A Research On The Metacognitive Knowledge And Regulation Training Mode Of College English Listening

Metacognition is cognition of one's own cognitive system. In other words, it is self-awareness and self adjustment to ones'cognition. In the case of foreign language learning, metacognitive knowledge and regulation of the learner himself will be the basis for understanding and monitoring how to learn a language. Metacognition is very important in foreign language learning.This study was carried out based on the combination of the two important parts in metacognitive theory, i.e. metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation, and listening comprehension in the course of"College English Listening and Speaking"at Beijing Forestry University. 108 freshmen (recruited into the university in 2006)from 4 intact classes were required to fill in the metacognitive knowledge and regulation questionnaire for the researcher to find out the status of the students'understanding of several factors in listening comprehension such as listener themselves and their self-regulation in listening comprehension. Based on the results of metacognitive questionnaire, a training mode was made with reference to several famous strategy training modes and demonstrated with a graph. Then 55 students in 2 classes formed the experimental group and received metacognitive training that lasted for 12 hours in addition to the normal listening classes while the rest 53 subjects had their listening classes as usual. After the training, metacognitive test and listening comprehension test were given to all subjects in both the experimental group and the control group. The result of this empirical study showed the metacognitive knowledge and regulation status of the subjects in the experimental group did improve even though the ranges of changes in all metacognitive factors were not all the same. Those subjects made relatively obvious progress in their listening comprehension achievement tests.The metacognitive knowledge and regulation training mode formulated in this study was proved to be a feasible and effective mode, which could foster improvement in listening comprehension by enhancing students'understandings and self-regulation related to listening.