Study On EFL Learner's Use Of Metacognitive Strategies In Listening Comprehension

Learning strategy is one of the focuses of linguists and English teachers, while metacognitive strategies----- the strategies that are in the executive position of the overall strategies------ have been proved of their importance in the concerned researches. The present study investigated the relationship of English listening proficiency and metacognitive strategies used by Chinese college students in order to find out if there is any significant correlation between listening proficiency and metacognitive strategy use and if there is any obvious difference in metacognitive strategy use across listening proficiency levels. The subjects selected were 103 non-English majors of three natural occurring classes in grade two. Firstly, a listening comprehension test randomly chosen from CET 4 was used to assess the subjects' listening proficiency and thus to group them into three levels according to their test scores. Secondly, a self-designed 31-item questionnaire was administered to obtain data as to students' metacognitive strategy use. At last, two students represent good listener and poor listener respectively were interviewed so as to demonstrate their differences in the use of metacognitive strategies during the listening process. One-way ANOVA was used to elicit evidence that there was significant difference in the use of metacognitvie strategies across three listening proficiency levels and to determine significant differences in the use of metacognitive strategy categories. Then Pearson product moment correlations were used to determine to what extent the relationship between listening proficiency and metacognitive strategies is. Followed this were Chi-square tests to identify obvious differences in the use of individual strategy items across three listening proficiency levels. The formula suggested by Young was adopted to assess the reliability of the transcription of the interviews. Finally, two tables provided a clear picture of the interviewees use of strategies in the listening process. The study found listening proficiency was significantly correlated with the use of metacognitive strategies particularly monitoring strategies and that students at high level tended to use certain category of metacognitive strategies more often than those at low level. Also, differences were found in the use of certain individual strategy items across the three levels of students. Based on these founding, implications and limitations of the study were discussed.