The Effects of a Contextual Visual on Recall Measures of Listening Comprehension in Beginning College German

摘要

Two experiments were conducted to test the effects of visual support for listening comprehension with beginning German students at the United States Air Force Academy. It was hypothesized that a contextual visual would facilitate listening comprehension on the basis of its ability to activate and bring to bear on the listening process relevant elements of stored memory. Subjects in Experiment I (N=123) had studied little or no German in high school, while those in Experiment II (N=76) had studied between four and six semesters of high school German. With respect to the visual versus no-visual experimental conditions, statistically significant differences at or beyond the 0.05 level were found between the groups in Experiment I (less proficient students), but no significant differences were found between the groups in Experiment II (more proficient studies). The results of this study suggest that the effects of a contextual visual are inversely related to the listener's level of proficiency and that visual support does not in and of itself facilitate listening comprehension.