This study investigated the effect of different delivery modes on L2 students’ listening

comprehension. A mixed-methods explanatory research design was used to identify whether

animated videos or context videos facilitated better listening comprehension. Fifty-seven ESL undergraduate/graduate students were recruited from an academic speaking and pronunciation course offered at Iowa State University. The effectiveness of the delivery modes was assessed by the participant’s ability to orally summarize the videos. Two trained raters were recruited to rate participants’ audio-recorded summaries. A one-way ANOVA was used to test for a significant difference between mean scores of the two groups. Also, students’ perceptions of the delivery modes were elicited through a survey and then analyzed thematically to gain a deeper insight into how ESL students viewed each delivery mode. Results showed that students in the animated video group outperformed those in the context video group. In addition, all students in the animated group preferred animated videos. However, one third of the students in the context group reported preferring audio-only listening since they did not find the context videos helpful.