Improving Chinese Non-English Major Students' Listening Comprehension Through Strategy Training

Research shows that strategy training is an effective method in improving ESL or EFL learners'listening comprehension. However, there is still a gap between the theoretical research and teaching practice. So the purpose of this paper is to provide language teachers with an effective and practical way of teaching EFL listening in particular.In the present study two major problems were concerned: problems Chinese non-English major learners meet in their listening process and the effectiveness of strategy training under a new approach-a diagnostic approach. This approach was adopted because in this study listening was regarded as an interactive process where problems may make the listening comprehension break down, so teaching listening is a process of pointing out the reasons causing the failure of comprehension, that is, listening teaching is a diagnostic activity.To reach the goal of the study two groups of EFL language learners at intermediate language proficiency level were randomly assigned to a control and an experimental group. Both groups received instruction on strategy through a 4-week period of instruction. However, only the experimental group received the strategy training based on the analysis of their listening problems. The results of the study showed that problems Chinese non-English major learners meet are multifaceted and strategy training under the new approach-the diagnostic approach is more effective than the strategy training which was not and has a significant positive effect on the improvement of Chinese non-English major learners'listening comprehension.