컴퓨터로 휴지를 삽입한 인터넷 음성자료를 활용한 청취력 훈련

Abstract

Considering the importance of listening comprehension capability for non-native speakers of English in language learning, sound clips on the Internet are too valuable to miss. These easily accessible clips are, most of all, authentic materials which would be the final stage material for EFL students to process. Students, however, sometimes feel that these clips are too difficult to comprehend, partly because of the high speed of delivery. This article presents a new way of converting the authentic materials on the Internet into "comprehensible input." After downloading real-time streaming news files into a computer using special software, pauses as short as 100 msec to 250 msec were digitally inserted, or added to the original files. The noises of sound clips were copied and pasted at the points where it was necessary to maintain the naturalness of the original version. Comprehension was assessed by a twenty-item multiple-choice test. The experimental group that listened to the version with pauses inserted recorded a significantly higher score than the control group that listened to the original version. The items on which members of the control group recorded low scores outnumbered the items on which the experimental group received high scores. These results suggest that the inserted pauses relieved the overload of students processing on those difficult questions.