Developing L2 listening comprehension through extensive and intensive listening

Omar Karlin & Sayaka Karlin
Toyo University | Japan Women’s College of Physical Education

In the fall semester of 2020, 269 Japanese university students were compared in a quasi-experimental study to determine whether extensive and intensive listening interventions yielded significant gains in L2 listening comprehension. At the beginning of the study, 269 students took a 100-item L2 listening exam, and were randomly placed into an extensive (n = 135) or intensive listening group (n = 134). After each group completed five assignments based on extensive or intensive listening principles, students took another 100-item L2 listening exam. Paired-sample t-tests of raw scores and Rasch person ability estimates indicated that the extensive listening group significantly improved in raw scores, t(134) = −7.44, p = .00, but not in Rasch person ability estimates t(134) = −1.86, p = .07, while the intensive listening group significantly improved in both raw scores, t(133) = −9.48, p = .00, and Rasch person ability estimates, t(133) = −3.58, p = .00.

Publication history

Date received: 31 July 2022

Date accepted: 16 January 2023

Published online: 24 July 2023

Table of contents

Amongst the language skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening, listening may be the most important (Flowerdew & Miller, 2010; Vandergrift, 2012; Vandergrift & Goh, 2012), with some suggesting that listening accounts for 40–50% of communication time, significantly more than the other three language skills (Gilman & Moody, 1984; Nunan, 1998). However, despite the importance of listening, there has been a tendency for educators to assess listening rather than teach listening (Brown, 2011; Schmidt, 2016; Vandergrift & Goh, 2012).

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