The Effect of Prelistening Activity Types on Listening Comprehension and Listening Anxiety

The present study was carried out to compare the effects of prelistening activities of cultural awareness-raising, strategies-based instruction, and linguistic support on listening comprehension as well as listening anxiety of EFL learners. The participants were 90 students (40 males & 50 females) majoring in English Language Teaching and Translation at Gonbad-e-Kavous University. The participants were selected out of 126 learners using the standardized Preliminary English Test (PET). The listening section of a PET and a listening anxiety questionnaire were given as both pretest and posttest to measure the level of listening comprehension and listening anxiety of the participants before and after the treatments. The participants were categorized into three groups. Each group was given listening instruction for ten sessions using one of the above mentioned prelistening activities. Data were analyzed using one-way ANCOVA. The results indicated that cultural awareness-raising and linguistic support were more effective in improving the listening comprehension and reducing the listening anxiety of the participants. Although the strategies-based instruction was positively effective on both variables, it was the least effective activity. The findings of the study can benefit material developers and teachers in making informed decisions about the type(s) of activities to implement in the listening courses.