Listening Strategy Training And Its Effects On Independent College Students

With the shift of education conception in recent thirty years, an increasing number of researchers in the field of language learning and teaching have embarked on the investigation of impact of individual differences (age, gender, learning strategy, learning style, motivation, etc) on language learning. With regard to learning strategy factor, numerous researches were conducted theoretically and empirically. In reviewing literature, the writer finds that these researches are carried out mostly among students from regular universities and colleges, yet, authoritative study on independent college students is rarely published. Hence, the present study endeavors to study the effectiveness of listening strategy training on listening enhancement of independent college students.The training experiment is implemented within the theoretical framework of learning strategy, listening comprehension and strategy training. And under the guidance of training model proposed by O’Malley&Chamot (2001), Oxford (1990) and Wen (2004a), the author designs her one-semester training program for two classes of freshmen in Jincheng college of NUAA. One class of43students is taken as the experimental group and the other forms the control group. Three kinds of instruments are used in the study:questionnaires, tests and interview. According to students’ practical needs, totally14strategies are selected to be instructed, and each of them is practiced with detailed training activities. Research questions are as follows.(1) Can strategy training improve students’listening performance?(2) Can strategy training in listening enhance students’awareness and utilization of strategies?(3) Dose strategy training have differential effects on students with different listening proficiencies?The following major findings are reached:(1) Listening strategy training has predictive but limited effects on students’listening improvement. Specifically, no significant superiority of the experimental group over the control group is found in the comparison of their separate means.(2) Strategy training can increase students’strategy use frequency and enhance students’ confidence in listening.(3) Effectiveness of strategy training is evidenced to be more noticeable on low proficiency students than on high proficiency ones.Based on the above research findings, conclusion can be drawn that a short span of listening strategy training fails to exert salient and immediate effect on students’listening performance. Hence, it is highly advisable for teachers to implement long-term training program so as to foster students to internalize strategies, and eventually, assist them to use strategies skillfully and competently.