This study examines the effect of incorporating a variety of international English accents into a simulated TOEFL listening comprehension test in growing recognition of internationalization of language teaching and learning in the field of TESOL. Although some highstakes English proficiency exams have begun incorporating speech samples produced by speakers from a range of inner circle Englishspeaking backgrounds (e.g., Britain, the United States, Australia), the inclusion of samples produced by speakers of outer and expanding circle English varieties (e.g., India, Nigeria, Mexico, South Korea) has been largely avoided. For this study the researchers recruited speakers from six distinct English varieties to produce speech samples for a mock TOEFL iBT listening exam. Listeners who spoke with the same six international English accents were then recruited to take the resulting tests. Results indicate that when accented English is highly comprehensible, listening test scores for stimuli based on high-proficiency speakers of outer and expanding circle varieties of English are not significantly lower than they are in response to stimuli based on inner circle varieties of English. With respect to a shared first language effect on test scores when test materials are spoken in the test taker's own accent, results are complex but inconclusive.

This study compared five research-based intelligibility measures as they were applied to six varieties of English. The objective was to determine which approach to measuring intelligibility would be most reliable for predicting listener comprehension, as measured through a listening comprehension test similar to the Test of English as a Foreign Language. The speakers included 18 English users representing six distinct varieties. These speakers' speech was evaluated by 60 listeners, users of the same English varieties who completed the listening comprehension test as well as five intelligibility tasks, all recorded by the speakers. The five measures of intelligibility included responses to true/false statements, scalar ratings of speech, perception of nonsense sentences, perception of filtered sentences, and transcription of speech; these measures were compared in terms of their relationship to listening comprehension scores using linear mixed-effects models. Results showed that the measure of intelligibility based on listeners' responses to nonsense sentences was the strongest predictor of the listening comprehension scores.

The purpose of this cluster randomized group study was to investigate the effect of multitiered, dual-language instruction on children’s oral language skills, including vocabulary, narrative retell, receptive and expressive language, and listening comprehension. The participants were 3- to 5-year-old children (n = 81) who were learning English and whose home language was Spanish. Across the school year, classroom teachers in the treatment group delivered large-group lessons in English to the whole class twice per week. For a Tier 2 intervention, the teachers delivered small-group lessons 4 days a week, alternating the language of intervention daily (first Spanish, then English). Group posttest differences were statistically significant, with moderate to large effect sizes favoring the treatment group on all the English proximal measures and on three of the four Spanish proximal measures. Treatment group advantages were observed on Spanish and English norm-referenced standardized measures of language (except vocabulary) and a distal measure of language comprehension.

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With the ascendency of English as a global lingua franca, a clearer understanding of what constitutes intelligible speech is needed. However, research systematically investigating the threshold of intelligibility has been very limited. In this article, we provide a brief summary of the literature as it pertains to intelligible and comprehensible speech, and then report on an exploratory study seeking to determine what specific features of accented speech make it difficult for global listeners to process. Eighteen speakers representing six English varieties were recruited to provide speech stimuli for two English listening tests. Sixty listeners from the same six English varieties took part in the listening tests, and their scores were then assessed against measurable segmental, prosodic, and fluency features found in the speech samples. Results indicate that it is possible to identify particular features of English speech varieties that are most likely to lead to a breakdown in communication, and that the number of such features present in a particular speakers’ speech can predict intelligibility.

Factors that affect comprehension of accented English (e.g., Harding, 2011) have been well studied, but little research examines how listeners’ proficiency affects their sensitivity to second language (L2) accent. The current study investigated the effect of test takers’ English proficiency on their comprehension ratings and ability to correctly transcribe different World Englishes accents. Ten speakers from six countries with different L1 backgrounds (i.e., North American, British, Indian, South African, Chinese, and Spanish) with varying degrees of intelligibility provided speech samples. Ninety-two listeners from South Korea at three different proficiency levels listened to speech stimuli and determined their comprehension of the content as well as the intelligibility of the speech. The results showed that listeners were differentially affected by nonnative English accented varieties, based on both the intelligibility level of the speaker and the proficiency level of the listener. These findings have implications for the assessment and instruction of listening skills in global contexts.

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