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liquid sounds. Word stress is also an important factor that interferes with listeners’ understanding of the words. For example, because of its two kinds of stress, “record” has two meanings. Its two main semantic functions are that it may distinguish the parts of speech between two words (a verb and a noun), which are alike. Besides, it is frequently more difficult for the beginner to listen to and understand some English speakers if they are not familiar with stress patterns. In an English sentence, whether or not a word is stressed depends on what kind of syntactical functions and morphological features it has. In addition to the above, intonation is of equal importance in affecting listening comprehension. (ii) Problems about grammar Grammar is a means to the original factor of accuracy in any language. However, in recent years, learners usually focus on communicating skills, preferring to ignore grammar acquisition, which influences listening ability to a great extent. English spoken language frequently contains forms that could be considered ungrammatical in writing abounds in verbless clauses, ellipses that would be frown up in a good writing. Insufficient and incorrect grammar knowledge usually leads to difficult listening. (iii) Lexicological problem New words appearing in the listening passage seem boring for students. Students usually assume that if they do not know all the words, they cannot understand the passage. So when they hear unfamiliar words, they become nervous and ponder the word: As a result, they fail to accept the following sentences. Actually none of us listen to every word spoken to us, yet we can understand what is said. To help students overcome the difficulties in terms of vocabulary, teachers should convince them that even if they do not know certain words, they can still understand the message. Students should be encouraged to engage in an active process of listening for meanings, using not only the linguistic cues but also their non-linguistic knowledge. Teachers then can purposefully train students to listen to information carried by the passage instead of individual words. Students can guess the meaning of certain words from context to understand the information. 2.1.2 Background knowledge Background knowledge is an important factor that influences comprehension. Current views on listening comprehension agree that background or prior knowledge can affect listening comprehension. Cultural background knowledge, history and customs are important ones that can affect listening comprehension. “Language is a kind of cultural expression. It is very necessary for students to know some background about English countries, such as the history, culture, customs and habits, even life styles.” [6] “Gaps in our knowledge of second language culture, of the associations and references available to native users, can present obstacles to comprehension.” [7] Many students are lack of these kinds of knowledge, so they think listening is very difficult. For example, there are two materials of the same difficulty. One explains something about China’s Spring Festival; the other is about Thanks Giving Day of the west countries. The former is easy to understand but the latter is more difficult, why? It is clear that the students know little about the latter. 2.1.3 Motivation affecting listening Of equal importance to the above factors is the listener’s purpose in listening. If the reason for listening is clear,