Performance of Japanese EFL Learners on a
Test of English Syllabiﬁcation, Word Stress,
Sentence Focus, and Thought Groups
Melvin R. Andrade
Introduction
Research on the pronunciation difﬁculties of Japanese learnersof English as a foreign language (EFL) has focused primarily on theperception and production problems of vowels and consonants. Little
research has been published in English on the difﬁculties these andother learners have with syllabiﬁcation, word stress, sentence focus,
and thought groups although these problems have been acknowledged (Gilbert, 1993b; Gilbert, 1994; Miura, 1996; Morley, 1987;
Morley, 1994; Riney, Takada, and Ota, 2000). The present study
analyzes the results of 40 learners on a diagnostic test of English
phonology in the four areas mentioned above with the aim of offeringa more balanced understanding of the phonological strengths andweakness of the Japanese learner of English. This study focuses on
the learners' perceptual ability and application of their backgroundknowledge, not on their ability to produce the sounds of English.
Because perceptual ability and understanding of the sound system
of English play important roles in the learners' acquisition of intelligible and communicatively effective spoken English, these results
will be of interest to both classroom teachers and material writers.

BackgroundIn addition to being able to perceive and production vowel andconsonant sounds correctly, learners of English as a foreign language─ 1 ─

must also have a good grasp of syllabiﬁcation, word stress, sentence
focus, and thought groups both to understand English when they
hear it and to be understood when they speak it. A speaker's accent,especially those features associated with stress, pitch, and rhythm,
can greatly affect the intelligibility of what is being said (Derwing
and Munro, 1997; Gilbert, 1993b, 1994). Although many textbooks
intended for international audiences give considerable attention tothese features (e.g., Beisbier, 1994, 1995; Bowler and Cunningham,
1990; Grant, 1993; Lane, 1997; Orion, 1997; Prator and Robinett,
1985), books for Japanese learners of English give much lessattention to them in comparison (e.g., Dale and Poms, 1994; Seido
Language Institute, 1992). The phonology of Japanese differs greatly
from that of English (Vance, 1987; Roach, 2000) in these matters,
and lack of understanding of these differences can cause problems
not only of what is being said but also of what message is intended(Yamada and Tannen, 2002). Thus, it is important for teachers ofJapanese learners to pay particular attention to these features ofEnglish.

The English syllable . Many pronunciation problems result
from the inability of learners to recognize and produce the different
syllable types of English. An awareness of syllables is importantbecause it helps students identify stress marking that is needed
for clear understanding (“desert” vs. “dessert”）and focus attention
on word endings and reduced syllables, especially articles andauxiliaries, that are often missing from students' speech. Moreover,syllables “are an essential foundation for English rhythm . . .[and]rhythm may be the single most important element in learning clear
pronunciation” (Gilbert, 1993, p. 1).
There are two categories of syllables in English. An open syllable
─ 2 ─

is one that ends with a vowel sound (V) such as in the one-syllable
words “sea” and “sky,” and a closed syllable is one that ends with aconsonant sound (C) such as in the words “land” and “rock.” Withinthese categories, there are a variety syllable patterns from simple
to complex, for example, “bee” (CV), “cat” (CVC), and “crab” (CCVC).
Note that in this discussion, what is being considered are vowel andconsonant sounds not their orthographic forms. For instance, theword “snake” ends with the consonant sound /k/ even though the lastletter is a vowel.
In contrast to English, some languages such as Japanese, havepredominantly open syllables. In Japanese, words of more than one
syllable consist of a series of consonant-vowel pairs (e.g., CV-CV-CV
as in kabuki ) or a vowel followed by such pairs (e.g., V-CV-CV-CV
as in ikebana . Japanese speakers often have trouble pronouncing
correctly closed CVC syllables and may add a vowel to the end ofthese closed syllables to make the word ﬁt the Japanese pattern. For
example, a word such as “bat” may be pronounced as /batto/ with two
open syllables (CV-CV).
Another characteristic of English syllable structure is the conso-

