High-level listening comprehension in advanced English as a second language: Effects of the first language and inhibitory control

Abstract English is imposed as the language of instruction in multiple linguistically diverse societies where there more than one official language. This might have negative educational consequences for people whose first (L1) not English. To investigate this, 47 South Africans with advanced proficiency but different L1s (L1-English vs. L1-Zulu) were evaluated their listening comprehension ability. Specifically, participants listened to narrative texts which prompted an initial inference followed by a sentence containing expected or unexpected plausible concept, assessing monitoring. A final question congruent incongruent information relation text followed, revision process. L1-English efficient at monitoring and revising comprehension. Furthermore, individual differences inhibitory control associated revision. Results show that participants’ L1 appears supersede on highly complex