The Effect Of Strategy Instruction On English Listening Comprehension

Since the 1990s, many scholars have published their monographs on learning strategies, in which they put forward the definitions and classifications of learning strategies and new research perspectives on learning strategies. Strategy instruction is right one of these new research perspectives. Thus,"strategy instruction"has become the new focus of research in the field of foreign language education.In China, some scholars have also performed research on strategy instruction. However, studies in this area are not many and not comprehensive. From the perspective of a task-combined strategy instruction, the author has conducted research exploring the effects of learning strategy instruction on students'achievement of compound dictation in an autonomous learning environment, and at the same time investigating the influence upon strategy instruction to students'strategy use.This study comprised of a sample of 82 students in two classes. One class of 43 students was the experimental group, and the other class of 39 students was the control group. All participants were freshmen science majors at NUAA and were taught by the same English teacher.Learning strategies for listening were divided into two parts to be instructed to students. The research instruments comprised of tests, questionnaires, students'reports and interviews, which were used to explore the variation of students'achievement and strategy use. The detailed research questions are as follows:1. Can learning strategy instruction in listening improve students' listening performance in compound dictation?2. Can learning strategy instruction in listening enhance students' use of strategies? 3. Does learning strategy instruction in listening have a differential impact on the listeners whose listening proficiencies are at different levels? After analyzing the results, conclusions are drawn and listed, as follows: (1) Strategy instruction has some positive effects on students'performance in compound dictation. (2) Strategy instruction has exerted some significant improvements upon students'strategy use. (3) Based on the statistical data, the average improvement of the low listening proficiency students is higher than the high listening proficiency students. But there are still some unsatisfactory results.According to the findings of this research, the author puts forward some implications for listening instruction, teacher training and autonomous learning.