A Study Of Correlation Among Non-english Majors’ Cognitive Style, L2Listening Strategy And Listening Outcome

Listening is an indispensable basic skill in second language (L2) acquisition. It isimportant to improve L2learners’ English listening proficiency. In fact, listeningcomprehension is not a passive or negative, but a positive and active cognitive process.Learners with different cognitive styles tend to adopt different listening strategies, whichwill finally influence their listening outcome.In the present study, the group embedded figures test (GEFT), listeningcomprehension test, and listening strategy questionnaire are administered among154non-English major sophomores to investigate the relationship between cognitive styles andlistening outcome, meanwhile to explore the differences of listening strategies used byfield-independent (FI)/field-dependent (FD) learners, and the effects of listening strategiesadopted by FI/FD learners upon their listening outcome. Follow-up interview andstimulated recall are also conducted among4participants in order to find out in-depthinformation about the differences in the use of indirect and direct listening strategies.The major findings are as follows:(1) There is a positive correlation between the non-English majors’ cognitive style(FI/FD) and their listening outcome. To be specific, there is a marked positive correlationbetween FI learners and their listening outcome, and a weak positive correlation betweenFD learners and their listening outcome. FI learners show a little better performance inlistening comprehension than FD ones.(2) FI learners use direct strategies more frequently than FD ones, while FD learnersuse more indirect strategies. Cognitive strategies are the most popular strategies for both FIand FD learners, though FI learners use this category more frequently than FD ones. BothFI and FD learners have strong metacognitive awareness, however, FI learners usemetacognitive strategies more effectively than FD ones. FI learners have betterperformance in carrying out their plan, and evaluating their good and weak points inlistening process.(3) There is a positive correlation between listening outcome and listening strategiesused by all the FI and FD participants. FI learners employ more direct strategies, such as cognitive and compensation strategies, which also relate to their higher scores in thelistening test. However, FD learners adopt more indirect strategies in the listening process,such as social and affective strategies, which play a weaker role in improving theirlistening outcome.In view of the above findings, the pedagogical implications can be offered as follows:(1) Teachers should be aware of the different cognitive styles, and then help studentsoptimize the use of listening strategies so as to improve their listening outcome.(2) Learners should identify their cognitive styles, and then follow the features ofdifferent cognitive styles so as to guide their learning, and improve their learning efficiency,especially in listening process.(3) Teachers should guide learners to raise cognitive awareness and offer moretraining about direct strategies in listening practice.