A Study On The Correlations Among English Majors' Listening Metacognitive Knowledge,listening Self-efficacy And Listening Achievements

Listening is one of the five basic skills of English learning and the most important link during the process of language acquisition(Krashen,1981).Metacognitive knowledge and self-efficacy are frequently mentioned in language learning and teaching,but less attention has been paid to exploring the relationships among listening metacognitive knowledge,listening self-efficacy and listening achievements.Hence,the present study aims to explore whether there are correlations among English majors' listening metacognitive knowledge,listening self-efficacy and listening achievements.In order to explore the correlations among listening metacognitive knowledge,listening self-efficacy and listening achievements,113 English-major sophomores were chosen as the subjects from Hebei Normal University of Science and Technology and a quantitative approach was adopted with three instruments: a listening metacognitive knowledge questionnaire,a listening self-efficacy questionnaire and a listening test.The thesis is trying to answer the following four questions: 1)What is the status quo of English majors' listening metacognitive knowledge,listening self-efficacy and listening achievements? 2)Do students with different levels of listening achievements show significant differences in their listening metacognitive knowledge?Are there any correlations between English majors' listening metacognitive knowledge and listening achievements? 3)Do students with different levels of listening achievements show significant differences in their listening self-efficacy? Are there any correlations between English majors' listening self-efficacy and listening achievements? 4)Do students with different levels of listening metacognitive knowledge show significant differences in their listening self-efficacy?Are there any correlations between English majors' listening metacognitive knowledge and listening self-efficacy?The data collected were analyzed by statistical software SPSS(17.0)and the findings indicate:1)The subjects in the research have a high level of listening metacognitive knowledge,but their listening self-efficacy and listening achievements are at the medium level.It suggests that the students in the research need to improve their listening self-efficacy and listening achievements.2)There are no significant differences in listening metacognitive knowledge between students withdifferent levels of listening achievements,but students with high-level and mid-level listening achievements have significantly higher person knowledge which is a dimension of metacognitive knowledge than those with low-level listening achievements.And influenced by the low positive correlations between person knowledge and listening achievements(p=0.000<0.05 and0.3<r=0.371<0.5),there are weak positive correlations between listening metacognitive knowledge and listening achievements(p=0.016=<0.05 and 0<r=0.242<0.3).3)The students with higher listening achievements have significantly higher listening self-efficacy.And there are significant positive correlations between listening self-efficacy and listening achievements(p=0.000<0.05 and 0.5<r=0.681<0.8).4)The students with higher listening metacognitive knowledge have significantly higher listening self-efficacy.And there are low positive correlations between listening metacognitive knowledge and listening self-efficacy(p=0.000<0.05 and0.3<r=0.354<0.5),among which,as two of the three dimensions of listening metacognitive knowledge,person knowledge has significant positive correlations with listening self-efficacy(p=0.000<0.05 and 0.5<r=0.563<0.8)and strategy knowledge has weak positive correlations with listening self-efficacy(p=0.047<0.05 and 0<r=0.201<0.3).Therefore,teachers can help students improve their listening achievements by enriching students' listening metacognitive knowledge especially person knowledge and enhancing students' listening self-efficacy.