A Study Of Effects Of Listening Strategy Training On HVC Non-English Majors' Listening Performance

In the past few decades, learning strategy and learning strategy training have become one of the hot topics in the field of foreign or second language learning and teaching. Relevant studies in the early days were more exploratory, and now they are developed into systematic and theory-based empirical studies. Most of the current researches have focused on reading and writing strategy training, and few empirical studies have attempted to evaluate the success of listening strategy training in this field. Besides, most of the relevant researches take students in universities as their subjects, and little attention has been paid to the HVC (Higher Vocational College) students. Given this situation, the present study chose Engineering students in Shanghai Xingjian HVC as the subjects, attempting to evaluate the effects of listening strategy training on HVC non-English majors'listening performance and to probe how to integrate listening strategy training into English listening class. The present study also investigated listening strategy preferences among the subjects and to compare listening strategy use between high-score group and low-score group.75 students of two classes in Grade Two participated in this research. One class of 38 that received listening strategy training served as the experimental group, and the other class of 37 formed the control group receiving normal instruction without strategy training. The whole training process lasted for one term. Firstly, in order to check the homogeneity of their English proficiency, all the participants took a pre-test at the beginning of the term. No significant difference was found in their listening proficiency between the two groups through an Independent-Samples T Test. Based on the scores, the high-score group and the low-score group were formed. Secondly, a survey was administered to all the participants by means of a questionnaire on listening strategy use to investigate their strategy preference. At the same time, a comparison of strategy use was made between the high score-group and the low-score group. Thirdly, at the end of the term, all the participants were required to take a post-test. The Independent-Samples T Test and Paired-Samples T Test were employed to measure the inter-group and the intra-group differences in their listening performance after one-term training.Detailed analysis of the quantitative data has generated the following findings: (1) Of the three strategies, the category of cognitive strategies is used most by the participants, which is followed by social/affective strategies and meta-cognitive strategies rank last. (2) The use of meta-cognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies by the high-score group and the low-score group are significantly different. The high-score group tends to use most strategies than the low-score group. (3) After one-term strategy training, the experimental group's improvement was bigger than the control group, and their difference was significant. Within the same group, students in the experimental group made significant improvement in their listening performance at the end of the term, while there was no significant change in the control group, although they also made improvement. The result reveals that listening strategy training effectively improve learners'listening performance.The present study of learners'listening strategy and its training effects also yields some pedagogical implications: 1) In order to develop students'learner autonomy and train their learning strategy , traditional teacher-centered teaching methods should be changed, and students should play an dominant role in the whole listening process; 2) Teachers play a very important role in strategy training by initially learning about the students, their interests, motivations, and learning styles and by analyzing the textbook; 3) Teachers should help students raise their meta-cognitive awareness.