Enhancing Foreign Language Listening with Visual Scaffolds: Computerized Visuals, Beat Gestures, and Rhythm Annotation

This study examined whether three visual scaffolds—computerized visuals (wave- forms/spectrograms), beat gestures, and visual rhythm annotation—improve for - eign language (FL) learners’ comprehension of spontaneous conversational speech and whether effects depend on learner processing profiles. Two hundred Manda- rin-speaking FL learners of English (EFL) completed a listening pretest, a Modal- ity Preference Test indexing perceptual type (auditory- vs. textual-dominant) and Dynamic Visual Sensitivity (DVS), 20 days of training in one of four conditions (computerized visuals, beat gestures, visual rhythm annotation, control), and a scaf- fold-free posttest. Repeated-measures ANOVAs showed a significant overall Time effect, but no Time × Group interaction for total scores. When comprehension was partitioned by subconstruct, Computerized Visuals and Beat Gestures outperformed Control on Detail and Inferences (at posttest), with no reliable differences for Main Idea. Between-subjects analyses indicated higher performance for auditory-domi- nant and high-DVS learners; DVS amplified scaffold effects for Inferences. Results suggest that prosody-oriented visual scaffolds yield domain-specific gains under spontaneous input and are most beneficial when aligned with learners’ processing profiles. Pedagogically, FL listening instruction may be optimized by tailoring vis- ual, embodied, and interactive supports to learner characteristics rather than apply - ing a single scaffold uniformly. 摘要 本研究探討三種視覺輔助——電腦化視覺 (如波形圖、頻譜圖)、節奏拍手式手勢 (beat gestures)，以及視覺節奏標註——是否能協助外語學習者理解自然、即興的英 語對話。同時，本研究也關注這些輔助的效果是否會因學習者的處理偏好而有所 Extended author information available on the last page of the article English Teaching & Learning 不同。本研究共有 200 位以中文為母語的英語學習者參與。他們首先接受聽力前測 與「感官模式偏好測驗」(Modality Preference Test)，以判斷其知覺偏好 (偏聽覺 或偏文字) 及「動態視覺敏感度 (Dynamic Visual Sensitivity, DVS) 高低。之後，參 與者進行為期 20 天的訓練，分別隸屬於四種組別之一：電腦化視覺組、節奏手勢 組、視覺節奏標註組以及無輔助的控制組。訓練結束後，所有學習者完成一份不 含任何輔助的聽力後測。重複量數變異數分析顯示：所有組別在後測的整體聽力理 解皆較前測進步，但四組之間在總分的進步幅度並無顯著差異。然而，若將聽力理 解分成不同面向來觀察，在「細節理解」與「推論理解」兩部分，電腦化視覺組與 節奏手勢組在後測表現明顯優於控制組；但在「主旨理解」方面，各組別間並無明 顯差異。此外，組間分析發現：偏聽覺型學習者及 DVS 高的學習者在整體表現上較 佳；其中，高 DVS 的學習者在「推論理解」方面更容易從視覺輔助中受益。綜合 而言，本研究顯示：以語調與節奏為核心的視覺輔助，可以在自然語料下提升學 習者在特定面向的聽力理解效果；而當輔助方式與學習者的處理特質相契合時， 效果更加顯著。對語言教學而言，聽力訓練若能依據學習者特質，彈性運用不同 的視覺、手勢或其他支援方式，將比套用單一輔助方法更能提升學習成效。