學生練習跟述的時候,除了不斷的輸入訊息,保留訊息,同時還要在大腦裡解構句型,再以口頭反覆輸出,因此一般推測,跟述的順暢與否和個人的作業記憶體(以下簡稱為WM容量),應該有密切的關連。由此推論,教師交代學生做跟述作業的時候,與其毫不考慮WM容量的個人差異,賦予全班同等份量的作業,還不如依照學生個人的作業記憶體之大小,對作業的份量做一番調整,例如分為段落組跟全文組,或許更可以照顧到WM容量的個人差異,促進整體學生的聽力提升。筆者根據這個假設,做了一個實驗。然而,實驗的結果顯示,作業記憶體的大小和聽力的進步幅度之間並沒有顯著的相關性,但是文章的長度與聽力進步幅度,達到顯著差異。另外,不論作業記憶體之大小,段落組相對於全文組,均呈現出較大的聽力進步幅度。作業記憶體的大小與文章長度並無交互作用效應。
Shadowing requires simultaneous procession of receiving, maintaining and reforming of information. Presumably, students' performance largely depends on individual's capacity of Working Memory (hereinafter known as WM). Given that, the researcher assumed that the shadowing assignment should be commensurate with learner's WM. Thus, such assumption was tested. Interesting enough, the results reveal that there is no significant correlation between the progress students made in listening comprehension and the size of students' WM, while significant difference was found between the length of given passage and the progress in listening comprehension. Moreover, regardless of the size of WM, paragraph-assigned groups achieved comparatively considerable progress in listening comprehension than full text-assigned groups. With regard to the progress in listening comprehension, results show no interplay between size of WM and length of given passage.