This study investigates the listening comprehension problems of Saudi students. Forty Saudi postgraduate students from both genders (24 males and 16 females) participated in the study and all participants were postgraduate students at the University of Essex in the UK. The questionnaire was the only instrument used to collect data. The main findings of the study discovered were related to listeners first. Secondly, the study showed a significant difference between the academic lectures or seminars in five problems related to both listener and text, while thirdly the study showed a non-significant difference between the Saudi male and female students in terms of listening comprehension. Fourthly, the study discovered that the LC problems vary based on the learners’ academic levels as the LC problems get fewer when the academic level gets higher, confirming negative correlations between academic level and LC problems. After applying aggression analysis on some variables, the study also demonstrated that the length of studying English has a remarkable effect on the LC for Saudi students.
Discourse Structure and Listening Comprehension of English Academic Lectures