nant cluster , which consists of two or more consonants together suchas the initial /spr/ in “spring” (CCCVCC). Because Japanese does nothave consonants clusters as in English, Japanese speakers will often
insert vowels between consonants so that a word like “strike” will be
pronounced /sutoraiki/ (Avery and Ehrlich, 1992). Japanese speakers
will generally insert the vowel /u/ when an English word does not ﬁt
the Japanese pattern, with the exceptions that /o/ is inserted after /t/or /d/, for example, “pride” becomes /puraido/) and /i/ is inserted after
the sounds /ch/ and /j/, for example, “match” becomes /matchi/ and“page” becomes /peiji/. Moreover, Japanese has as a large number─ 3 ─

of English loanwords (gairaigo ) that are commonly used in daily
life and pronounced in the Japanese way. Consequently, Japanese
speakers often have difﬁculty in perceiving these words when spoken
by native speakers and difficulty in pronouncing them in a way
intelligible to non-Japanese speakers of English. The basic syllable
patterns of English are summarized in Table 1.

Stress in English . A syllable that stands out from the other syllables in a stream of speech is referred to as “stressed” or “accented.”
As Roach puts it, “from the perceptual point of view, all stressedsyllables have one characteristic in common, and that is prominence ”(2000, p. 94). Prominence is determined by four main factors: pitch,length, loudness, and quality, but these factors are not equallyimportant. According to experimental evidence, pitch and length are
the most powerful factors whereas loudness and quality have muchless effect (Cutler, 1997; Roach, 2000).
Each of the variables that mark stress (pitch, length, loudness,quality) is present or absent to different degrees in different
languages. In North American English, syllable length is regarded
as the most important marker stress (Avery and Ehrlich, 1992), although this stress is also accompanied by greater loudness or clarity
on the stressed syllable and also a rise in pitch. Unstressed syllables
in English are very short, unclear, and usually reduced to schwa. In
contrast, Japanese and many other languages indicate syllable stresspredominately by a rise in pitch , not by length or loudness, andaccordingly are referred to as “pitch-accent languages.” Moreover,Japanese and many other languages are said to be “syllable-timed
languages,” meaning that each syllable receives stress unlike “stresstimed languages” such as English in which stress appears at regularintervals. Consequently, speakers of syllable-timed languages
─ 4 ─

frequently have difﬁculty perceiving and producing vowel reduction
in English words and sentences (Avery and Ehrlich, 1992; Gilbert,
1993b; Orion, 1997). However, the distinction between syllabletimed and stress-timed languages is not as clear-cut as it may seem.
In the opinion of Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994), “it may be better. . . to regard the two types as endpoints of a continuum on which
languages can also occupy intermediate positions” and “wherever
they appear on the continuum, all languages have a tendency to
reduce the vowels of unstressed syllables” (p.42). Nevertheless,reduction in vowel duration and quality in English is dramaticallygreater in comparison with Japanese, and these two languages may
be regarded as being on opposite sides of this continuum.
Stress is classified into three levels from strong to weak :primary, secondary, and tertiary (Roach, 2000). As vowel length isprobably the most prominent feature of stress in North American
English, another way to look at it, according to Gilbert (1993b), iswhether a syllable has a full vowel stressed, a full vowel unstressed,
or a reduced vowel. For example, the second “a” in the word “alteration” is a stressed full vowel and the first “a” is an unstressed fullvowel. An example of a reduced vowel would be substituting an
unstressed schwa for the full vowel /uw/ in the word “you” to produce“ya.” Although a case has been made for a four-level system that
distinguishes between “weak stress” and “unstressed” (English
Language Services, 1964), this distinction may be unnecessarily
complicated, especially so for pedagogical purposes (Roach, 2000, p.
95). In general, content words are stressed (nouns, verbs, adjectives,
adverbs, demonstratives, and interrogatives) and functions words
are unstressed (articles, prepositions, personal pronouns, possessive
adjectives, relative pronouns, conjunctions, modals, and auxiliaries)─ 5 ─

