BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE AND LISTENING COMPREHENSION

The present study tried to investigate the effect of cultural familiarity on improving Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ listening comprehension. To achieve this purpose, a listening comprehension test were administered to three hundred language learners and ultimately one hundred and twenty pre-intermediate language learners were selected and randomly assigned to four groups. The same pre-test was administered for four groups before any treatment lesson. During the experiment, group one participants had exposure to target culture texts in-and out-side the classroom. The participants in group two had exposure to international target culture texts in-and out-side the classroom. The participants in group three had exposure to source culture texts in-and out-side the classroom. The participants in group four had only exposure to culture free texts 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 differently on the posttest which was indicative of the fact that greater familiarity to specific culturally-oriented language listening material promotes the Iranian EFL learners’ listening proficiency.