Examining Factors Affecting Listening Task Difficulty Based On TBLA

The thesis, based on previous study on task difficulty and the nature of listening, evaluates those factors which possibly affect listening task difficulty, and then proposes a framework. It is expected that the framework set by the researcher will shed some lights on listening task designing, and can also promote listening teaching.The focus of the thesis consists of Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, theoretical analysis and empirical study. The empirical study is trying to test and verify the framework drawn from theoretical analysis. Some components are eliminated from the framework after investigation and analysis. After collecting the data of the distributed questionnaires and the surveys, SPSS is adopted to deal with data analysis, such as factor analysis, reliability analysis, frequency analysis and correlation analysis. At last some findings and limitations are pointed out.Combining theoretical analysis with empirical study, the thesis finally concludes the findings are:1) The factors affecting listening task difficulty could be classified from three dimensions:information input, information processing and information output. Information input includes amount of information, language complexity, familiarity with the text, stress, intonation and accents, delivery times, the speed of the text; information processing mainly refers to test formats, listening strategies, motivation, noticing, retrieval, reasoning, time pressure; and information output only contains support. It is hoped that these elements would be helpful to the analysis of individual listening task difficulty and also be useful for listening teachers in designing listening task. 2) The factors proposed by the researcher could predict student's test performance. 3) The factors proposed by the researcher is correlated with student's test performance.However, the study and the ideas are tentative and incomplete, and thus we need to conduct more theoretical and empirical studies in the future so as to further improve the research of listening task difficulty.