A Study On The Relationship Between Senior High School Students' Tolerance Of Ambiguity,Listening Strategies And Listening Proficiency

Tolerance of ambiguity(TOA)has been received continuous amount of attention in second language learning.Numerous researches have revealed that TOA has a significant impact on second language proficiency and the use of learning strategy.However,among the various researches on the TOA and second language learning,relatively less was on the relationship between TOA and listening strategy.Therefore,the present study continued that focus by investigating what relationship exists between TOA,listening strategy and listening proficiency.Firstly,it attempts to figure out the overall situation of senior high school students' TOA and whether gender has impact on TOA.Next,it explores whether there is significant relationship between TOA and listening strategy use.Besides,it also looks at the difference in using listening strategy between participants with different TOA.Finally,the relationship between TOA and English listening proficiency is also examined,followed by the comparison of listening proficiency between different TOA students.A quantitative approach underpinned the study by adopting two questionnaires and a listening test.116 senior high school students from the High School Attached to Jiangxi Normal University are taken as its participants.Data are analyzed by SPSS(Statistical Package for the Social Sciences)24.0 and four statistical methods are involved: descriptive analysis,Pearson correlation analysis,independent sample T-test and one-way ANOVA test.Findings from the study showed that most of the senior high school students' TOA was at moderate level.Very few students had an extremely high or low TOA.No significant difference was found between male and female students in TOA.Among the five category strategies,meaning strategy was used most frequently.The senior high school students' TOA was significantly related to their overall listening strategy use.Specifically,a significant positive correlation existed between TOA and metacognitive strategy,meaning strategy and social/affective strategy.A negative correlation was found between TOA and mother-tongue reliance strategy and no correlation existed between TOA and form-focused strategy.No correlation between TOA and form-focused strategy could be explained by the findings that grammarstrategy was positively related to TOA whereas new words strategy was negatively related to TOA.Compared with low TOA students,high TOA students preferred to use metacognitive strategy,meaning strategy and social/affective strategy,whereas they seldom use mother-tongue reliance strategy.As regards TOA and listening proficiency,a significant positive correlation between them was identified.In addition,there was a significant difference in listening proficiency between different TOA students.Finally,the results of the study made a contribution to a better understanding of the TOA and its impact on second language learning.Pedagogical implications for English listening learning and suggestions for future research were also presented.