Auditory Short-Term Memory, Listening Comprehension, and the Input Hypothesis

This article reports the findings of a study which examined the relationship between auditory short-term memory and listening skill. The study was designed to assess the contribution of short-term memory for each of five types of auditory input to differences in standardized listening scores. Memory for syntactically arranged words proved to be the best predictor of listening skill in this battery of tests. The significance of the results for comprehension-based teaching methodologies is discussed.