earticle

영어

The purpose of this paper is to examine the validity of the levels of beginning, intermediate and advanced English conversation classes divided and classified by students’ own choices depending on their English competence and to assess Korean university students’ listening comprehension of English according to different listening materials, question types and question tasks. The subjects in this study included 264 university students, 115 in the beginning level, 94 in the intermediate level, and 55 in the advanced level classes respectively. To analyze the subjects’ listening capabilities, they were assessed twice, at the beginning and at the end of the semester in terms of interactive and non-interactive discourse, global and local questions, and searching for topic, key word and the main idea. Statistical measurements used were mean, mean deviation, t-test and ANOVA. The results of the study found that the classes classified were not adequate. Students only in the advanced class conducted showed a considerable improvement of listening comprehension through English conversation class in the semester. They were better at listening to dialogues at the pre-test, but non-interactive listening materials at the post-test. They were better at listening to global questions than local questions. In task questions, they searched for the main idea better than topic and keyword. This paper discusses the listening process, input theory and schema theory as important theoretical constructs and also provides efficient classroom implications for teaching listening of English.