A Comparative Analysis Of English Listening Strategies Of High-score And Low-score Grade One Students In High School

The importance of English listening is obviously seen in the role that it plays in daily English communication and it can also be seen in the efforts of the English education specialists to improve students’ English proficiency by designing English examination papers, in which scores of English listening make up nearly 20 to35 percent of the total. Thus, to master English listening strategies is vital for the improvement of students’ English proficiency. Studies on learning strategy started in the mid 1970s, and so for it has gone through more than 40 years. Listening strategies are part of learning strategies. It means the learners make use of methods and techniques in pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening activities, in order to improve their listening proficiency and ability.Based on the learning strategy theory of O’Malley and Chamot, the present thesis discusses and analyzes the general condition of senior students’ use of listening strategy of high-proficiency learners and low-proficiency ones. In reference to the learning strategy theory, the author divides the listening strategy into three categories; they are meta-cognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies. The author analyzes the questionnaire and finds out that the high-proficiency learners use the listening strategy more frequently than the low proficiency ones. Both the high and low proficiency learners prefer most to use cognitive strategies, followed by the meta-cognitive strategies, and the social/affective strategies are used the least often. Besides, there are obvious differences between the high-proficiency learners and the low-proficiency learners in their concrete uses of the three strategies. The author gives some suggestions on English listening teaching and English listening learning, based on how students use the strategies.