The Effect of Accent on Interpersonal and Content-Based Listening Comprehension of EFL High School Students

Despite the role of accent in listening comprehension, virtually no prior studies examined the effect of accent with Korean EFL high school students. Moreover, although it is important that high school students should be able to understand content-based listening passages, little is known in this regard. Therefore, the present study explored the effect of accent on listening comprehension of content-based as well as interpersonal texts. The quantitative data obtained from 195 second year EFL Korean high school students were analyzed using multiple statistical tools. Major findings are as follows. First, extending the findings of previous studies, the study documented that accent had different effects at the various levels of listening comprehension regardless of types of listening passages. Second, students with high proficiency consistently outperformed low proficiency counterparts regardless of accent difference and the types of listening passages as shown by the statistically insignificant interaction of accent and language proficiency. The findings of the study have implications for educational administrators, researchers, practitioners, and Korean EFL high school students.