‏‎this study investigated the effect of prior knowledge on the listening comprehension performance of fl learners. twenty students, male and female, drawn from the two intact groups of the senior and junior english language and literature majors were chosen as the participants of this study . the two groups were then randomly assigned into the experimental and control group. the experimental group performed some pre-listening activities which were supposed to activate students pre-existing knowledge as well as establishing a framework for the incoming oral texts. the control group received no treatment. both groups listened to three recorded lectures and answered the post-lecture comprehension test. the statistical analysis of the data revealed that the experimental group did not perform significantly better than the control group on the post-lecture listening comprehension questions. implications for the task design of listening materials were offered‎‏.