Including L2-English Varieties in Listening Tests for Adolescent ESL Learners: L1 Effects and Learner Perceptions

ABSTRACT

Because English is widely used as a lingua franca, language testers have started to consider the introduction of non-native accents into English listening tests. This study investigates how accents influence test-takers’ performance, and also elicits test-takers’ subjective perception of accents. Eighty adolescent L1-Mandarin test takers were divided into four groups of equal proficiency, with each group listening to one accented version of the same English listening test. The test input was delivered in Australian, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Mandarin-accented English varieties with tasks measuring lexical and propositional comprehension and consisting of picture selection, true/false, and gap completion items. Test-takers’ perceptions of accent familiarity, comprehensibility, and their attitudes were also measured. Results indicate that the test takers who received Mandarin-accented input performed best, lending support to a shared-L1 effect, with the strongest advantage for lexical comprehension. No significant difference was observed in test scores among the groups exposed to non-Mandarin accents. Findings also reveal that the type of accent was not significantly related to test-takers’ attitude toward it. The central implication from this study is that there is potential for the inclusion of non-native accents into listening tests for adolescent learners if the shared-L1 effect can be addressed.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers of Language Assessment Quarterly for their detailed and insightful comments on an earlier draft of this article. The authors also thank the English teachers and students in China who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ The dichotomy of native/non-native, L1/L2 English accents can be problematic. However, for the sake of simplification, this study still adopts such dichotomous classifications. To be more specific, native/L1 English accents refer to the accents of speakers who use English as their first language, whereas non-native/L2 English accents refer to the accents of speakers who have learned to speak English after their first language has already been established and whose English carries phonological features of their L1.

² In this study “adolescent” is defined as between 12 and 15 years of age, which corresponds to the middle school period for students in China.

³ Major et al. (2002) used the term “Chinese” while Harding (2011) used the term “Mandarin Chinese.” It is not clear from either article how the Chinese accent was determined because Chinese accent is not a homogenous accent due to the vast number of Chinese dialects. In this study the term “Mandarin accent” is used to specifically refer to speakers who are proficient in Mandarin Chinese and were born and raised in China.

⁴ The accent strength of the Australian accent speaker was lower at 1.37, but this is to be expected because all three speakers for the Australian group spoke educated Australian English. In addition, a possible facilitative effect of a native accent would not be detectable if that native accent was strongly impacted by dialectal features.

⁵ Two test takers in the Vietnamese group and one in the Spanish group did not provide answers to all questionnaire items relating to comprehensibility and were excluded from calculations.