Cover not available

In:Early Language Education in Instructed Contexts: Current issues and empirical insights into teaching and learning languages in primary school
Edited by Stefanie Frisch and Karen Glaser
[Language Learning & Language Teaching 62] 2025
► pp. 233–258

Get fulltext
PDF logo with download linkDownload Chapter PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Chapter EPUB

Chapter 11
An English listening comprehension learning game and its effect on phonological awareness

 | University of Lyon 2
 | University of Lyon 2
 | University of Paris 8
 | University of Grenoble
 | INSA-Lyon
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 22 May 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.62.11cha
Abstract
Elementary school teachers in France are responsible for teaching English, but most are not specialists. They need support, particularly for listening comprehension. Hence, we designed Luciole, an English listening comprehension learning game for 6-to-9-year-old French pupils. A first study showed that children who played Luciole developed their listening comprehension in English but, unexpectedly, also improved their phonological awareness in French, even though only about 5% of Luciole’s activities are related to phonology. Based on these results, another study with a bilingual phonological awareness test and a streamlined data collection method was designed to try to replicate the previous results and to explore their origin. The results for listening comprehension were replicated, but not the results for phonological awareness. We provide guidelines for a more reliable phonological awareness test, and we conclude that using digital tools in the classroom can be beneficial for young learners’ listening skills.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Listening comprehension
    • 2.2Phonological awareness
    • 2.3Relationship between phonological awareness and listening comprehension
    • 2.4The Luciole application
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Researching the impact of Luciole on listening comprehension and phonological awareness — Two studies
    • 3.2Participants
      • 3.2.1Study 1 participants
      • 3.2.2Study 2 participants
    • 3.3Research design
      • 3.3.1Study 1 design
        • 3.3.1.1Experimental design
        • 3.3.1.2Pre-test tasks
        • 3.3.1.3Post-test
      • 3.3.2Study 2 design
        • 3.3.2.1Listening task
        • 3.3.2.2Auditory discrimination
        • 3.3.2.3Phoneme positioning
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Results of Study 1
      • 4.1.1English listening comprehension and oral production
      • 4.1.2Phonological awareness
    • 4.2Results of Study 2
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Listening comprehension in English
    • 5.2Phonological awareness
  • 6.Conclusion and further research
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (59)
References
Anthony, J. L., & Francis, D. J. (2005). Development of phonological awareness. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(5), 255–259. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Audin, L. (2003). L’apprentissage d’une langue étrangère à l’école primaire : Quel(s) enseignement(s) en tirer? Les Langues Modernes, 3, 10–19.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barcroft, J., & Sommers, M. S. (2005). Effects of acoustic variability on second language vocabulary learning. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27(03), 387–414. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beaucamp, J. (2006). Pour une pratique consciente de l’oral au service du développement de la compétence de compréhension en ELVE. SPIRALE Revue de Recherches en Education, 38, 53–62. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bianco, M. (2010). La compréhension de textes: Peut-on l’apprendre et l’enseigner? In M. Crahay & M. Dutrévis (Eds.), Psychologie des apprentissages scolaires (pp. 229–254). De Boeck Superieur.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2016). Du langage oral à la compréhension de l’écrit. PUG.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boggio, C., Zaher, A., & Bosse, M. (2023). ecrimo, an app to train first graders’ spelling : Effectiveness and comparison between different designs. British Journal of Educational Technology, 54(5), 1332–1350. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1976). The experimental ecology of education. Teachers College Record, 78(2), 1–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bryant, P. E., Bradley, L., Maclean, M., & Crossland, J. (1989). Nursery rhymes, phonological skills and reading. Journal of Child Language, 16(2), 407–428. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Casalis, S., & Louis-Alexandre, M.-F. (2000). Morphological analysis, phonological analysis and learning to read French: A longitudinal study. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 12(3–4), 303–335. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cataldo, S., & Ellis, N. (1988). Interactions in the development of spelling, reading and phonological skills. Journal of Research in Reading, 11(2), 86–109. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Choe, S., Lee, K., & So, Y. (2020). The effects of phonemic awareness instructions on L2 listening comprehension: A meta-analysis. Journal of Asia TEFL, 17(4), 1294–1309. [URL].
