The influence of strategy use on comprehension and recall of authentic English listening texts by Chinese EFL students in Taiwan

The purpose of this study was to discover what listening comprehension strategies are used by Chinese EFL students, how listening comprehension is affected by strategy use, and what combination of strategies works best for students listening to authentic texts.;The subjects were 229 Chinese students majoring in English or English education at six universities in Taiwan in 1996. The six universities were drawn by stratified sampling based on the scores of the Joint Entrance Examinations. After watching two segments from Good Morning America, a TV news program in the U.S., the subjects wrote an immediate recall protocol and completed a Listening Strategy Use Questionnaire. Twenty-eight subjects, four from each of seven classes, participated in focus-group discussions.;Chinese EFL students employed top-down, social, self-management, bottom-up, academic rule-related, and self-reliance strategies. They tended to use more top-down strategies than bottom-up ones, more self-reliance strategies than social ones. There was a positive relationship between strategy use and listening comprehension. Factor analysis identified five factors used interactively by effective listeners: functional, self-management, macro-conceptual, micro-perceptual, and social strategies.;In order to comprehend authentic materials, students need to grasp overall meaning and keep up with the speed of the listening texts; background knowledge aids comprehension. Less effective listeners reported losing concentration easily. Females reported using more note-taking, advance organizer, self-evaluation, but less listening to individual sounds than males.;Previous experience in an English-speaking country gave students confidence in their listening abilities, and they could make inferences and guess more frequently than less effective listeners or those who had no travel experience. More proficient students reported more frequent metacognitive strategy use than less proficient learners.;It is recommended that classes for English majors in Taiwan use more authentic listening materials and integrate strategy instruction to achieve listening comprehension.