علی مرشدی تنکابنی

Although listening ability is one of the important skills in foreign language learning, there has been relatively little research in this specific area. The present study attempted to investigate the effects of narration and partial dictation tasks on Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ listening comprehension. In order to have participant of relatively the same level of language proficiency, an Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was used at the beginning of the research and sixty participants were chosen from the 85 students who took the test. The study consisted of three groups, two experimental groups and one control group (twenty participants in each group) with a pre-test and post-test measurement within a seven-week period of time. All the groups were exposed to the same listening test as the pre and post-test, however, only the experimental groups received the special treatment regarding tasks, narration and partial dictation. Meanwhile, the control group listened to the audio materials and was given the listening exercises in their textbook. ANOVA and paired-samples t-test were utilized to analyze the listening performance of the participants. At the end of the study, the results revealed that experimental groups outperformed the control group in post-test. And the difference between the pre-test and post-test scores for the experimental groups was found to be statistically significant, although for the control group it was not so. Moreover, the results didn’t show any significant difference between performance of narration and partial dictation groups. The results of this study could help teachers, learners, and textbook writers and for those who are interested in this field.