ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the participant-selection criteria and presents the participants' demographic and language-background characteristics. It describes the materials and outlines the experimental procedure. It then discusses the dependent variables and methods of data analysis. Participants were grouped according to their level of proficiency in English based on the measures, which were added together to create a global proficiency score. The purpose of the listening comprehension test was to determine participants' listening comprehension ability in English. An oral interview was used to obtain a speech sample from each participant for the purpose of evaluating oral proficiency. The background questionnaire sought information regarding the participants' demographic and language background as well as the participants' history of language-learning and use. Individuals with pilot, air traffic control (ATC) or other relevant aeronautical experience were not selected for the study in order to control for expertise effects. Data obtained from participants were excluded from the final data analyses.