Comeau, L., Cormier, P., Grandmaison, É., & Lacroix, D. (1999). A longitudinal study of phonological processing skills in children learning to read in a second language. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(1), 29–43. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cummins, J. (1979). Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. Review of Educational Research, 49(2), 222–251. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DeKeyser, R., & Prieto Botana, G. (2015). The effectiveness of processing instruction in L2 grammar acquisition : A narrative review. Applied Linguistics, 36(3), 290–305. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Delasalle, D. (2008). Enseigner une langue à l’école: A-t-on les moyens de relever ce défi dans le contexte actuel? Ela. Etudes de Linguistique Appliquee, 151(3), 373–383.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Demont, E., & Gombert, Jean. E. (2007). Relations entre conscience phonologique et apprentissage de la lecture: Peut-on sortir de la relation circulaire? In E. Demont & M. N. Metz-Lutz (Eds.), L’acquisition du langage et ses troubles (p. 47–79). SORAL.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ehri, L. C., Nunes, S. R., Willows, D. M., Schuster, B. V., Yaghoub-Zadeh, Z., & Shanahan, T. (2001). Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to read : Evidence from the National reading Panel’s meta-analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(3), 250–287. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Field, J. (2004). An insight into listeners’ problems: Too much bottom-up or too much top-down? System: An International Journal of Educational Technology and Applied Linguistics, 32(3), 363–377. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2008). Listening in the language classroom. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gathercole, S. E., Willis, C. S., Baddeley, A. D., & Emslie, H. (1994). The Children’s Test of Nonword Repetition: A test of phonological working memory. Memory, 2(2), 103–127. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gillon, G. T. (2007). Phonological awareness: From research to practice. The Guilford Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goh, C., & Taib, Y. (2006). Metacognitive instruction in listening for young learners. ELT Journal, 60(3), 222–232. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gombert, J.-E. (1990). Le développement métalinguistique. PUF.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Graham, S., Santos, D., & Vanderplank, R. (2010). Strategy clusters and sources of knowledge in French L2 listening comprehension. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 4(1), 1–20. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hilton, H. (2009). Systèmes émergents: Acquisition, traitement et didactique des langues [Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches]. Université Lumière, Lyon 2.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hoien, T., Lundberg, I., Stanovich, K. E., & Bjaalid, I.-K. (1995). Components of phonological awareness. Reading and Writing, 7(2), 171–188. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hulme, C., Hatcher, P. J., Nation, K., Brown, A., Adams, J., & Stuart, G. (2002). Phoneme awareness is a better predictor of early reading skill than onset-rime awareness. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 82(1), 2–28. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kanta, T., & Rey, V. (2003). Relation entre la conscience phonologique et l’apprentissage d’une langue seconde. Travaux Interdisciplinaires du Laboratoire Parole et Langage d’Aix-en-Provence (TIPA), 22, 135–147.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kivistö de Souza, H. (2015). Phonological awareness and pronunciation in a second language (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universitat de Barcelona. In TDX (Tesis Doctorals en Xarxa). [URL]
Koch, M., von Luck, K., Schwarzer, J., & Draheim, S. (2018). The novelty effect in large display deployments — experiences and lessons-learned for evaluating prototypes. In T. Gross & M. Muller (Eds.), Proceedings of 16th European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies (EUSSET). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Alemany Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, M., Cheng, L., & Kirby, J. (2012). Phonological awareness and listening comprehension among Chinese English-immersion students. International Education, 41(2). [URL]
Liberman, I. Y., Shankweiler, D., Fischer, F. W., & Carter, B. (1974). Explicit syllable and phoneme segmentation in the young child. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 18(2), 201–212. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Loiseau, M., & Noûs, C. (2022). À la recherche de l’attitude ludique. In H. Silva (Éd.), Regards sur le jeu en didactique des langues et des cultures (p. 61–83). Peter Lang. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Magnat, É. (2017). Kinéphones. [URL]
