Influence Of Metacognitive And Affective Strategy Training On College Students' English Listening

One of the main claims of the research on language learner strategies is that the ultimate aim of the empirical work conducted in this area is to develop knowledge that can be useful in improving language learning and teaching in second and foreign language classrooms. Yet, attempts at making strategy instruction a central component of instructed language learning remain at the level of isolated initiatives rather than being part of mainstream pedagogical recommendations and practices. The author of the paper tried to integrate two important strategies (metacognitive and affective strategy) into daily college English teaching practices, the assumption of which was inspired by O'Malley and Chamot (1985). One of their studies on strategy training experiment concluded that metacognitive strategy training could bear good results if it was combined with cognitive or social/affective strategy.Another reason to justify the author's choosing to combine metacognitive and affective strategy to train non English majors in English listening is listed below. For most freshmen in China, on entering colleges or universities, one of the biggest obstacles they encounter is adapting to the very different learning environment in which they are expected to be responsible for their own learning. It is believed that learning strategies can help learners learn more effectively and efficiently. As component items of learning strategies, metacognitive strategy is regarded as "essential for successful language learning" (Oxford,1990a:136). If language learners could understand the importance of metacognitive strategy and affective strategy, be equipped with such strategies, learner autonomy would be promoted, and the difficulties encountered would be diminished. Listening in almost any setting is the most frequently used language skill, also the most difficult skill for Chinese students. The aim of the study is to integrate metacognitive and affective strategies training in English listening class and help to improve present teaching of listening comprehension and cultivate students'independent listening ability.Sixty four non-English major freshmen from two natural classes participated in the study. Randomly chosen, one class was the experimental group and the other class the control group. The experimental group received strategy training integrated in the regular listening lessons while the control group received regular listening lessons without any strategy training. Data were collected from questionnaires concerning metacognitive and affective strategy in English listening, and also from two listening proficiency tests, both of which were practiced on a pre-and post-test basis provided to two groups. In addition, interview with subjects after training program offered qualitative proof.The results proved the feasibility and effectiveness of conducting the combined training of metacognitive and affective strategy training.