A Probe into the Effect of Phonological Awareness on Listening Comprehension

Research of more than two decades has affirmed that phonological awareness plays an important role in English learning. Phonological awareness is a metalinguistic capability (Hakes 1982, Herriman, Nesdale and Tunmer 1988) commanding for the identification and manipulation of subdivisions of oral sounds (Liberman 1973, Hakes 1982, Bentin 1992, Tunmer and Hoover 1992). It involves the awareness of the most basic speech units of a language (phoneme) and larger units such as syllables.This study was designed for probing the relationship among a variety of linguistic levels (the awareness of syllable, the awareness of onset-rime, the awareness of phoneme and the competency of word spelling) of phonological awareness and their connection with listening ability. 80 participants, who were systematically sampled, were administered different tasks tapping awareness of three linguistic levels of phonological awareness (syllable, onset-rime and phoneme awareness). The listening section of College English Test (CET4, 2002) was used for testing learners’ listening comprehension ability.Results from empirical investigation are: different linguistic levels of phonological awareness correlate with the listening ability in adult EFL learners. 1. In EFL, characteristic of different linguistic levels of phonological awareness are not similar, and the effect of phonological awareness on the learners’ listening comprehension ability is obvious. 2. By conducting the distinct linguistic levels of phonological awareness, phoneme awareness, onset-rime awareness, and syllable awareness are indicators of listening ability. In addition, the results of the research yielded by the current study are congruous with those previous studies indicating that word recognition theories are applicable in EFL situation; phonological awareness training on subsequent listening achievement should be paid attention to.