A Study Of English Listening Strategies In Vocational Institutes

Listening strategies are generally regarded as a kind of learning strategies. According to Cohen (1998), listening strategies are mental operations or processes that learners consciously select when accomplishing language tasks. As learning strategies, listening strategies are divided into three categories, which are metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies (O 'Malley &Chamot,1990).Each of these three strategies constitutes some specific strategies, such as self- monitoring, selective attention, inferring etc. A number of researchers (Su Dingfang, 1996 and Liu Shaolun 1996,etc)have pointed out that listening strategies can enhance students' listening comprehension. Many researches conducted in and outside China have shown that effective listeners use listening strategies more frequently than less effective listeners (Murphy, 1985,Chamot and kupper, 1989 and Jiang Zukang, 1994 etc.)This study aims to investigate listening strategies used by high and low proficiency learners at a vocational institute. It attempts to examine the most often and least used language listening strategies for the non-English major students. Moreover, the differences in the use of listening strategies between high and low English proficiency students and between graduates from senior high school and vocational high school were both emphasized. Finally, some pedagogic suggestions for EFL instruction in English listening are presented.The sources of data for this study include a listening test in class, interviews, a Background questionnaires, a Listening strategies questionnaire and class observation. The researcher administers the questionnaire of this study to 150 students. The subjects comprise of 5 different industrial departments. The subjects'responses to the questions in a five-point scale on the questionnaire are calculated and analyzed quantitatively by an independent t-test. Furthermore, the subjects'responses to four open-ended questions are discussed qualitatively.The findings of the survey have great implications to the classroom teaching of listening. Listening strategy training, especially the training of cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies, is hoped to be conducted frequently in the listening class. Based on the findings of this study, integrating with the practical classroom situation, the author of the thesis put forward some suggestions on the teaching of listening in the class of vocational institute. First, the vocational institute teachers of English should organize strategy training in proper pedagogical sequence. A pedagogical sequence that guides students in learning the strategies may be most suitable for nurturing the strategy awareness at first, and then modeling the use of each strategy, and finally having students deploy the strategies independently. Second, they should create enough opportunities for students to practice key strategies, such as self-monitoring, selective attention, inferring and anxiety -reducing etc. Third, they should accommodate individual differences in strategy instruction. In the course of strategy instruction, teachers should be aimed at providing help to the great majority while not boring for the more advanced students and not discouraging those with low ability. This research has both theoretical and practical significance. It has enriched the theoretical studies on the listening strategies used by vocational institute students, and further confirmed listening strategies have substantive relations with listening comprehension achievement. It has also offered practical guidance to the teaching of listening in vocational institute.