A Study On Freshmen’s Listening Strategies Of Non-English Majors In Independent Colleges

There are several basic language skills in English language learning process. Listening always is regarded as the most important and difficult part for learners to master. Researches on listening strategies have greatly attracted people’s attention. Although studies of English listening strategies becoming much more mature at home and abroad, scholars tend to do researches on the basis of ordinary undergraduates. Therefore, there are a few studies focus on independent college freshmen up to now. This thesis does the investigation on listening strategies of non-English majors in independent colleges in order to understand the overall level of their listening ability and the use of listening strategy. At the same time, the author puts forward some corresponding suggestions in English learning according to their learning obstacles. In this thesis, freshmen from Huihua College of Hebei Normal University are research objects. According to such students’ unique background, problems and characteristics in English listening, the research try to find their real listening level, the usage of listening strategies, and the relationship between listening strategy and achievement. Qualitative and quantitative research methods are also used in this thesis. The data were analyzed and discussed through listening tests and questionnaires. During this research, students’ listening ability, listening difficulties and their overall use of listening strategies will be known. Most of students have weak consciousness on using listening strategies. Therefore, it becomes very important for teachers to find learners’ listening difficulties and improve their awareness of using various listening strategies during listening process.This thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter is the introduction, which introduces the research background, research aims, significance of this study, as well as the structural framework of the paper. The second chapter is the section of literature review in this article. First of all, it introduces the definition of independent college and freshman’s characteristics; Secondly, it summarizes the definition of learning strategy, classification and definition of listening strategy, relevant studies at home and abroad. Chapter three is the research methodology. In this part, the research questions, research participants, research instruments, including the data collection as well as data statistics are introduced by author. Chapter four is the main part. The author tries to know the students’ English listening ability at present, and find out the major obstacles which students confront in listening. At the same time, the rate of the use of listening strategies, the connection between listening strategies and listening performances are introduced in detail. Finally, the author analyzes learners’ use of listening strategies from other aspects. Chapter five puts forward major findings, appropriate implications. Chapter six is the conclusion. It consists of deficiencies of this article and related recommendations for the further research.