(Prator and Robinett, 1985). However, which words receive stress,
especially the primary stress, depends on the intended meaning andfunction of the utterance.
Research has shown, that English speakers tend to store
vocabulary according to stress patterns (Levelt, 1989, p. 373). If
listeners do not perceive the stress pattern correctly, they may waste
time searching for stored words in the wrong category causing theoriginal sequence of sounds to slip from working memory, which may
result in a breakdown in communication. One implication of thisresearch is that learners would be well served by systematic training
in common stress patterns. Pronunciation textbooks have provided
such training to varying degrees ranging from minimal presentationof rules with a few examples to extensive lists of words in multiple
categories for intensive practice (e.g., Beisbier, 1994; Bowler andCunningham, 1990; Dale and Poms, 1994; English Language
Services, 1967; Gilbert, 1993a; Grant, 1993; Lane, 1997; Orion,
1997; Prator and Robinett, 1985). There is little research, however,on the effectiveness of these different approaches and the amount ofpractice needed to achieve good results.

Focus in sentences . In addition to syllable stress, which affects
the perception of individual words, there is stress at the sentencelevel that calls attention to the speaker's main intent. This kindof stress is referred to as the focus of the sentence. In addition tolengthening the vowel sound of the stressed word, “attention is
focused on one of the elements in a thought group by using only one
high note, and by making the voice rise on the stressed syllable of
the word the speaker wishes to single out” (Prator and Robinett,
1985, p. 76). One function of sentence focus is to signal a contrast
with something said or assumed previously; that is, it distinguishes─ 6 ─

old from new information (Gilbert, 1993b). Other functions are
to signal attitude, grammatical features, and discourse structure(Roach, 2000, pp. 183-203). In languages other than English, different devices such as changes in word order or grammatical markers
may be used to signal the focus of a sentence. The ability to perceiveand comprehend the ﬂow of stress and pitch in English sentences isan essential skill learners need to develop.

Thought groups . In sentences, words are not pronounced
separately but ﬂow along smoothly and seem to blend into each othermaking it difﬁcult for learners of English to know where one word
ends and another begins. Although appearing to be a seamless ﬂow,
“speech is [actually] a sequence of brief stops and starts . . . based on
the speaker's effort to organize thought around separate ideas . . .
[and] . . . pauses are nearly as important as the correct stress patternof a word or correct emphasis on sentence focus” (Gilbert, 1993b,
p. 41). Thus, one of the major perception problems for learners isthe task of segmenting the stream of speech into these meaningful
subunits, a process know as segmentation and thought grouping .
Distinctions in word segmentation and thought grouping thatnative speakers can easily detect can be problematic for many
nonnative speakers. Native speakers, for instance, would have little
trouble distinguishing “I live in apartment A247” and “I live inapartment 8247” (Gilbert, 1993b, p. 113). This perceptible difference
in word segmentation is technically referred to as juncture (Roach,
2000, p. 144) and is closely related to linking and pausing between
words in an utterance. The distinction may depend on such acoustic
differences as an aspirated vs. non-aspirated stop, for example, “myturn” vs. “might earn” and the holding or the single articulation of aconsonant sound, for example, “key punching” vs. “keep punching”
─ 7 ─

In the case of “my train” and “might rain,” it depends on the voicingof the “r” sound. In other cases, the distinction may depend not on
acoustic features but on the context of the utterance or the listener's
knowledge of the world (e.g., “a tax on city buses” vs. “attacks oncity buses” (Celce-Murcia, Brinton, and Goodwin, 1996, p. 241). The
context, of course, will almost certainly make the meaning clear.
Nevertheless, in the ﬂow of natural speech learners of English as aforeign language may be momentarily confused by such expressions
and should be made aware that such distinctions exist.

Research questions
This study addresses three main questions: How well do collegelevel Japanese EFL majors in the sample group perform on a test ofEnglish phonology covering syllabiﬁcation, word stress, sentence focus (identiﬁcation and distinguishing meaning), and thought groups?
What do the results suggest about the learners' grasp of English
phonology in these areas? How are the ﬁve test tasks interrelated?
The test consisted of the following ﬁve tasks:
1. Identifying the number of syllables in common English
words after seeing them in print and hearing themspoken by a native speaker.
2. Identifying the primary stress in common English
words after seeing them in print and hearing themspoken by a native speaker.
3. Identifying the focus word in sentences within thecontext of a dialogue after seeing sentences in print andhearing them spoken by a native speaker.
4. Recognizing how the focus word changes the meaning of─ 8 ─

a sentence.
5. Identifying thought groups in a sentence based on
differences in pausing, linking, juncture, and otherphonological variables.