Mandin, S., Zaher, A., Meyer, S., Loiseau, M., Bailly, G., Payre-Ficout, C., Diard, J., Fluence-Group, & Valdois, S. (2021). Expérimentation à grande échelle d’applications pour tablettes pour favoriser l’apprentissage de la lecture et de l’anglais. Transformations dans le domaine des EIAH: Innovations technologiques et d’usage(s). 10e Conférence EIAH, online.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marslen-Wilson, W. D., & Tyler, L. K. (1980). The temporal structure of spoken language understanding. Cognition, 8(1), 1–71. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matthews, J., & O’Toole, J. M. (2015). Investigating an innovative computer application to improve L2 word recognition from speech. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 28(4), 364–382. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Melby-Lervåg, M., & Lervåg, A. (2011). Cross-linguistic transfer of oral language, decoding, phonological awareness and reading comprehension: A meta-analysis of the correlational evidence. Journal of Research in Reading, 34(1), 114–135. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ministère de l’Education Nationale. (2015). Programmes pour les cycles 2 3 4.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2016). Cedre 2016. Anglais en fin d’école et de collège (LES DOSSIERS DE LA DEPP).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ministère de l’Education Nationale et de la Jeunesse. (2019). Guide pour l’enseignement des langues vivantes: Oser les langues vivantes étrangères à l’école. Ministère de l’Education Nationale et de la Jeunesse. Retrieved on 25 April 2024 from [URL]
Morais, J., Cary, L., Alegria, J., & Bertelson, P. (1979). Does awareness of speech as a sequence of phones arise spontaneously? Cognition, 7(4), 323–331. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Plonsky, L., & Ziegler, N. (2016). The CALL-SLA Interface: Insights from a second-order synthesis. Language Learning & Technology, 20(2), 17–37.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roussel, S., Gruson, B., & Galan, J.-P. (2017). What types of training improve learners’ performances in second language listening comprehension? International Journal of Listening, 33(1), 1–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Savage, R., & Carless, S. (2005). Phoneme manipulation not onset-rime manipulation ability is a unique predictor of early reading. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines, 46(12), 1297–1308. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stanovich, K. E., Cunningham, A. E., & Cramer, B. B. (1984). Assessing phonological awareness in kindergarten children: Issues of task comparability. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 38(2), 175–190. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Suh, S., Kim, S. W., & Kim, N. J. (2010). Effectiveness of MMORPG-based instruction in elementary English education in Korea. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26(5), 370–378. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tsui, A. B. M., & Fullilove, J. (1998). Bottom-up or top-down processing as a discriminator of L2 listening performance. Applied Linguistics, 19(4), 432–451. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tunmer, W. E. (1989). Conscience phonologique et acquisition de la langue écrite. In L. Rieben & C. Perfetti (Eds.), L’apprenti lecteur: recherches empiriques et implications pédagogiques (pp. 197–220). Delachaux et Niestlé.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
VanPatten, B. (2002). Processing instruction: An update. Language Learning, 52(4), 755–803. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Verdugo, D. R., & Belmonte, I. A. (2007). Using digital stories to improve listening comprehension with Spanish young learners of English. Language Learning & Technology, 11(1), 87–101.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wagner, R. K., Torgesen, J. K., & Rashotte, C. A. (1999). Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (PRO-ED).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wepman, J. M., & Reynolds, W. M. (1994). Auditory Discrimination Test (ADT). Western Psychological Services.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, J., & Ranta, L. (2002). Examining the interface between metalinguistic task performance and oral production in a second language. Language Awareness, 11(4), 259–290. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yelland, G. W., Pollard, J., & Mercuri, A. (1993). The metalinguistic benefits of limited contact with a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics, 14(4), 423–444. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yu, H., Li, F., Gallis, J. A., & Turner, E. L. (2020). Cvcrand package (0.1.0) [Logiciel]. [URL]
Zwaan, R. A., & Radvansky, G. A. (1998). Situation models in language comprehension and memory. Psychological Bulletin, 123(2), 162–185. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue