An Empirical Study On English Listening Strategy Of Non-English Major Graduates

The"College English Curriculum Requirements"(2007) emphasizes the importance of listening in the five English basic skills(listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating), and points out that the new teaching model should empower students to select the materials and learning methods according to their needs, instruct them in language learning strategies and enhance their autonomous learning competence. This study intends to improve students'English listening achievements in terms of listening strategies, to explore the mechanism for students'listening comprehension influenced by listening strategies.The main research questions include: (1) What are the English listening strategies adopted by non-English major graduates in Northwest A&F Universities? (2) What is the correlation between students'listening strategies use and listening achievements? (3)Can SBI improve the listening performances of non-English major graduates in agriculture and forestry universities? 4) What is the degree of progress made by the high-proficiency, low-proficiency and intermediate students? 5) What are the mental processes experienced by the research subjects under the influence of listening strategies instruction?The author conducted an empirical intervention study on 123 non-English major graduates in grade 2009 from five colleges in Northwest A&F University for 20 weeks. The subjects were classified into control class, experimental class 1 and experimental class 2. All of the three classes employed a new web-based audio-visual learning system. The control class adopted the traditional English teaching model of"teachers playing + students'listening + teacher checking answers", admitting teachers'authority in class. Whereas the experimental classes were not centered on teachers' instruction, but adopted the model of"strategy training in class +students' autonomous study +teacher's coaching". Experimental class 1 obtained the instruction of metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies; while experimental class 2 received the training of cognitive and social/affective strategies. The students in experimental classes were required to keep diaries twice a week to fulfill the tracing investigation and to provide references for exploring their mental processes in the listening strategies instruction. Before the strategies instruction, the subjects took part in the English Listening Strategies Questionnaires, MALQ and pretest; then 18 students were randomly selected to participate in the pre-training interview. Based on the findings from the data collected, the author designed a strategies instruction model suitable to web-based English listening teaching and conducted SBI to the two experimental classes (experimental class 1 was instructed in 22 listening strategies; while experimental class 2 was trained with 15 listening strategies). After the listening strategies instruction, the students took part in the post-listening questionnaire and posttest; 12 students were randomly selected from the experimental classes to attend the post-training interview. All the data collected were analyzed by SPSS16.0 in light of descriptive statistics, explore analysis, correlation analysis, reliability analysis, Independent-Samples T Test and One-Way ANOVA. The findings from this empirical study are as follows:1. The non-English major graduates exhibit a low frequency in listening strategies use, and their strategy awareness is relatively weak. Cognitive strategies are most frequently used, the use of the metacognitive strategies rank in the second place, while social/affective strategies lie in the third place. To be more specific, directed attention, inferencing, deduction, resourcing and selective attention are the first five strategies that are frequently employed by the subjects, while the least used strategies are self-management, grouping, self-talk, transfer, question for clarification and cooperation, which are generally not used by the subjects.2. High-proficiency students report more frequent application of cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies. In contrast, social/affective strategies are more frequently used by low-proficiency students. The students'cognitive strategies are more closely related with their listening achievements.3. Explicit SBI can improve the strategies use awareness of non-English major graduates in agriculture and forestry universities investigated and enhance their listening performances to a great extent. The qualitative analysis reveals that listening strategies instruction enhances the students'confidence and autonomous competence in English listening. After the strategies instruction, the students'listening becomes more organized, purposeful and active. The data from the questionnaires and listening tests demonstrate that listening strategies instruction, esp. the instruction of metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies proves to be very effective in improving the students listening achievements.4. Listening strategies instruction can greatly improve the listening achievements of the low-proficiency students, while the effect to the intermediate group ranks in the second place, followed by the high-proficiency group. Specifically speaking, the instruction of the overall three strategies proves to be most effective to the low-proficiency students, the effect to the intermediate students and the high-proficiency students rank in the second and third place respectively. In the instruction of cognitive and social/affective strategies, the low-proficiency and intermediate students have made great progress; whereas, the mean scores of the high-proficiency students decrease to some extent.5. The diaries analysis demonstrates that the students mainly undergo the following three stages: mechanically imitating, consciously skillful using and unconsciously using in terms of strategy technical use; excitement, puzzlement and enlightenment in psychological state. Based on language automatics theory, the procedures involved in the students'listening comprehension are passive processing of listening tasks, controlled processing in listening strategy, controlled search operation of listening strategies, skillful strategies use, automatic detection of listening strategies and active processing of listening tasks. Listening strategies function as the intermediary between passive processing and active processing of auditory input; skillful strategy use works as intermediary between controlled search and the automatic detection of the listening strategies. In the process of listening strategies instruction, extensive practices based on appropriate listening materials play crucial roles in bridging the gap between strategy knowledge and strategy use, internalizing strategies use into habits. The practice under strategies'guide enables learners to exert more control over listening activities, improve their strategies use awareness and increase their listening effect,thus improve their listening competence significantly.Based on the above findings, the thesis proposes the theoretical, methodological and pedagogical implications. Theoretically, listening strategy functions as the intermediary between passive processing and active processing of listening tasks; the skillful use of the strategies works as intermediary between controlled search and the automatic detection of the listening strategies, enriching and developing the language learning strategies theories in SLA. Methodologically, this study compares the effects of three listening instruction models, and adopts investigation method to explore the mechanism for listening strategies on the learners'listening process. The pedagogical implications are reflected in the following three aspects: (1) strategies instruction should be incorporated into English listening classes. (2) Changing the roles of teachers and students; the class activity should be centered on students, while teacher should perform the roles of organizer, designer and director. (3) Creating systematic listening atmosphere to consolidate students'strategies use and motivate them to conduct the long-term listening activities. On the ground of the findings and limitations in this study, four recommendations are proposed to provide references for future research.