Improving English Listening Skills in Japanese Learners with Speech Rhythm Vibration Feedback

We investigated the use of rhythmic vibration feedback to improve English listening skills in Japanese learners, specifically targeting the challenge of perceiving and processing the stress-timed rhythm of English. Three experiments explored the impact of synchronized vibration patterns, corresponding to stressed and unstressed syllables, on prosody perception, recognition of compound words and noun phrases, and word anticipation. Results indicate that the combined voice and vibration feedback significantly improved the recognition of stressed and unstressed syllables and enhanced word prediction compared to voice alone. However, no effect on compound word recognition was observed. This research suggests that rhythmic vibration feedback can be a valuable tool for enhancing English listening skills in Japanese learners by facilitating the acquisition of stress-timed rhythmic patterns.