The Influence Of Task Complexity And Working Memory On Chinese L2 Learners’ Listening Comprehension

Nowadays, listening has been universally considered the most important and fundamental skill in language development. However, listening comprehension is quite difficult for many second language learners. In the past few decades, a great many researches have been conducted to investigate the nature of listening comprehension, factors that influence listening comprehension proficiency, and skills needed to improve listening comprehension proficiency. However, there are few researchers attempting to account for the individual differences in listening comprehension achievements from the cognitive perspective. This paper focuses on two important cognitive factors that influence listening comprehension achievements, namely working memory and task complexity. It is based on an experimental research addressing 60 second year English majors from a university in China, with the aim of examining the influence of working memory and task complexity on second language listening comprehension achievements.This paper adopted an empirical, quantitative research method. A mind test designed by researchers in cognitive neuroscience department of Nanjing Normal University was carried out to measure the working memory capacity of the subjects. And a listening comprehension test was designed and applied to evaluate the second language listening proficiency of the subjects.The data gathered were then statistically analyzed with the help of SPSS. Based on the results and explanations, conclusions are summarized as follows:First, task complexity has an effect on second language listening comprehension achievements. And an increase in task complexity will lead to worse listening comprehension achievements.Second, working memory is an important cognitive factor that plays an important role in second language listening comprehension achievements. Subjects with a higher working memory span will perform better in listening comprehension.Third, there is a correlation between working memory and task complexity, and the effect of task complexity on listening comprehension is influenced by working memory. Therefore, the larger the working memory capacity is, the weaker is the effect of task complexity on listening comprehension.