Japanese EFL learners’ comprehension and perceptions of three different accents in listening assessment

Understanding a single English accent is becoming insufficient for English language learners because they are likely to encounter both first (L1) and second-language (L2) speakers of English in various contexts. Hence, different English accents have been incorporated into the recordings used for L2 language assessments, specifically listening comprehension (LC) tests. However, the efficacy of tests using various English accents is not definitively established in the English as a foreign language (EFL) literature. Furthermore, there has been limited investigation specifically into how learners perceive the level of difficulty in comprehending various accents during listening assessments. Therefore, this study examined how the LC scores and comprehensibility ratings (ease of understanding) differed depending on accents. Seventy-nine Japanese adult EFL learners took a multiple-choice question-type LC test featuring three different English accents (i.e., American, British, and Japanese) and then rated how difficult it was to understand each accent. The findings showed that, although the LC test scores did not differ significantly by accent, the participants perceived the British and Japanese accents as more difficult to understand than the American accent. The results imply that while sharing L1 with the speakers and familiarity with a certain accent may not affect speech comprehension, greater familiarity with a given accent can ease comprehension. The findings thus can shed light on the inclusion of a variety of accented speech in language tests and pedagogical instruction.