MethodSubjects . The subjects in this study were 40 Japanese EFL
college students in Japan. All were English language majors enrolled
in a first-year pronunciation course. All had previous experiencestudying English in junior and senior high schools in Japan.

Data Collection. A diagnostic test was administered during thesecond class to assess the students' abilities in ﬁve areas of English
phonology. Test items were selected from a popular intermediatelevel pronunciation textbook (Gilbert, 1993a) and took about 12
minutes to complete. The test consisted of an audio cassette thatwas played in the classroom on a tape recorder and a written answer
sheet that the students marked while listening to the tape. There
were five sections on the test as described below. The examples
illustrate the type of items in each section but are not the actual test
items.
The ﬁrst section assessed the ability to determine the number ofsyllables in a word. Students listened to 10 words printed on the test
sheet and wrote in a blank space after each word how many syllables
they thought it had, 1, 2, 3, or more. Example:
forget ( 2 ) remember ( 3 ) think ( 1 )The second section assessed the ability to identify the primarystress in a word. Ten words were printed on the test sheet with─ 9 ─

a space between each syllable. After listening to each word, thestudents circled the syllable they thought had the primary stress.
Example:trans late dic ta tion pub li ca tion
The third section assessed the ability to identify the focus (primary stress) of a sentence. An informal conversation consisting of 10
utterances ranging in length from two to nine words appeared on theanswer sheet. After listening to each utterance, students underlined
the word they thought was the focus of the sentence. Example:
A: Do you speak English?
B: Yes, Can I help you?
A: I'd like to speak to Professor Tanaka in the English
Department.
B: One moment, please.
The fourth section assessed the ability to distinguish differencesin meaning when the focus of a sentence changes. On the test sheet,
there were ﬁve pairs of sentences that were exactly the same exceptthat a different word on the tape was stressed in each sentence.
Each sentence was followed by a rejoinder or answer if the sentence
was a question. After listening to the tape, the students selected thesentence with the stress pattern that best ﬁt the rejoinder or answer.
Example:(a) Does she read Spanish? No, but he does.
(b) Does she read Spanish? No, but she can speak it.

─ 10 ─

The ﬁfth section assessed the ability to distinguish differencesin meaning based on pausing, linking, juncture, and other variables
that affect the perception of which words belong together as one
thought group. On the test sheet, there were ﬁve pairs of sentencesthat were phonemically the same except for the existence or absenceof a pause, link, juncture, or other feature that changed the meaning.
Following each pair of sentences was a question that required thestudent to distinguish one sentence from the other based on what
they heard on the tape. After listening to the tape, the students
wrote the answer to question. Example:(a) The doctor said, “That man is sick.”(b) “The doctor, “ said that man, “is sick.”
Question: Who is sick? ()

An item analysis was carried out for each of the five test sections. The analysis consisted of tallying the number or responses foreach test item and calculating the percentage of correct responses.
The results appear in Tables 2a, 2b, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Results and Discussion
Tables 2a and 2b show the distribution of the total scores andthe scores on each subsection. The distribution for the total scores
approximates a normal curve with a slightly negative skew (-.83) anda moderate kurtosis (1.69). For ﬁrst-year students who perhaps had
little previous training in the features of English phonology coveredon this test, the mean (71.94% correct) for the group as a whole is
not unimpressive. Nevertheless, with 32% of the learners with scores─ 11 ─

below 70% it does indicate there is room for improvement for manyof them.
By far the easiest task (mean score of 94.5% correct) was Section
II, marking the primary stress in words (Table 5). Although thestudents listened to the tape before responding, it was possible todo this task simply by relying on background knowledge. All forty
students marked six of the 10 words correctly, and no word had
a score of less than 85% correct. Marking the primary stress ofwords is a common exercise in English classes in Japan and can befound on widely used standardized tests such as STEP (Eigo Kentei

