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ts listen to different varieties and accents rather than just the voice of their teacher. Besides British English, they may come across American English or other English. 2.2.2 The contents and task of listening materials Listening to spoken English involves a wide range of topics, such as advertisements, news broadcast, plays, songs, speeches, conversations and other kinds of communication. “In terms of task, Buck’s introspective case study shows that comprehension is affected by the location of the question, that is, whether the question is given before or after the text, and the lexical items used.” [13] 2.2.3 Context Context refers to the spatial-temporal location of the utterance, i.e. on the particular time and particular place at which the speaker makes an utterance and the particular time and place at which the listener hears or reads the utterance. Participants in a communication will decide in what context the communication event lies. The context governs the participants’ expectations and then interpretation of utterances. But sometimes one side may fail to understand the context he is in. Thus, even a straightforward reply can cause misunderstanding unless uttered against a background of shared context and background. For example, the simple question “What time is it now?” may mean differently in different context. (1) (A mother is shopping with her young daughter) A: What time is it now? B: It's one o'clock already. (2) (A young girl is watching TV with her parents on a Sunday night) A: What time is it, honey? B: It’s ten now. A: I know it is very late. In each case the semantic meaning of “What time is it now?” is the same, but they mean differently in different context. In example (1), it requires straightforward information of time. In example (2), the mother is implying that it is time for the girl to go to bed. 2.2.4 Co-text Co-text is another major factor influencing the interpretation of meaning. It refers to the linguistic context or the textual environment provided by the discourse or text in which a particular utterance occurs. Co-text constrains the way in which we interpret the response. For example, (3) A: Are you coming to the picnic with us? B: I have a paper to finish by Monday. Here we can infer that the person is not going to picnic by judging from the co-text. 3. How to Improve Students’ Listening Comprehension 3.1 Improvement of linguistic knowledge and listening skills 3.1.1 The pronunciation, stress and intonation that obstruct listening comprehension The pronunciation, stress and intonation are the basic factors that obstruct listening comprehension. Therefore, at the beginning of listening comprehension lesson, it is important to train students’ ability of discriminating sounds. “To improve this kind of ability, students need to practice in hearing and saying the sounds of isolated words pronounced by a native speaker.”[14] This kind of practice should be carried out through various activities, for monotonous practice for a long time may spoil students’ interest. For example, students can be given only one written word and asked to identify it out of three minimal pairs: for example, pet-pot-pat, (pot); students, can be asked to tick the sound which is pronounced: for example, “safe-save”. Students can be asked to identify whether the two sounds are the same: for example, “low-now, know-new”. It is also importa