2.3. Rate-controlled training
The previous section shows that of those studies examining the effect of the slowed-down speech rate on listening comprehension, the compressed speech, or the fast speech rate, was often utilized as a foil to reveal the possible significant effect of
the slowed-down speech rate on enhanced listening comprehension. The
rate-controlled training, though, approached the role of compressed speech from a different angle by transforming the faster speech rate into a gradually-increasing speech rate condition and employed it as a training device intended to improve the language learners’ listening comprehension ability.
The target trainees of the rate-controlled training are language learners with poor processing device to digest the spoken text at normal speech rate and are expected to subtly develop rapid automatic processing device to reach a higher level of listening comprehension compared to their listening comprehension level before the training.
This rate-controlled training would last for a certain period of time in which the progress of listening comprehension made by the trainees would be observed. Only a few attempts have been made to support the effectiveness of the rate-controlled training (Friedman and Johnson, 1971; Huberman and Medish, 1974; Orr and Friedman and Williams, 1963; Pimsleur, 1977), which will be reviewed in detail below.
In the study involving a program implemented in a high school near Albany, New York, Pimsleur (1977, p.32) reported a temporal spacing research training where the gradually diminishing pauses was utilized to hopefully assist students to
comprehend the authentic Spanish news. The report confirmed that those American students were able to comprehend the Spanish news broadcasters at normal speed with ease several years later.
In Friedman and Johnson’s (1971) study, the participants in the study were Russian and Vietnamese students studying in America. After eight weeks of training, to the researchers’ disappointment, no differences were found between the
performance of students listening to the gradually-increasing speech rate and of those listening to the same material at the non-adjusted speech rate. The researchers
attributed the vain attempt to two possible reasons. First, the training, which lasts for eight weeks, four days a week and an hour a day, was too short of duration, which limited its effect on improving the learners’ listening comprehension performance.
Second, the instruments used to measure their listening comprehension were too broad to discern possible comprehension changes. Even though the results did not show significant differences in performance between these two groups of students, most students and instructors commented subjectively that the training of the gradually-increasing speech rate had been of some value.
This subjective feedback suggested a psychological effect of
gradually-increasing speech rate on listening comprehension. In other words, by knowing the fact that the input was adjusted to a slower speech rate rather than the original speech rate, the participants would be affected mentally with the perception that their listening comprehension increases, but not realistically improve. This implies that the researchers should not announce the design to participants in the training program of gradually-increasing speech rate.
Another part worth mentioning in Friedman and Johnson’s (1971) study was that the researchers stated at the beginning of the paper that their study was a rather loosely-designed experiment and the main intention of the study was to suggest some possible uses of rate-control. They hoped that “some will indeed prove [its] useful [ness] to second language learning” (p157). The paper was descriptive in nature as shown by the lack of measurement units and the speech rate categorization, which was very likely to be the cause for the disappointing outcome. With some
methodological improvement and modification, the use of gradually-increasing speech rate for increasing listening comprehension proposed by Friedman and Johnson could be validated.
In 1963, Orr, Friedman and Williams began the research on training students to
process speech at rates beyond those which they could accomplish at initial exposure.
They corroborated from their several studies (Orr, Friedman, and Williams, 1965; Orr and Friedman1967, 1968; Orr, Friedman, and Graae, 1969) that the listening
comprehension of time-compressed speech was trainable to native speakers. They concluded from their studies that, in terms of the comprehension test scores, the participants who received the listening texts under gradually-increasing speech rate condition performed better compared to the participants without this practice.
However, based on the design of the study, we wonder if the increase of listening comprehension was attributed to the training of gradually-increasing speech rate, but not from the extra listening practice.
Huberman and Medish (1974) reported the results of a rate-controlled training conducted by the researchers in the American Institute for Research that included the added-parts, the time-compressed speech, and temporal spacing as the temporal variables. These three devices were used jointly on 23 students learning Spanish, who received periodic listening comprehension tests and three other sections of
Elementary Spanish classes. The results indicated that the controlled listening could improve listening comprehension up to 28%. Additionally, the controlled listening compared to normal listening resulted in a 35% increase in the amount of information absorbed during each minute of listening.
This seemed to be a promising outcome for the effect of controlled listening on language learners’ listening comprehension improvement. However, since the three techniques were used jointly, it was hard to discern which of these three techniques was more essential than the other. The results also showed that the added-part technique contributed to most of the increased efficiency in listening, and the
compressed speech and the temporal spacing might have played a minor role. In other words, the individual effect of speech rate was not found (Griffiths, 1990b).
These studies provided some preliminary evidence that the gradually-increasing speech rate was an amenable training device that can be validly conducted and tested.
More importantly, these studies render significant mythological implications,
including the importance of the time span of the training and the design of the study.
In terms of the time span, the rate controlled training lasted for eight weeks in Friedman and Johnson’s study, for several years in Pimselur’s report and for one school semester by Huberman and Medish (1974). Though a rather long exposure, as shown in afore-mentioned studies, may result in a seemingly more valid outcome, it is also more likely to include other unwanted variables which interacted with the
training itself. All the other variables may take the credit for the listening
comprehension improvement, but not the training itself. Consequently, the intensity probably overrides the longitude.
Concerning the design of the rate-controlled training, the studies reviewed previously were predominately descriptive in nature and lacked a tightly-controlled experiment procedure. This gap indicates a need for future research employing clear experiment design and valid measurements in order to explore the effect of the gradually-increasing speech rate on listening comprehension.
By a careful treatment of the time span and the design of the training, this long-neglected area of rate-controlled training could receive some updates, giving a deeper understanding of the effect of the gradually-increasing speech rate on listening comprehension.