Effects Of Metacognitive Strategy Training On Improving Senior High Students’ Tolerance Of Ambiguity In English Listening Comprehension

Learning style and learning strategy are often regarded as the interrelated elements of foreign language learning and teaching. According to Oxford (1990), learning strategy is useful on the condition that the strategy is suitable for the particular student’s learning style preferences to one degree or another. However, tolerance of ambiguity, a kind of personal style, influences the outcomes of foreign language learning. This is especially true for Chinese Senior High students who are supposed to know and master some learning strategies in the light of the New Curriculum Standard (2003). These students have learned a foreign language in class while facing some differences or difficulties in English pronunciation, spelling, reading, culture and so on. If they cannot well adapt themselves to learning in such an ambiguous situation, they will be negatively influenced with stress. Likewise, metacognitive strategy plays a significant role in foreign language learning by requiring learners’ awareness of cognition. In the face of uncertainty or ambiguity in foreign language learning, metacongnitive strategy training may help to increase learners’tolerance of ambiguity. When students meet uncertain words in listening comprehension, they have higher tolerance of ambiguity for better understanding what will appear next in the listening material. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the effects of metacognitive strategy training on raising learners’ tolerance of ambiguity.The present paper examined the significance of metacognitive strategy to tolerance of ambiguity in the hope of verifying three key hypotheses:1. There is a statistically relationship between senior high students’ tolerance of ambiguity and their listening proficiency.2. Disparities exist between students’ tolerance of ambiguity and their metacognitive awareness.3. Metacognitive strategy training can increase participants’tolerance of ambiguity in English listening comprehension.In order to test the hypotheses, quantitative research was executed to get the data through two questionnaires; moreover, qualitative research was carried out to show the results of metacognitive training for participants. After nearly one semester’s training, all the data from the138participants were collected to be analyzed by the SPSS13.0. The main findings for descriptive statistics, Sample T-test are represented as follows:1. There exists a positive relationship between tolerance of ambiguity and listening proficiency, as well as metacognitive awareness in the experimental group’s pre-test.2. A positive correlation exists between metacognitive awareness and listening proficiency of the experiment in the pre-test.3. A disparity is found between the tolerance of ambiguity from the pre-test to the post-test. That is to say, after metacognitive strategy training, students have generally raised their ambiguity tolerance.4. There is a disparity in the experimental group’s metacognitive awareness and listening proficiency.Generally speaking, the findings can verify the proposed hypotheses. However, there are some limitations as well. With regard to the reference for future studies, this study provides a base of using strategy training to improve foreign language learning. Moreover, teachers who take an important role in senior high school instruction are supposed to guide students to know their learning styles as well as the application of certain language strategies to English learning (especially in listening). By combining the effects of both teachers and students, more practical strategic instructions will be undertaken. Furthermore, the key role of strategy application of senior high students will be expanded to their future study, which is a continuum of a virtuous circle of students’foreign language learning.