Shiken ). As such, students may be familiar with this kind of task
and the words themselves from their previous study of English injunior and senior high schools. Having the words visually divided
into syllables on the page may have facilitated success in this task as
well. With a test sample of only 10 words covering a limited numberof word stress patterns (7 of the 10 words were 4-syllable words), it is
difﬁcult to generalize about the true scope of the students' ability inthis area.
Section IV, identifying the meaning of a sentence based on its
focus word, was moderately easy for most students (mean scoreof 83% correct). Based on the location of the primary stress, thestudents had to determine which of two meanings the sentence could
possibly have. A closer look at the five test items (Table 7) shows,
however, a wide range of difficulty, ranging from 65% to 92.5%
accuracy. It is unclear what accounts for this variation. Was it due
to some particular phonetic or phonological characteristic of thesentence that represents a weak point in these students' ability? Was
it related to the sound quality of the tape? Further testing with moresentences and a variety of sentences patterns is necessary to answer
─ 12 ─

these questions.
The other three sections, Section V (distinguishing thoughtgroups, 62.60%), Section I (identifying the number of syllables,
61.80%), and Section III (identifying sentence focus, 58.80%) weremore problematic. The nature of the difﬁculty the students had withthought groups (Tables 2 and 8) is unclear. Why, for instance, wasitem 1 (“pineapples” vs. “pie and apples”) so much easier (85.0%)
than item 4 (“wooden matches” vs. “wood and matches” (37.5%)?
Perhaps in the ﬁrst case, the presence of an unstressed schwa before/n/ in “pie and” was easier to detect than the presence or absenceof aspiration after /d/ in “wood” vs. “wooden” in the second case.
This hypothesis could be investigated with future research. How
other devices of thought grouping such as pausing and linking affectcomprehension and learnability need further investigation.
Given that the Japanese and English syllable systems are so
different from each other, we would expect considerable difficultywith Section I, the syllable identiﬁcation task (Tables 2a, 2b, and 4).
This task relied on both the learners' ability to aurally perceive thenumber of syllables and their background knowledge of the syllable
structure. As mentioned above, it was possible to complete this task
successfully by simply reading the words without listening to how
they were pronounced on the tape. The results (61.80% accuracy)
show as expected that this task was difficult for this group of students as a whole, but it also shows a wide range of variation (32.5%
to 95% accuracy) depending on the word. The Japanese tendency toinsert vowels after English consonants was not much of a factor forthese test items. For example, the two-syllable word “closet” when
pronounced with a Japanese accent becomes a four-syllable word: /kuro zet to/; however, only 1 of the 40 students marked it as so. The ac─ 13 ─curacy rate for this word, in fact, was the highest, 95%. In contrast,
the words that were the most difficult were the one-syllable words“caused” (37.5%) and “clothes” (34.4%). Most students perceived
them as having two syllables.
Because there were only 10 test items in Section I, it is difﬁcult
to see if there are any trends or patterns of difficulty. Among theitems with less than 70% accuracy, there are both long and shortwords, in terms of both number of letters and syllables. Upon closer
inspection, it can be seen that the length of the word (numberof syllables) was not related to difficulty as both one- and threesyllable words appeared among the most and least difﬁcult items. An
inspection of the word list in Table 4, in which the words are orderedby difﬁculty, suggests that longer words (number of letters) may be
a factor. The average length for items 1-5 is 6.0 letters, whereas foritems 6-10 it is 8.6 letters. This hypothesis could be tested throughfurther research. Overall, the average score for the 40 students on
this section of the test was 61.80%, indicative even with this small
sample that perception and knowledge of syllable structure is anarea that should receive more attention at this level of instruction.
The most difficult task (58.80% accuracy) was Section III,
identifying the focus of a sentence (Tables 2a, 2b, and 6). A close
examination of the test items presents a complex picture. Half of thesentences (5 out of 10) were correctly interpreted by a large majorityof the students (80%-100% accuracy). The other half, however, weremuch more difﬁcult (12.5% to 67.5% accuracy). The average degree of
accuracy for the three longer sentences (5, 6, and 7 words in length)
was 81.7%, in contrast to 51.1% for the seven shorter sentences (4words or fewer). The shorter sentences, however, were split into
two groups of very high and very low scores such that the mean did─ 14 ─

not reflect their true distribution. A comparison between the threequestions and the seven statements yielded similar results.
A short dialogue such as the one in this study provides limited
data for assessing or diagnosing learners' difﬁculties with sentence
focus. It is not clear from the results if the students were simply
responding to the physical features of prominence (vowel length, risein pitch, etc.) or were considering (or not considering) how the stresspattern of the sentences affected their meaning. What can be said,
though, is that some students are better at this task than others andthat many students had difﬁculty with it.

