The effects of topic familiarity on the listening comprehension of university students of Spanish

The current study was undertaken to investigate the effects of topic familiarity on the listening comprehension of students of Spanish at different course levels. Three intact sections each of first-, second-, and third-quarter university students listened to two passages, one about a familiar topic and one about a novel topic. The passages represent authentic language in that the recordings were from spontaneous speech of a native speaker. Listening comprehension was assessed through a native-language recall protocol.;The independent variables of the study were (a) two levels of topic familiarity determined by previous exposure to the information contained in the passages according to the course syllabus and a post-listening questionnaire and (b) three levels of Spanish proficiency determined by course level. The dependent variable was the percentage of information recalled as demonstrated by the immediate recall protocol. A 3 x 2 analysis of variance with repeated measures on the second factor was performed on recall protocol scores in order to determine both main effects among independent variables and interaction effects.;The results indicate that both topic familiarity and course level affect recall measures of listening comprehension. All subjects recalled significantly more information from the familiar topic and the improvement in comprehension scores ascends in order of the course numbers. A post-listening questionnaire elicited information regarding the subjects' perceptions of the difficulty of the listening activity. The most salient response related to the concept in Spanish pronunciation of "linking".;The results of this study support the view that listening comprehension is an interactive process involving both internal and external factors. Topic familiarity, an internal factor, emerged as a powerful factor and subject comments revealed that comprehension was complicated by phonological characteristics of spoken language, an external factor. Pedagogical implications include (a) the use of prelistening activities to activate relevant background knowledge, (b) more exposure to authentic speech, and (c) an emphasis on the differences between spoken and written discourse.