Enhancing Listening Comprehension among Iranian EFL Learners through SchemaTheory

This study aimed to determine whether using cultural information as a pre-listening activity significantlyaffects EFL learners' listening comprehension. Consequently, 180 students majoring in English atAllame Tabatabae and Azad University were randomly selected based on their scores on the Michiganproficiency test (1995). Then, the subjects were divided into three groups: elementary, intermediate,and advanced. Subsequently, each was divided into equal subgroups, ultimately assigned randomly tothe control and experimental groups. From the very beginning, both the control group and theexperimental group took a test of listening comprehension suited to each of the three aforementioneddifferent levels, except for the fact that to each passage in the second set, the Cultural information wasadded, functioning as the treatment of the experiment. The data were analyzed through the t-test, whichcompared the means of the control and experimental groups of various levels of language proficiencies.The results show that the use of cultural information did not affect the listening comprehension ofelementary students, contrary to the intermediate and advanced students. By considering the anchoringrole of cultural understanding in comprehension, the results can have implications for syllabusdesigners, material writers, test developers, and language teachers

Enhancing Listening Comprehension among Iranian EFL Learners through SchemaTheory Keywords:

Cultural Information” , “Listening Comprehension” , “Proficiency Levels”.