Correlations among the five skill areas . Table 3 presents thePearson product-moment correlations among the different sectionsof the test and their relation to the total score. Pearson's r measuresthe degree to which two sets of data are related. A result of 1.0
indicates a perfect one-to-one positive correspondence (high scoresmatch high scores) and -1.0 indicates a perfect one-to-one negative
correspondence (high scores match low scores). A result of 0.0
indicates that two sets of scores are unrelated. In the present study,
the strongest correlations were between Section III (identifying
the meaning of a sentence based on its focus word) and the total
test score (.73), and between Section I (identifying the numberof syllables) and the total test score (.65). These findings suggestthat among the ﬁve abilities examined in this study, it is these twoabilities that most clearly distinguish high from low achievers. Not
surprising, then, is the further ﬁnding that among the ﬁve sections,the only correlation worth noting ( r = .33) was found between thesame two sections. Identifying thought groups (.51) and word stress(.40) also distinguished high achievers but to a much lesser extent.
It should be noted that skewed distributions in Sections I (-2.53)
─ 15 ─

and Section II (-2.05) may have depressed their correlation coefficients (Brown, 1988, p. 145). Section IV required the students to
identify the location of the primary stress in relation to the intended
meaning of the sentence. Thus, we would expect strong positive
correlations with Sections II (word stress) and Sections III (sentence
focus). One reason no relationships were found among these three
sections could simply be that the test did not provide enough data forthese relationships to be observed. Perhaps a longer test with more
systematically selected tests items would bring these relationships tolight, if they exist.

Conclusion
In regard to how well the college-level Japanese EFL majors inthis sample group performed on the test of English phonology in thisstudy, several ﬁndings can be reported. First of all, on the total scorethe learners displayed a range of ability levels that approximateda moderately peaked normal curve with a slight negative skew.
Although some sections and some test items were for the group asa whole more or less difﬁcult than the others, the variation amongindividual learners both in total scores and subsection scores point to
the fact that many learners even after many years of English study
still need practice in the basic skills assessed by this test.
Second, the group as a whole found it difﬁcult to correctly identify the number of syllables in common words, the primary stress insentences within an extended dialogue (particularly stress associatedwith identifying attitude, contrast, and discourse marking), andthought groups that highlight the meaning of sentences. In contrast,
the group was moderately good at distinguishing meaning between
paired sentences with shifts in primary stress.
─ 16 ─

Third, learners overall were good at identifying the primarystress in common words that had been clearly divided into syllables
to facilitate marking. This result may reﬂect their previous experience with this kind of task and their background knowledge of basic
English vocabulary.
Fourth, no strong correlations were found among the fivesubsections of the test; however, it was clear that high performers
as a group tended to be those who were good at identifying sentence
focus, thought groups, and syllable numbers, exactly those areas thatwere problematic overall for most other learners.
In terms of the content of the test itself, the following limitations
can be noted. The number of test items in each section, particularly
in Sections I (syllables) and II (word stress) may be too small toaccurately reflect the variety of syllable and stress patterns thatlearners need to know. More test items displaying a greater varietyof patterns would improve the test. Similarly conclusions can be
drawn for Sections IV (sentence focus) and V (sentence meaning).
The stress and intonation patterns covered in the dialog in Section
III are also limited. To obtain results that will show more clearly theabilities of the learners, increasing the length of the test from its
present 12 minutes to about 25-30 minutes would allow for a wider
range of content and better coverage of the material without putting
too much burden on the concentration power of the test takers.
Knowing that a substantial number of Japanese learners
may have difficulty with many of the features of spoken English
covered on this test what can be done? In addition to the textbooks
mentioned previously, there are many excellent resource guides forteachers of English pronunciation, for example, Avery and Ehrlich(1992); Bailey and Savage (1994); Celce-Murcia, Brinton, and─ 17 ─

