Afsar Rouhi - Payame Noor University, Iran
Seyyede-Masumeh Nabavi - Islamic Azad University – Ardabil Branch, Iran
Hassan Mohebbi - University of Tehran – Alborz Campus, Iran

In this study, an attempt was made to examine the effects of previewing questions, repetition of input,and topic preparation on listening comprehension of Iranian learners of English. The study wasconducted with 104 high school students in 3 experimental and one control groups. The participants inthe previewing questions group read the comprehension questions before hearing the text andanswering the questions. The topic preparation group took advantage of topic-related texts in Persianfollowed by previewing questions; then they listened to the texts and answered the questions. Therepetition of input group had two hearings with previewing before each hearing that precededanswering the comprehension questions. The control group, however, only had one hearing beforeanswering the questions. The results obtained from data analysis showed that the topic preparationgroup performed better than the other participating groups. The repetition group, in turn, did betterthan the previewing group. There was, however, no statistically significant difference between thepreviewing and repetition groups. Based on the results obtained, it can be argued that providing and/oractivating background knowledge and repeating a listening task might facilitate listeningcomprehension in EFL classroom settings. The findings and pedagogical implications of the study arediscussed in detail.

listening comprehension; previewing questions; repetition of input; topic preparation