment, but we can improve the test more. First, the
number of the subjects was small and the ration of the subjects who are in English
Department or not is not the same. We should gather more subjects and around same ration.
So, we could get more exact data. In this experiment, the subjects listened without prepare for
listening in English like explaining about the experiment in English. It will ease their tension
to listen. Moreover, if there is some explaining about the story before the subjects listen, it is
easy for them to understand the story.
3.7 Further research
Through the experiments, we found the importance of listening skill and
understanding with intonation. One thing, we can ask some questioner about the subjects
studying of English. For example, how much they took time for listening practice, how much
39
they mind intonation when they read the text.
We should know the actual condition of teaching English at school and which
teaching style is efficient for listening and comprehension, and find the better way of
improving.
3.8 Conclusion
We looked at about listening and pronunciation especially intonation. We found that
intonation is important to understand for people who learn English more, and Japanese
teaching until high school is not enough for listening to understand smoothly.
Pronunciation is efficient for listening comprehension, especially for native speaker
and skillful people. The Japanese learner should rise to a level like those people. However,
English teaching in Japanese school is mostly for entrance examination, so listening and
speaking are postponed. Listening skill should be more practiced. The subjects who are not in
English department may do not understand well. It means that the high school students could
not understand what the speaker said though they could hear the sounds and words. Japanese
teaching should be more listening; not only too slow CD but also faster one like native
speaker to get used to the speed; and not only listen to Japanese speaker’s pronunciation but
also native speaker’s one and get used to understand with making chunks.
Better listening and pronunciation makes easier understand. The better understanding,
40
the more communication goes smoothly. We study reading mainly at school for some tests.
However, we should study English for communication. To practice listening and get used to
understand with pronunciation make much easier communication.
41
Reference
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44
講談社
Appendices
Table 1 Full data
Group A
Group B
Subjects
Text 1
(With)
Text 2
(Without)
Text 1
(Without)
Text 2
(With)
1
3
1
4
1
2
1
1
3
3
3
3
0
2
0
4
3
1
3
4
5
3
0
4
3
6
3
2
3
4
7
4
1
2
2
8
5
1
3
4
9
1
1
1
0
10
4
2
1
2
11
3
4
3
0
12
4
2
2
1
13
3
2
3
0
14
0
0
3
1
15
3
4
2
2
16
2
0
3
2
17
3
4
2
1
Sum
48
26
48
40
Average
2.8
1.5
2.8
2.3
Percentage
56%
30%
56%
46%
Percentage
43%
51%
45
Table 2 The percentage of correct answer in each question
Group A % correct
Group B % correct
Question 1
70%
29%
2
82%
100%
3
29%
64%
4
23%
11%
5
76%
70%
1-5 Average (Text 1)
56%
56%
6
35%
23%
7
11%
11%
8
23%
58%
9
41%
70%
10
41%
70%
6-10 Average (Text 2)
30%
46%
46
Table 3 The score of the subjects who are in English department and others.
English
department
others
Subject
with
without
with
without
1
5
1
3
4
2
3
2
0
0
3
4
2
2
2
4
3
2
4
3
5
2
0
1
0
6
4
2
1
2
7
3
4
1
4
8
4
1
2
3
9
3
0
2
2
10
3
1
1
3
11
3
0
0
3
12
1
1
0
3
13
1
1
1
2
14
3
1
15
3
4
16
0
2
17
3
3
18
4
3
19
4
3
20
2
1
21
3
4
Sum
61
38
18
31
Average
2.9
1.8
1.3
2.3
percentage
58%
36%
26%
46%
percentage
47%
37%
47
Table 4 The score of the subjects who are in English department and others in group A and B
Group A
English
Department
Group B
The other
Text 1
Text 2
Text 1
(with)
(without)
(with)
Sum
45
22
3
4
Average
3
1.5
1.5
Percentage.
60%
30%
30%
subjects
Text 2
English
Department
Text 1
Text 2
Text 1
Text 2
(with)
(without)
(with)
15
16
28
14
2
2.5
2.6
2.5
1.2
40%
50%
52%
50%
24%
(without) (without)
48
The other
The question for the experiment
1. For who is this big party held?
For Miss Minchin / For all the girls at school / For Sara
2. Who’s lawyer is the visitor to the school?
Miss Minchin / Sara / Sara’s father
3. Why was Miss Minchin not happy?
The party is expensive / Sara has no money / The party is noisy
4. Why did Sara’s father die?
Diamond / Fever / Accident
5. Now. How much money does Sara have?
A penny / Lots of money / No money
6. According to Miss Minchin, where does Sara have to go?
Street / Lesson / Party
7. What color of dress does Sara ware?
Black / Blue / Red
8. What is Sara’s black dress like?
Small / Dirty / Expensive
9. What Sara will become?
A student / A servant / A lawyer
10. Where will Sara sleep?
In Sara’s room / In Miss Minchin’s room / Next to Becky’s room
49
実験用テスト問題
１、このパーティーは誰のために開かれたものですか？
ミンチンさん／学校のすべての女子／サラ
２、学校を訪ねたのは誰の弁護士ですか？
ミンチンさん／サラ／サラの父親
３、ミンチンさんの機嫌が良くなかったのは何故ですか？
パーティーが高額だから／サラにはお金がないから／パーティーが騒がしい
から
４、サラの父親が死んだ理由は何ですか？
ダイアモンド／発熱／事故
５、今サラの持っているお金は幾らですか？
1 ペニー／たくさん／全くない
６、ミンチンさんによると、サラはどこへ行くべきですか？
路上／授業／パーティー
７、サラは何色のドレスを着ていますか？
黒／青／赤
８、サラの黒いドレスはどんな様子ですか？
小さい／汚い／高額
９、サラは何になりますか？
生徒／召使／弁護士
１０、サラはどこで寝ることになりますか？
サラの部屋／ミンチンさんの部屋／ベッキーの部屋の隣
50