Underwood (1989) stated these problems as being related to learners’ different Backgrounds, such as their culture and education. She point out that students whose culture and education includes a strong storytelling and oral communication tradition Are generally “better” at listening comprehension than those from a reading and book-based cultural and educational background. Moreover, learners whose native language possesses the stress and intonation feature similar to those of English are likely to have less trouble than learners whose L1 is based on different rhythms and tones. Under these assumptions, the learners in the present study, of Chinese background, appear to operate under the least-optimal English language learning circumstances.