The Interactive Effect Of Thinking Style And Topic Familiarity On English Listening Comprehension Of High School Students

Based on Sternberg’s thinking style and the schema theory, the present research takes literature analysis and questionnaire as research methods to investigate the influence of thinking style and topic familiarity on listening comprehension of high school students. The research firstly divided high school students into different groups by thinking styles in order to analyze the effect of students’ thinking styles on listening achievements. Then analyze the degree the topic familiarity of listening influences the listening achievements. At last, based on the effect of high school students’ thinking styles and the topic familiarity on listening achievements, the thesis aims to investigate their interactive effect on listening achievements.According to the research, the major findings are listed as follows.1. Executive、hierarchic、internal and conservative thinking styles have significant effect on listening achievements. Listening achievements are positively correlated with the five thinking styles mentioned above.2. The other variable of the research that influences the listening achievement is topic familiarity. When students’ topic familiarity is more than the value of degree 2, the topic familiarity is rather familiar, it’s positively correlated with listening achievement.3. With the regression analysis, listening achievements mainly depend on thinking styles of executive and conservative and topic familiarity. Among these, listening achievements are positively correlated with executive, conservative thinking styles, also topic familiarity. But global thinking style has negative effect on listening achievement.The aim of the research is to help English teachers teach listening skills and select listening materials in an effective way, to provide students with effective listening strategies.