An Attemptive Study On Inferencing Strategies In Efl Listening Comprehension

The present paper reports on an attemptive study on inferencing strategies in EFL (English as Foreign Language) listening comprehension. It is generally believed that it is neither possible nor necessary for the listeners to comprehend each single element in the auditory input, and that inferencing will be a great help in coping with unknown parts. Based on the cognitive psychology, schema theory of listening comprehension and previous empirical studies, we hypothesize in the study that listeners apply various inferencing strategies in the process of listening comprehension, and their background knowledge, proficiency level and difficulty level of listening materials have significant effects on their application of inferencing strategies and listening comprehension. To test the hypothesis, we carried out two experiments. Four classes of students of the Faculty of International Business &Management (FIBM) in Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GUFS) took part in them. The method of immediate recall was used to tap the subjects?inferencing strategies. Quantitative analysis of the test scores explores the following five results. 1) The listeners apply various inferencing strategies in the process listening comprehension by resource to linguistic cuesey words and discourse markers, and nonlinguistic cues he schemata to facilitate listening comprehension. 2) The difference in the application of inferencing strategies between the listeners from different levels is not in the type of inferencing strategies, but in the frequency and the quality of the application. 3) Background knowledge and language proficiency are two determinants of listening comprehension and the listeners?application of inferencing strategies. 4) The effect of difficulty level on listening comprehension and the application of inferencing strategies varies according to the effect of background knowledge and that of proficiency level, and it usually exerts significant impact on the performance on listening comprehension and the application of inferencing strategies for the lower-level listeners. And 5) compared with reading comprehension literature, listeners apply logic inferencing strategies in the same manner with readers, that is, with the increase in language proficiency, there is an increase in the application of within-text inferences, elaborative inferences and predictive inferences. However, listeners tend to produce more incorrect inferences with the increase of proficiency level. The findings of his study, to some extent, help to clarify the interrelation between inferencing strategies and background knowledge, proficiency level and difficulty level of listening materials in listening comprehension, and we hope that they would be helpful for further study and for practical teaching of EEL listening.