A Study On Listening Comprehension Strategies For Non-English Majors Based On Schema Theory

Listening is an essential part of daily communication activities and it is one of the important means to acquire comprehensible input for learners. The improvement of listening ability can not only promote the overall language ability but also help to foster the communicative competence. However, the current situation of English learning in college reveals that listening remains to be the weakness in language learning. Research on strategy use in second language learning has aroused more and more attention ever since the 1970s. Research on listening comprehension strategy has also increased. According to Rost, the objects of the listening course are to develop the listening comprehension strategy and listening competence. On the one hand, listening strategies can be used to develop students'listening ability. On the other hand, with the development of listening ability, students will utilize and create more strategies flexibly, which will facilitate the processing of information input.Based on schema theory, this thesis explores the blocks in non-English majors'listening comprehension. Some implications are offered for English listening teaching after investigating students'current state of strategy use and the relationship between strategy use and outcome. Quantitative research together with qualitative research is adopted in this thesis. The 173 participants involved in this study are non-English majors from North China Electric Power University. All of the subjects are required to finish a questionnaire and then 20 students take part in an interview. The results show that the bottom-up process is adopted frequently and in general students are not very good at employing listening strategies. Of the three major strategies, they use more cognitive strategies than meta-cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies. In listening comprehension, efficient listeners use more strategies than less efficient listeners. The significant difference between efficient listeners and less efficient listeners lies in the use of meta-cognitive strategies and cognitive strategies, which reflects that the strategy use and outcome are very closely related. It provides some evidence in support of the strategy development in listening comprehension.Based on the findings, several implications are offered for English listening teaching in universities. Teachers should help students to build a comprehensive system of knowledge about learning strategies and strengthen their awareness of strategy use, especially the use of meta-cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies. When organizing activities in listening course, teachers should take the individual difference into account and devise various activities which are able to improve the proficiencies of all the students.