Goodwin (1996); Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994); and Laroy (1995) justto name a few. The work of Anderson-Hsieh (1996) with electronic
visual feedback and Jenkins (2002) with syllabus design should be
mentioned as well. In addition to dealing with the practical aspects
of classroom teaching, further research on the strengths and weakness of Japanese learners in regard to the suprasegmental featuresof English is also needed.

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─ 20 ─

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TablesTable 1. English syllable structure(V= vowel sound, C = consonant sound)
No. of sounds

Structure

Examples1

V

I, Oh! Ow!

2

VC, CVof, my3

CCV, VCC, CVC

free, ink, bat

4

CCCV, VCCC, CCVC, CVCC

spray, ants, stone, sand,

5

CVCCC, CCVCC, CCCVC

rests, brains, sprain,

6

CVCCCC, CCCVCC, CCVCCC

worlds, sprained, prints

7

CCCVCCC, CCVCCCC

sprints, twelfths

Notes: (1) Table prepared from data available in Avery and Ehrlich (1992) andCelce-Murcia, Brinton, and Goodwin (1996). Some new examples have been
added. (2) Celce-Murcia, Brinton, and Goodwin (1996, p. 375) state that the
8-sound structure CCCVCCCC is also possible, but they do not provide an
example.

─ 21 ─

Table 2a. Frequency distributions of section and total scores(number of learners)%
correct

Section I:
Syllables

SectionII
Word
stressSection III:
Focus
(identify)

Section IV:
Focus(meaning)

SectionV:
Thoughtgroups

Total
score

100-904 (10)

35 (87.5)2 (5)15 (37.5)

12 (30)1 (2.5)89-80

8 (20)

3 (7.5)2 (5)18 (45)4 (10)

9 (22.5)

79-70

9 (22.5)

1 (2.5)10 (25)69-60

4 (10)

1 (2.5)

12 (30)5 (12.5)

9 (22.5) 10 (24.5)

59-50

6 (15)0 (0)8 (20)

49-40

5 (12.5)0 (0)3 (7.5)

39-30

2 (5)

0 (0)

1 (2.5)0 (0.0)29-20

1 (2.5)0 (0)1 (2.5)0 (0.0)19-10

1 (2.5)0 (0)1 (2.5)

9-0

0 (0)

0 (0)

0 (2.5)

Totals40 (100)

40 (100)

40 (100)

17 (42.5)
2 (5.0)2 (5)11 (27.5)

1 (2.5)0 (0.0)40 (100)

4 (10)

0 (0.0)40 (100)

40 (100)

Notes: (1) N = 40. (2) Figures in parentheses indicate percentage. (3) Example: In
Section I, 4 learners scored between 90% and 100%, 8 learners between 80% and89%, etc.

Table 2b. Descriptive statistics for section and total scores
Section I: Section II:
Section III: Section IV: Section V:
Syllables Word stress Focus
Focus
Thought(identify)(meaning) groups
40

40

Total
score

N
No. of test
items
% correct

40

40

40

40

10

10

10

5

5

40

61.80

94.50

58.80

83.00

62.60

71.95

Mean

6.18

9.45

5.88

4.15

3.13

28.78

Median

7

10

6

4

3

29

SD
High

2.07
10

0.93
10

1.70
10

0.83
5

1.59
5

3.91
36

Low

1

6

1

2

0

16

Skew

-2.53

-2.05

-0.49

-0.85

-0.38

-0.83

Kurtosis

-0.26

4.42

1.59

0.43

-0.66

1.69

Note: Calculations are based on the raw scores.

