Is Listening Comprehension Influenced by the Cultural Knowledge

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