Exploring the Right or Left Ear Advantage for EFL Listening Comprehension

Listening comprehension plays a pivotal role in a successful oral communication. Therefore, many researchers have tried to address its steps and processes. In light of the psycholinguistic findings about the lateralization of human brain, one cognitive line of research has been the superiority of left or right ear in language processing. However, studies investigating the superiority of right or left ear have been mostly conducted with the participants’ native language, and one can see the paucity of studies examining the right or left ear advantage in EFL listening comprehension. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to address this issue. For so doing, 38 EFL freshmen university students were selected and randomly divided into two groups. The researchers taught English Conversation Course to the participants for two semesters. Apart from using audiovisual materials in the class, the instructors taught Collings English for Exam (Speaking Book) to make students familiar with the speaking section of IELTS. For the experiment, after taking the placement test, the two classes were administered two different IELTS speaking tests taken form IELTS Cambridge Series. The first test was played just through students’ left ear by microphone. A week later, another IELTS speaking test was administered but this time though students’ right ear only. Then, the students’ performance in the two tests were compared using T-Test. The findings indicated no significant advantage for right or left ear in EFL listening comprehension. The results were discussed and pedagogical and theoretical implications were made.

Keywords:

Listening comprehension , right/left ear , lateralization , EFL university students