A Study On College Students' Application Of Listening Strategies And The Effects Of Strategy Use In Listening

Strategy use is an important element in foreign language acquisition, but also an aspect that was always neglected by students, even teachers and instructors. With the focus of foreign language teaching and research shifted to the learners, strategy training has drawn more and more attention from researchers, teachers and students. In China's college English teaching, however, strategy training was not entailed in the course design. On the other hand, the development of modern educational technologies promotes the implementation and evolvement of autonomous learning model, which has been widely applied in the teaching of listening. Nevertheless, most students' autonomous learning ability was still quite weak. Strategy use is an effective means of promoting the learning efficiency and the ultimate goal of strategy training is to develop students' autonomous learning ability. Based on this philosophy, this study, through a teaching experiment, aims to find out the effects of strategy use in students' foreign language listening acquisition, the different effects of strategy training in different learning models, and the feasibility of carrying out listening courses in the autonomous learning model.This study lasted for 17 weeks and involved 146 freshmen (Grade 2007) in Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Among these subjects, 24 were Japanese majors, who were instructed in the traditional learning model (teacher-guided model), while the other 122 were learning in the autonomous learning model, among whom, 62 were assigned to the experimental group, 60 were assigned to the control group. After five weeks' learning in different learning models, ten weeks' strategy training was conducted in the teacher guided class and the experimental group, to find out the effects of strategy training and compare its effects in different learning models. Four exams (the placement exam, quiz one, quiz two and the final exam) were conducted to check students' achievements in listening competence and comprehensive language proficiency. At the beginning and end of the semester, the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning was delivered to investigate students' strategy use at different stages. The Listening Strategy Use Checklist was delivered after the Quiz One and Two to find out the changes in students' listening strategy use before and after the training.By analyzing correlated data, the following findings were achieved.First, after 17 weeks learning in different learning models, students' listening competence and comprehensive language proficiency were greatly improved. Students in the autonomous learning class, however, got larger achievements than students in the teacher-guided class did. Second, by comparing students' strategy use before and after the training, it was found that the experimental group's strategy use was greatly improved, while no significant results were gained in the teacher-guided class. After the training, the experimental group applied strategies much more frequently than the teacher guided class. Third, it was found that the autonomous learning model provided good environments for students' strategy training. Even without any training, the control group's strategy use was dramatically facilitated at the end of the semester, especially meta-cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies. Fourth, by comparing the experimental group and the control group's strategy use and listening competence, it was found that before the training, the two groups were at similar levels both in listening competence and strategy use. After the training however, the experimental group applied strategies much more frequently than the control group, their listening competence was also better than that of the control group. Fifth, above average students applied strategies more frequently than below average students did. Moreover, above average students got greater achievements from the training. Nevertheless, no significant correlation existed between students' strategy use and their language proficiency levels. In conclusion, from the study, it was learned that both learning models impose positive effects on improving students' listening competence, but the autonomous learning model works better than the traditional learning model. Strategy training is helpful in promoting students' language proficiency. The effects of the training were particularly obvious in the autonomous learning model. The autonomous learning model provides good environments for developing students' strategy use and it's necessary to carry out strategy training in such model. More proficient students applied strategies more frequently than less proficient levels. To summarize, it's feasible to carry out listening courses in the autonomous learning model, with the assistance of systematic strategy training based on individualized instruction.