Metacognitve Strategy And Out-of-class Listening Learning

Listening is of vital importance in language learning in that it provides input for learners. However listening is one of students'biggest headaches. Many researches have been done to investigate students'listening learning since 1980s. But most of the researches focused on the in-class listening instruction and listening learning, few of them dealt with the out-of-class listening learning which is to some extent becoming the major way of listening learning, because there is a trend to cancel in-class listening instruction due to its limited effects on the improvement of listening learning. Therefore this dissertation is aimed at investigating the out-of-class listening learning.The present research is carried out from the angle of metacognitive strategy which is a higher-order executive skill. Moreover, researches on the second language learning strategies have confirmed the impact of metacognitive strategy on language learning that it enables students to assess the learning situation,to select appropriate strategies,to coordinate them,to monitor or evaluate the effectiveness of the strategies use and the learning process. However only few studies integrated the metacognitive strategy with the teaching business; in addition most of them focused on the effects on writing and reading. Though there is a trend to investigate the relation between metacognitive strategy and listening, their focus is still on the in-class listening instruction. Therefore this dissertation conducts this research on the out-of-class listening learning in the sight of metacognitive strategy.The present research carries out a survey on 423 students by following the definition and classification of metacognitive strategy from Oxford (1990). With help of Professor. Sui Mingcai, the author designs two questionnaires: metacognitive strategy questionnaire and out-of-class listening learning questionnaire. The former contains eleven statements and is classified into three categories: centering, planning and evaluating. The latter consists of nine statements and is classified into two categories: notion and practice. These two questionnaires adopt the five-point Lickert scale. In addition, these two questionnaires are intendedly compiled in Chinese in order to avoid language ambiguity. This survey is conducted under a standard procedure in June, 2006, with help of colleagues. The data collected through the two questionnaires are analyzed by using SPSS(Statistical Package for Social Science)11.0 which is widely used in the field of social science and well-known for its statistical function. The author also conducts an interview on the out-of-class listening in October so as to confirm the statistical result.The research shows that the frequency of the employment of metacognitive strategy is 2.9471 which is not high on a five point scale. Statistically speaking, the participants' awareness and employment of metacognitive strategy is poor. Likewise, the frequency of the performance of out-of-class listening learning reaches 2.9141 which exemplifies participants lack initiatives to learn listening out of class. But to my satisfaction, the author finds that metacognitive strategy is correlated with the out-of-class listening learning, with r (coefficient) being 0.397; the author also finds metacognitive strategy has predictive power to the out-of-class listening learning, with R Square (predictive power) reaching 0.156. This number shows metacognitive strategy has predictive power but not the only predictor. The out-of-class listening learning is also affected by other factors. Moreover it is found that planning and evaluating, among the three categories of metacognitive strategy based on Oxford's classification (centering, planning and evaluating), has relatively more strong predictive power to the out-of-class listening learning.Therefore the results indicate that it is imperative to raise students'awareness of metacognitive strategy, especially the awareness and employment of planning and evaluating strategies. The results from interviews testify the above statistical results and also imply that students should play primary role in the out-of-class listening learning, and that teachers only play a secondary role in their out-of-class listening learning,but more diversified, such as counselor.