Reading Aloud Performance and Listening Ability in an L2: The Case of College-Level Japanese EFL Users

Recent advance in neuropsychology has evidenced a facilitative role of sensorimotor activity for the development in L2 speech perception. The study attempted to examine the relationship between reading aloud (RA) performance, grammatical knowledge and listening ability with 31 college-level Japanese EFL users. The result demonstrated highly significant correlations between all the variables, and the subsequent multiple regression analysis also indicated RA significantly accounting for listening. Supplementary analyses dividing the participants by listening ability demonstrated that while significant correlation was maintained between L2 knowledge and listening with less-proficient listeners, it disappeared with proficient listeners; in contrast, significant correlation between RA and listening performance was maintained in both groups, indicating that production accuracy/fluency still played an important role in advanced L2 listening.