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Listening is a fundamental and deceptively complicated component of talk therapy that has received very little specific research attention. The work of Carl Rogers and others promotes the importance of empathic listening to create safety and process client experiences, and several models identify its importance in processing and regulating client emotions (especially in couple therapy, where empathic listening can disrupt rigid conflict cycles and model coregulation skills). Much of the dysregulation and resistance we see in therapy may be related to a perceived lack of safety caused by persistent conflict or previous trauma, explained by the unconscious processes of the autonomic nervous system and polyvagal theory. Polyvagal research also supports the relationship between empathic listening and emotional safety: demonstration of genuine interest, care, acceptance, and validation are perceived as evidence of safety that encourage emotional connection. These behaviors are accessible to novice therapists who are still learning specific models and interventions. This study seeks to illustrate this relationship by conducting a task analysis on empathic listening behaviors by therapists in training in a therapy-as-usual environment. Observation of emotional inquiries in therapy leading to increased perceptions of safety demonstrate that empathic listening requires a sustained balancing of safety-promoting and exploratory behaviors. Therapist directiveness, possibly rooted in anxiety, was a common observation across segments where client safety was not achieved. Our observations also highlight the importance of therapist attunement, or neuroception, to determine whether to use safety-promoting behaviors or exploratory questioning. It is my hope that this research can lend illustration and clarity to the theoretical underpinnings of empathic listening to guide therapist interventions and training.

The Down Home is an eclectic music venue in Johnson City, Tennessee. Established in 1976, it has since become a noteworthy club and the center of a mutually supportive community of people who keep the venue going while it in turn holds the community members together. Through the use of community theory, oral history theory, memorabilia, and oral history interviews, this thesis examines the way the Down Home community formed, and how it has continued to grow, develop traditions, and engage people both local and from afar. It also explores what the venue’s future may look like. While several influential figures in the club’s history have passed away, it is important to acknowledge the memories of those still living. This project documents some of the Down Home’s story as told by the venue’s community members, and it begins to fill the void where literature about the Down Home is scarce.

Listening comprehension is considered one of the more difficult language skills to teach, which has caused a debate regarding what impact English varieties have on the learners of English. Previous research is divided, with researchers stating that English varieties influence intelligibility and comprehensibility of speech in listening comprehension, while others claim it has no effect. This study aims to investigate Swedish teachers’ attitudes to English varieties in listening comprehension and what affects their choice of teaching material used in listening comprehension contexts. A survey was conducted alongside semi-structured interviews with teachers from upper secondary schools in Sweden. Four counties in Sweden were randomly selected, and all the teachers from each county were contacted with requests to participate in the study. In total, 35 teachers answered the survey, and six participated in the interviews. The results show that teachers are united in that learners of English should be exposed to different English varieties in listening comprehension. However, they are divided on its importance in other contexts, such as if the content of the teaching material used in listening comprehension is more important than the English variety used. They are also divided on if the English varieties affected their choice of teaching material to use in listening comprehension at all.

The holistic listening comprehension of 112 Kyoto University students, operationalized as TOEFL iBT listening (long listening), was investigated with a battery of 12 tests, including a phoneme and word recognition test, a test of short 10-second listening, a test of long 3- to 5-minute listening, a reading comprehension of listening scripts test, listening and reading cloze tests, a gap-filling test designed to assess syntactic awareness, a grammatical error detection test, and the Vocabulary Size Test. Rasch analyses were employed to yield person ability measures; these measures were used for correlation studies, a series of linear regression analyses, principal components analysis, and structural equation modeling. Long listening correlated most strongly with the reading comprehension test (.756) and the listening cloze test (.705), and these two variables explained as much variance in long listening as all the variables combined in a linear regression (68%). Of the two prominent components yielded by a principal components analysis, capturing sounds and processing for meaning, long listening loaded significantly only on processing for meaning (.727) and showed no notable loading on capturing sounds. When long listening comprehension was viewed as a two-stage activity consisting of capturing input and processing that input for meaning, the participants were found to rely mainly on processing for meaning. As a result, long/holistic listening had more in common with reading comprehension than with short listening, for which the first stage of input capture was more important. As a part of this study, long listening was expressed as a product of aural word recognition and processing for meaning as in the Simple View of Reading, where reading comprehension is regarded as a product of decoding and linguistic comprehension. While the Simple View of Reading typically accounts for 48% of the variance in reading comprehension, its listening counterpart in this study explained up to 58% of the variance; as much as an improved version of the Simple View of Reading named the Component Model of Reading. The identification of the structural equation models required an additional component for a total of three latent variables; availability of written text, aural activities, and processing for meaning. The three-latent-variable model for long listening incorporated all the variables as indicators except for the grammatical error detection due to its insignificant contribution to holistic understanding. Generally speaking, structural equation approach produced models which were in good qualitative agreements with correlation studies, principal components analysis, and multiple regression; thus, providing an integrative view and a unified treatment of the participants' proficiency with a focus on long listening. Overall, the results highlighted the importance of processing for meaning, a skill largely shared with reading comprehension, for the long listening comprehension of Kyoto University students. This finding indicates a transfer of meaning formation skill from L1 and L2 reading to L2 listening. / CITE/Language Arts

