English teachers' discourse and the effective promotion of students' listening skill

Abstract This article shows the results of a study that aimed at verifying how much B2 proficiency level students, according to the Common European Framework of Reference, understand their teachers' speech. It also aimed at identifying teachers' and students' perceptions on how speech should be delivered so that learners at this level can significantly improve their listening skill. The goal of this study was to compare the two groups' perceptions and contrast them to the degree of student comprehension as well as to the pedagogic function of the teacher's speech. The resulting data were analyzed based on Vygotsky's sociointeractionism, Benveniste's theory and Ausubel's meaningful learning concept.