Effect Of Listening Proficiency And Gender On Non-English Majors' Use Of Listening Comprehension Strategies In A Chinese University

This thesis reports on students'listening strategy use employed by Chinese non-English majors in listening comprehension. It attempted to find out: 1) the general tendency of listening comprehension strategies (LCS) used by Chinese non-English majors; 2) the relationship between listeners'LCS use and their listening proficiency; 3) differences in use of these strategies between more effective and less effective listeners; and 4) differences in use of these strategies between male and female listeners.The subjects in this study were 301 first-year non-English majors from Jiangxi Normal University. Questionnaire and interview were adopted to identify listeners'strategies. The questionnaire was adapted from Vandergrift's (1996) taxonomy of LCS, namely, meta-cognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, and social/affective strategies. All data was analyzed by SPSS 13.0, including descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and independent sample t-test.The findings of this research indicate that Chinese non-English majors generally employ strategies in listening comprehension, but only at a medium frequency level. As a whole, they use meta-cognitive strategies more frequently than the other categories of strategies. Social/affective strategies are least often used. Secondly, a positive relationship is detected between listening proficiency and three main LCS, with meta-cognitive demonstrating the greatest effect on students'listening performance. Thirdly, differences are found in strategy use between more effective and less effective listeners. More effective listeners tend to use LCS more frequently than their less effective peers. In addition, significant differences are also examined in their use of meta-cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies, but not in cognitive domain. The most striking difference lies in their use of meta-cognitive strategies. Finally, significant differences are examined between male and female listeners in use of three main LCS. In general, female listeners employ greater strategies than male ones in all three main categories. Also the biggest difference is reflected in their use of meta-cognitive strategies. Female listeners are adept at planning, monitoring, and evaluating their listening performance and their strategy use, whereas male listeners tend to employ more translation, transfer, and imagery to enhance listening comprehension.Based on the above findings, some implications are presented for English listening instruction. First, teachers should cultivate students'awareness of using strategies in listening comprehension and encourage them to use these strategies. Second, in listening instruction and strategy training, individual differences, especially students'listening proficiency level and gender factor should be taken into account. Teachers should treat learners differently according to their unique characteristics and help them form their own effective strategy repertoire.