Vocal prosody and listening comprehension in advanced Arabic L2 learners: A mixed-methods study with comparative insights from English L2 pedagogy

Abstract

This study investigates how prosodic parameters – speech rate, pausing, intonation contour, pitch range (F0 span), and monotony – shape listening comprehension among advanced learners of Arabic (CEFR B2–C1). Drawing on triangulated evidence from semi-structured instructor interviews (n = 6), a learner survey (n = 52), and a curriculum-embedded audit of textbook audio, the analysis integrates exploratory inferential statistics with acoustic-phonetic profiling in Praat (words-per-minute, pause metrics, F0 range, intensity). Convergent results identify fast, weakly segmented speech as the principal barrier to comprehension, with flattened or atypical intonation attenuating discourse-pragmatic signalling that listeners rely on for parsing and prediction. Relative to widely reported EAP benchmarks, the Arabic instructional materials examined exhibit slower delivery and narrower F0 spans, a pattern that risks limited ecological validity and potential under-preparation for authentic input. The findings refine bottom-up/top-down accounts and cognitive-load explanations by demonstrating that prosodic chunking – via tempo and temporal segmentation – mediates processing even at advanced proficiency. Pedagogically, the study motivates staged exposure to authentic-speed Arabic, explicit prosody-for-listening instruction (e.g. guided shadowing, cue tracking, and pause-aware transcription), and CEFR-aligned assessment targeting prosodic inference. Acoustic and statistical patterns jointly foreground speed and pausing as high-impact levers for instruction and materials design in Arabic second language (L2) listening.