The effectiveness of a high variability identification training procedure to improve native Japanese identification and production of the American English (AE) mid and low vowels /ae/, /A/, /2/, /O/, /Ç/ was investigated. Vowel identification and production performance for two groups of Japanese participants was measured before and after a 6-week identification training period. Recordings were made of both group's pre-/posttraining vowel productions of the five vowels, which were evaluated by a group of native AE listeners using a five-alternative, forced-choice identification task and by an acoustic analysis of the vowel productions. The overall results confirmed that the identification performance of the experimental (trained) participants improved after identification training with feedback and that the training also had a positive effect on their production of the target AE vowels. When learning a second or foreign language (L2), adults typically have difficulty mastering certain phonemic contrasts in the target language (Best, 1995;MacKain, Best, & Strange, 1981). As language-specific perceivers, adults' perception of speech is attuned to contrastive elements that serve to distinguish native phones during first or native language (L1) acquisition. It can be a challenge for listeners to accurately distinguish between sounds in the L2, or between L1 and

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Two case studies evaluating the effectiveness of a flipped classroom compared to a traditional classroom were performed. The studies were conducted from April 2014 to January 2015 at a private university in Tokyo, targeting 60 firstyear and 25 third-year undergraduates, respectively. In the first study, an assessment of pre-and post-treatment Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) scores revealed students exposed to the flipped lessons improved from a mean of 474 (SD 111) to 649 (SD 96), which was greater than that of the control students who improved from 484 (SD 123) to 617 (SD 115). In the second study, students were exposed to flipped lessons for 24 weeks using a variety of materials such as the 'Lecture Ready II' digital text with iPad, COOORI e-learning software for learning words and phrases related to the digital text, ATR CALL Brix e-Learning, Newton e-Learning, and TED Talks. An assessment of pre-and post-treatment TOEIC scores and Oral Proficiency Interview by computer-based (OPIc) speaking test results showed students improved from a mean of 577 (SD 132) to 758 (SD 105), an improvement of 24% in just the speaking test. Surveys administered after exposure to the flipped lesson activities indicated students were satisfied with their flipped classroom lessons and motivated by the Blended Learning (BL) environment that incorporated mobile learning.

Five groups of native Japanese listeners were assigned to five conditions differing in word-external contexts. In the Intact condition, three types of target disyllables, /mVmV/, /mV:mV/, and /mVmV:/ were spoken in a carrier sentence at two speaking rates. In the other four conditions, the target disyllables of the Intact condition were excised from the original carrier sentence (Excised); embedded in the carrier sentence of the other rate (Mismatch); presented only with the preceding three syllables (Preceding), and presented only with the following three syllables (Following). The accuracy for identifying the word types was higher for the Intact than Excised and Mismatch conditions, indicating that the presence of the carrier sentence with an appropriate rate was important for accurate identification. It was also found that either the preceding or the following short phrase contained sufficient information for identifying the word types. Further, there were effects of the preceding and following phrases on both the first and second vowels of the targets, suggesting that the distant speech materials more than two phonemes away from a target in both sides can affect identification accuracy. Implications are discussed in terms of the adjacency principle for rate normalization.