A study of the effects of cultural content schemata and style of speech on ESL listening comprehension

The purpose of the study was to investigate the separate and interactive effects of cultural content schemata and style of speech on listening comprehension ability of ESL students.;The subjects for the study were forty Chinese advanced ESL students studying at the University of Alberta. As a cross-cultural comparison, forty Canadian university students were also involved. Explicit and implicit multiple-choice questions were developed based on two spoken dialogues derived from both the Chinese and the Canadian cultures, each of which was written in both semi-formal and informal styles. The interactions among the cultural origin of the texts, the style used in them and the cultural background of the subjects were examined.;It was concluded that EFL teachers should be more familiar with the cultural expression of the group whose language they are teaching; resource materials about the target culture should be more widely used, and teaching methodology should be changed from a grammar-centered approach to a more communicative approach. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).