British Journal of English Linguistics (BJEL)

EA Journals

Listening Comprehension

The Function of Discourse Analysis in Improving Medicine Students’ Listening Comprehension: Cognitive Psychology Perspective in ESP Field (Published)

This paper is an attempt to investigate the function of discourse analysis in improving medicine students’ listening comprehension by a group of students doing their Bachelor of Science in Medicine at Tabuk University in Saudi Arabia. It investigates the function of discourse as a way of comprehending difficult skills to learn and practice effective listening. The result of the research provided some helpful recommendations for ESP teachers by discussing the theoretical and practical bases of Discourse Analysis (DA) in teaching listening comprehension. The sample of the study included 80 Saudis in their 1st Year. The research recommends that educationists and decision-makers be concerned with developing and designing listening materials relevant to the function of Discourse Analysis in teaching listening comprehension for medicine or ESP students.

Citation: Alamri H.A. (2023) The Function of Discourse Analysis in Improving Medicine Students’ Listening Comprehension: Cognitive Psychology Perspective in ESP Field, British Journal of English Linguistics, Vol.11, Issue 1, pp.12-26

Keywords: Discourse Analysis, ESP, Listening Comprehension, Medicine

The Relationship between English Language Proficiency Level and Comprehension of Connected Speech Aspects (Published)

Despite the fact that connected speech features strongly affect the perception and comprehension of natural spoken language, they have not received proper attention in academic studies. Consequently, little research has focused on the effect of connected speech features on the listening comprehension EFL and ESL learners. The present study tries to fill this gab as it investigates whether the presence of connected speech influences Saudi EFL learners’ listening comprehension. Furthermore, the present study attempts to find out if there is a relationship between the learners’ familiarity with aspects of connected speech on the one hand and their English proficiency on the other hand. To achieve the objectives of the study, sixty-four English majors take part in this study. The participants were classified into three groups (i.e. High- proficiency, mid- proficiency and Low-proficiency) according to the scores obtained in the English Language Proficiency Test. The research instrument was a dictation test consisting of 25 digitally recorded sentences that include the five targeted aspects of connected speech. The participants took a dictation test which asked them to write down the sentences read with and without connected speech. Independent t-test results showed that the presence of connected speech features significantly affected the subjects’ listening comprehension. The presence of connected speech imposes a negative impact upon listening comprehension by the Saudi learners of English. This negative influence was observed in all groups of different proficiency levels. In addition, the results indicated that the high-proficiency level students performed significantly better than the mid- proficiency level students. Low-proficiency level students often lagged far behind. Further, the indication garnered from t-test results revealed that there were interactions between the proficiency level of the students and the types of connected speech patterns. In other words, the higher students’ proficiency level was, the better they could detect the connected speech patterns used in the natural speech flow. Last, elision and intrusion proved to be the most difficult aspects of connected speech for all the participants

Keywords: English reduced forms, Listening Comprehension, Proficiency Level, connected speech

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