The Study On The Effects Of Strategy Training Approaches On Listening Achievement And Strategy Use

The main purposes of this study are to explore the effects of different approaches of listening strategy training on non-English majors’listening proficiency and strategy use.Based on the theory of cognitive psychology and learning strategy, this study is aimed to answer the following questions:(1) What is the status quo of listening strategy use of students participated in this study?(2) What are the effects of different training approaches on non-English majors’ strategy use and listening achievement?The current study is an experimental research. Participants were chosen from two natural classes from Hubei University, one majoring in microelectronics and the other majoring in environmental engineering. Above all, reliability analysis and factor analysis were conducted on Cognitive Strategy Use Questionnaire and Metacognitive Strategy Use Questionnaire adopted in this research to ensure the reliability and validity of these two questionnaires. According to the t-test of means of their pre-test scores, there is no significant difference between these two classes. After that, metacognitive and cognitive strategies to be trained were designed in accordance with their pre-test result, present level of strategy use and listening comprehension problems identified before training. Considering their performance on the pretest, top 6 students are classified as high proficiency learners while bottom 6 students are classified as less skilled students. Then students majoring in microelectronics received a 13-week listening strategy training of metacognitive and cognitive strategies with reference to the strategy training approaches put forward by Vandergrift (2004) while students from environmental engineering class only received a 13-week listening cognitive training. Students don’t know which group they are arranged in, nor do they know they are participating in an instruction about listening instruction. When the strategy instruction was finished, post-test on listening performance and two questionnaires were allocated to all participants again to measure and compare their listening achievements and developments in listening strategy use.The major findings are:(1) Participants faced serious problems in strategy use, especially the combination of strategies. Due to the intermediate level of their English proficiency, sound-script and word-matching processes are not automatized, phonetic representations of familiar words is poor, prior knowledge is insufficient and processing ability in short-term memory is quite limited.(2) Both strategy training approaches achieved positive effects on learners’ use of cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies and the differences are significant in metacognitive strategies. Besides, implicit instruction of cognitive and metacognitiive strategy cluster achieved greater effects on learners’ listening performance. More skilled learners who received the strategy combination instruction made much more progress in listening achievement while there is no significant difference between groups in the same level after strategy training.Despite the limitations of this study, the author attempted to made an investigation on the implicit model of strategy combination instruction. Based on learners’ strategy needs, it explored the training content and training approaches, which may be beneficial to classroom teaching of listening strategy cluster. It may also serve as reference for teaching and learning of foreign language.