─ 22 ─

Table 3. Pearson correlations between subsections and with the total
test score
Section I: Section II:
Section III: Section IV: Section V:
Syllables Word stress Focus
Focus
Thought(identify)(meaning) groups
I. Syllables

1.00

II. Word stress

Total
test
score

0.14

0.33

-0.13

-0.08

0.65

1.00

0.12

0.21

-0.04

0.40

1.00

-0.08

0.29

0.73

1.00

0.14

0.18

1.00

0.51

III. Sentence
focus
IV. Sentence
focus
V. ThoughtgroupsTotal test score

1.00

Note: Underlined ﬁgures indicate a moderate to strong correlation between thesetwo different sections.

Table 4. Section I: Identifying the Number of Syllables in a Word
Rank by
difﬁculty

Word

Number ofsyllables

Correct

Incorrect% correct

1

closet

2

38

2

95.0

2

simplify

3

34

6

85.0

3

ﬁrst

1

33

7

82.0

4

sport

1

31

9

77.5

5

opened

2

28

11

72.5

6

frightened

2

27

13

67.5

7

committee

3

26

14

65.0

8

arrangement

3

18

22

45.0

9

caused

1

15

25

37.5

10

clothes

1

13

27

34.4

Notes: (1) N = 40. (2) After seeing the word on the test paper and hearing it
spoken, the students wrote down how many syllables they thought it had.

─ 23 ─

Table 5. Section II: Identifying the syllable with the primary stress
Rank by
difﬁculty

Word

Number ofsyllables

Correct

Incorrect% correct

1

Ca na di an

4

40

0

100

2

ge og ra phy

4

40

0

100

3

Eu rope

2

40

0

100

4

in for ma tion

4

40

0

100

5

e con o my

4

40

0

100

6

e co no mic

4

40

0

100

7

par ti ci pa ting

5

38

2

95.0

8

pho to graph

3

37

3

92.5

9

pho tog ra phy

4

36

4

85.0

10

po lit i c al

4

34

6

85.0

Notes: (1) N = 40. (2) On the test paper, the words were divided into syllables asshown above. Students were instructed to circle the syllable that has the primarystress.

Table 6. Section III: Identifying which word is the focus of a sentence
Item

Sentence
length(words)1

92
3

Dialogue

Correct

Incorrect% correct

37

3

2

A: Do you think food inthis country is expensive?
B: Not really

27

13

67.5

4

A: I think it's expensive

5

35

12.5

4

6

40

0

100

5

4

B: That's because you
eat in restaurants.
A: Where do you eat?

9

31

22.5

6

2

B: At home.

100

0

100

7

3

A: Can you cook?

32

8

80.0

8a

5

B: Well, actually I can't cook.

22

1

52.5

8b

4

I just eat cheese.

18

4

45.0

9

2

A: That's awful!

38

2

96.1

92.5

Notes: (1) N = 40. (2) Item 8 consisted of two sentences. The percentage correct
for each is reported separately in the last column. Some students marked thefocus in both sentences and some only in one sentence so the N for each is lessthan 40.

─ 24 ─

Table 7. Section IV: Distinguishing differences in meaning
Rank by
difﬁculty
1

Paired sentences withrejoinders or answers

Correct Incorrect % correct

We want to buy a lot of apples. Not oranges?

37

3

92.5

34

6

85.0

33

7

82.5

Sally writes the reports? No, she reviews them 31

9

77.5

14

65.0

We want to buy a lot of apples. How many?
2

I think that animal is a wolf. No, it's a fox.
I think that animal is a wolf. Aren't you sure?

3Frank wanted to go early. When?
Frank wanted to go early. Who?

4

Sally writes the reports? No, Bob does.
5

Does she speak French? No, but he does.
26
Does she speak French? No, but she can read it.

Note: N = 40

Table 8. Section V: Distinguishing thought groups
Rank by
difﬁculty
1Thought Group

Correct Incorrect % correct

She likes pineapples.

34

6

85.0

32

8

80.0

26

14

65.0

25

15

62.5

30

10

37.5

She likes pie and apples.
2

He sold his houseboat and car.
He sold his house, boat, and car.

3

The president said, “That reporter is lying.”“The president,” said that reporter, “is lying.”

4

Wooden matches are used to start ﬁres.
Wood and matches are used to start ﬁres.

5

Would you like some soup or salad?
Would you like some Super Salad?

Note: N = 40

─ 25 ─