Comparing the effects of different advance organizers on EFL learners’ listening comprehension: Key vocabularies, previewing comprehension questions, and multimedia annotations

Abstract

Listening is a fundamental and challenging component of second language learning. To decrease its difficulty, Advance Organizer activities (pre-listening supports) can be used leading to more effective listening and better comprehension. This study aimed to investigate the effects of three different Advance Organizers (AOs), i.e. pre-teaching key vocabularies (KV), previewing comprehension questions (PQ), and using multimedia annotations (MA), on EFL learners’ listening comprehension. To this end, 128 female high school students at basic proficiency level were randomly assigned to three experimental groups and one control group. A listening comprehension pre-test was administered to all groups before the treatment. Then, the experimental groups received their AO treatments. After listening post-test, covariance analysis (ANCOVA) was used to analyze data. Based on the results, MA and KV groups with the mean score of 8.156 and 6.500 respectively, showed a significant positive improvement in students’ listening comprehension. Although the previewing comprehension questions AO with the mean score of 5.312 did not improve the learners’ listening comprehension significantly, it showed better results than the control group. The implications of this study are useful for future and current language teachers, practitioners, and syllabus designers.