The Effects of Two Pre-Listening Vocabulary and Enhanced Content-Related Supports on Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension Sub-Skills

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of two pre-listening supports of vocabulary instruction (VI) and enhanced content related support, including input repetition plus background knowledge (IR+BK), and vocabulary instruction plus background knowledge (VI+BK) on EFL intermediate learners’ overall listening comprehension and its sub-skills. A total of 100 Iranian intermediate learners were assigned to four groups of 25 based on their scores in FCE test. Providing different forms of listening supports to the three groups, the results showed that the most effective type of support was providing IR+BK, followed by VI+BK. The least useful was VI support though it revealed better results than no pre-listening support. Regarding listening sub-skills, VI was the most useful for main idea questions, while IR+BK support had significant effects on listening for making inferences questions. There was not any noticeable difference among different kinds of supports regarding EFL learners’ ability of listening for specifics. This study makes a contribution to the literature by introducing the enhanced form of pre-listening support to language teachers and test makers.