An Empirical Study On College English Listening Teaching Based On Metacognitive Strategy Instruction

Listening plays a significant role in the process of the English language learning,as it is the basis of the other three language skills(speaking,reading and writing).It is well acknowledged that listening comprehension is not a passive process but an active and complex process,and the improvement of the listening comprehension has a positive effect on the enhancement of learners' overall foreign language proficiency.Therefore,many scholars and language teachers at home and abroad have been hammering at finding out strategies to promote the learners' listening ability as English learning strategies have always been one of the hottest topics in the research field of language learning and teaching.It is accepted that learning strategies are divided into metacognitive strategies,cognitive strategies,and social/affective strategies among which metacognitive strategies are at a higher level than the other two,as metacognition regulates and controls the process of learning.It was O'Malley and Chamot(1990)who firstly linked metacognition with listening teaching,and Vandergrift(2003,2005,2006)combined second language listening theory with practice based on descriptive studies of metacognitive strategy instruction in listening comprehension,designing a listening questionnaire(Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire,short for MALQ)through repeated testing and modification in a large number of tests.In light of this questionnaire,Vandergrift&Tafaghodtari(2010)conducted an empirical study on the investigation of a long-term development of strategic listening in a process-based approach.As its follow-up study,this thesis tends to report a diachronic study on the development of listening metacognitive awareness and listening comprehension ability of Chinese non-English major freshmen and attempts to provide answers to the following three questions:1.Compared with the control group,what are the effects of the metacognitive strategy instruction embedded in a pedagogical circle(Vandergrift,2007)on the listening achievement of the experimental group?2.How do learners,metacognitive strategies as measured by each MALQ sub-scale(directed attention,mental translation,person knowledge,planning/evaluation,and problem-solving)relate to L2 listening achievement?3.What are the individual differences on the metacognitive strategy development between high-proficiency and low-proficiency listeners?In order to answer these three questions,the author carried out a four-month's teaching experiment under the metacognitive strategy instruction in a pedagogical circle(Vandergrift,2007)on 91 freshmen of mathematics and applied mathematics in Shaanxi Normal University.One class of 47 students was chosen as the experimental group and the other class of 44 students was regarded as the control group.The teacher,the listening materials,the time they practiced listening were the same in the two groups.The only difference was that in the experimental group,the students were taught the knowledge of metacognitive strategies and instructed to apply the strategy of planning/evaluation,directed attention,person knowledge,mental translation and problem-solving to their listening learning process;while in the control group,the students were taught in an ordinary way by playing the recording and checking about the answers.Through Independent-samples T-test and Paired-samples T-test(SPSS 17.0)of the pre-and post-tests in the two groups,the author found out that improving students'listening proficiency through the metacognitive strategy instruction in a pedagogical circle was more feasible and effective than the ordinary listening teaching;through the changes in the usage of each MALQ sub-scale and the correlations between MALQ sub-scales and listening achievement,the author found that although generally the development of 5 MALQ sub-scales presented a growing tendency,only the improvement of the usage of problem-solving among the experimental group was significant;through the exploration of individual differences on the metacognitive strategy development,the author found that the metacognitive strategy instruction in a pedagogical circle was more helpful for the low-proficiency listeners.With these findings,the author concluded that the metacognitive strategy instruction was more effective and advantageous than the ordinary listening teaching in improving the listening proficiency and the metacognitive awareness of the students in college English class.Finally,according to the practice of the metacognitive strategy instruction,the author put forward constructive suggestions on College English listening teaching.