The Application Of Meta-cognitive Strategies To The Listening Instruction Among Non-english Majors

Listening has long been regardeded as the most difficult part in the course of their learning English by non-English majors. However, the traditional listening teaching methods, which are characterized by playing tapes and checking answers with students, fail to meet the needs of the learners as listening has become increasingly important in second language acquisition. This paper aims to investigate whether the application of meta-cognitive strategies to listening instruction has any effects on improving learners'listening comprehension. Two parallel classes act as the subjects of a quantitative and qualitative study which takes the form of an experiment in a term of 12-week long. A pre-experimental survey was conducted by means of a questionnaire to explore the students' listening experiences and their difficulties. A pre-test and a post-test were carried out in both classes to compare the improvement of their listening comprehension achievements. The findings are as follows:i) Non-English majors rarely apply learning strategies to their listening, much less the meta-cognitive strategies; ii) The experimental group outperforms the control group in their listening achievements after learning to apply learning strategies, especially the meta-cognitive strategies to their listening; iii) The application of meta-cognitive strategies to listening instruction can help develop learner autonomy, independence and self-regulation. Consequently, some pedagogical implications are provided as follows:ⅰ) The teaching of learning strategies should be integrated into classroom instruction;ⅱ) Teachers should help their students raise their meta-cognitive awareness.