| The objectives were to determine if differences would be found between prekindergarteners, middle school students, and adults in listening comprehension, oral production, pronunciation, word recognition and meaning identification of words covered in listening training in Chinese and those not covered in listening training.;Subjects were 19 prekindergarten children, 20 middle school students and 7 adults. None knew Chinese and all were volunteers.;The Total Physical Response method was used for five weeks of listening comprehension training. Groups received virtually identical treatments in two training sessions each week. A third session included teaching printed words and a listening quiz. The final testing covered listening comprehension, oral production, word recognition, imitation and pronunciation.;The adults scored better than both other groups in listening comprehension, oral production, word recognition and imitation. The prekindergarten children received higher ratings than the other groups in pronunciation. Members of all three groups recognized printed words, identified meanings of words, and imitated words covered in listening training better than they did words not covered. The adults did not score higher in imitating sentences covered in the listening comprehension. However, the other groups scored higher in imitating sentences covered in listening comprehension training.;It was concluded that the optimal age varies for different language skills. Second, children respond faster to oral commands than older learners. Third, children are not far behind adults in their listening comprehension ability. Fourth, speech occurs when a large amount of listening input is provided. Fifth, younger children rely more on context in oral production. Sixth, listening promotes readiness for learning other language skills. Seventh, learners of all ages seek assistance from their first language. Eighth, learners of all ages do learn their pronunciation with listening training. Ninth, younger children acquire better pronunciation whereas older learners produce more words and sentences in imitation. |