This study was an investigation into the effects of repetition on a listening comprehension test for second language learners. Repetition has been previously examined in a cursory way, usually as a secondary question to a primary treatment. Additionally, the method of repetition was limited to one way and to one treatment condition; therefore, it is not clear how different methods of repetition have influenced the results. To date, there are few studies on the influence of repetition on listening comprehension tests in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) situations. The purpose of this study was to examine four methods of repetition on listening comprehension with Japanese learners of English. In addition, the effect of repetition method on proficiency level, question type, and question difficulty was also examined. The participants were 2,041 students attending a private university in Tokyo, Japan. They experienced five conditions: non-repetition, immediate repetition, delayed repetition theory, delayed repetition A, and delayed repetition B. The participants listened to 12 passages under one of the five randomized conditions, and then answered five questions in one of three question types: true-false, multiple-choice, or short-answer. Additionally, the test included questions intended to measure two levels of comprehension, specific details and inference. Finally, the participants were divided into two listening proficiency levels based on the Global Test of English Communication. The results indicated that the type of repetition had an effect on listening comprehension. Overall, both proficiency groups in the delayed repetition conditions had higher comprehension scores. In addition, the delayed repetition conditions were better for all question types (true-false, multiple-choice, and short-answer) with each proficiency group responding equally well. Finally, the delayed repetition conditions reduced the range of question difficulty, especially when participants were allowed to preview questions. The theoretical implications of this study are that comprehension scores are affected by the strength of memory trace, focus of attention, and activated memory. The pedagogical implications are that delayed repetition is useful in the classroom because it not only improves comprehension scores on tests, but also reinforces material learned across several activities, and incorporates recycling into the curriculum design. The results will help test-makers consider new avenues to testing, teachers to incorporate delayed repetition into classroom activities, and administrators to incorporate delayed repetition into the curriculum. / CITE/Language Arts

This study investigated the effects of 10 times of once a week computer-assisted oral reading while listening (ORWL) on listening comprehension, objective measures and subjective rater judgment of L2 oral reading fluency and L2 rehearsed speech fluency. In addition, how listening score gains relate to working memory, L2 oral reading fluency gains, or L2 rehearsed speech fluency gains were examined. ORWL is a task of listening, speaking and reading almost simultaneously and is usually incorporated with shadowing or oral reading instruction, but rarely be a focus of study. Forty-six first- and second-year, non-English major, low to intermediate English proficiency Japanese college students (Comparison group n = 24; Experimental group n = 22) participated in this study. Over the course of the semester, the comparison group received reading comprehension instruction twice a week (total of 16 times) whereas the experimental group received reading comprehension instruction once a week (total of 6 times) and ORWL instruction once a week (total of 10 times). In order to enhance the effects of ORWL, pronunciation analyses and self-evaluation of recording of oral reading were also conducted during the ORWL instruction. Data were obtained from conducting pre- and post-listening dictation tests, Momotaro oral reading pre- and posttest, Kaguyahime oral reading posttest, rehearsed speech pre-and posttest, and listening span (working memory) test. Before conducting the quantitative analysis, the dichotomous Rasch analysis was conducted to check the validity and reliability of the listening tests. The results showed that the experimental groups’ listening scores did not significantly improve compared to the comparison group. Regarding the effects on L2 oral reading, the experimental group significantly improved the gain scores of the objective measures of fluency compared to the comparison group. The significant improvement was also found for the mean length of runs and number of pauses per minute between the same passage pretest and posttest, but not between the two different passages. Furthermore, the significant difference was found for the subjective rater judgment of speed, pausing and prosody between the same passage pretest and posttest. Regarding the effects on L2 rehearsed speech, no significant difference was found between the comparison and experimental groups on the gain scores of the objective measures of fluency. On the other hand, the significant difference was found for the subjective rater judgment of speed, pausing and prosody between the L2 rehearsed speech pretest and posttest. Regarding the relationship between the listening score gains and working memory, L2 oral reading fluency gains, and L2 rehearsed speech fluency gains, the moderately strong significant negative correlation was found between the listening score gains and the gain scores of the number of pauses per minute. The results suggest that the computer-assisted ORWL instruction can contribute to pronunciation research because it improved students’ L2 oral reading and made their rehearsed speech more comprehensible by improving the impression of speed, pausing, and prosody. ORWL can also contribute to L2 speech processing research because it improved students’ ability to read aloud an L2 text with familiar vocabulary, and the improvement of this ability was found to be important for listening comprehension. / CITE/Language Arts

This study examined a music therapy technique designed according to a resource-oriented approach and involved the use of music listening with adults, called "Intentional Music Listening". This protocol consisted of four music listening techniques. An exploratory sequential design was used, with a quantitative data phase followed by a qualitative data phase. The quantitative phase employed a modified crossover design, with an experimental group and waitlist control group. Participants attended groups at which they were coached in the music listening techniques for at-home practice. Quantitative data was gathered using the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) (Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988), and through completion of diary cards after each at-home listening protocol. The qualitative data phase consisted of semi-structured interviews following participation in the music listening protocol. Both the statistical data and the qualitative data give support for the Intentional Music Listening protocol as having a positive impact on the participants' perceived state of well-being, and as a viable set of techniques for use in wellness-based music therapy practice. / Music Therapy