Effects of Noise Types and Noise Degree on the Listening Comprehension of English as a Foreign Language Learners

In everyday life, communication often occurs in contexts where we hear much noise; however, most studies examining the effects of noise on language learners' listening comprehension have focused on factors other than noise types, and studies focusing on different types of noise are scarce.In addition, most noise used in the previous research is artificial noise.The effect of commonly encountered environmental background noise on listeners' comprehension remains unknown.This study explores how background noise affects the listening comprehension of English as a foreign language (EFL), focusing on comparing real-life environmental background noise and artificial multi-talker background noise.Japanese EFL learners took listening tests in the presence of different types and levels of noise.The test results showed that the different types of noise did not affect listening comprehension.However, the questionnaire results indicated some participants' discomfort with multi-talker babble.Regarding the noise levels, it was found that the participants were more negatively affected by strong noise levels than by weak noise levels.The findings also revealed that the effects of the degree of noise on learners' listening comprehension were greater than those of the noise type.