Morteza Bakhtiarvand

Is Listening Comprehension Influenced by the Cultural Knowledge Morteza Bakhtiarvand

The present study tried to investigate the effect of cultural familiarity on improving Iranian EFL learners' listening comprehension. To achieve this purpose, a listening comprehension test was administered to three hundred language learners and ultimately one hundred and twenty pre-intermediate language learners according to their level of proficiency were selected and randomly assigned to four groups. The same pre-test was administered to four groups before any treatment lesson. During the experiment, group one participants had exposure to target culture materials in-and out-side the classroom. The participants in group two had exposure to international target culture materials in-and out-side the classroom. The participants in group three had exposure to source culture materials in-and out-side the classroom. The participants in group four had only exposure to culture free materials in-and-out side the classroom. At the end of the experiment, four groups took a post-test which was absolutely the same as pre-test to see whether or not any changes happened regarding their listening proficiency. The results of the posttest showed that the four groups performed differentl