Listening comprehension strategies and learning styles in foreign language education

Sarah Hsueh-Jui Liu

Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, 3-6 September 2008

NB. This is a revised version of a conference proceeding paper submitted to the 10th International Conference on Education, 26th - 29th May, 2008, Athens, Greece.

AbstractThis study reports preliminary findings regarding the relationship between

listening comprehension strategy use and learning style in an English-as-a-foreign-language milieu in Taiwan. Its main aim was to improve understanding of how two listeners, one from an upper- and one from a lower-intermediate level, employed strategies to tackle language problems in the course of task completion. Data gathered between November and December 2007 from the qualitative verbal report methods of think-aloud protocols and post-listening interviews were analysed based on O’Malley et al. (1989) and Vandergrift (1997b). Results revealed differences in strategy use across listening comprehension abilities in that the more proficient listener had a wider range of strategy use and interacted with both metacognitive strategies (i.e., comprehension monitoring and directed attention) and cognitive strategies (e.g., linguistic inferencing and personal elaboration) to facilitate effective comprehension or to make coherent meaning of a spoken text. On the other hand, the less-than-proficient listener had a limited knowledge of strategy deployment and mainly employed bottom-up cognitive strategies, such as repetition and translation, and misinterpreted what was heard. In addition, the learning style of the participants was examined by means of a questionnaire survey (derived from Willing 1993 and Nunan 1996). Both listeners preferred Type 2 authority-oriented learning; but nonetheless, compared with the less effective listener, the more proficient listener demonstrated a flexible learning style in modifying her conscious behaviour to achieve global understanding of an aural text. Hence, the findings from the study suggest that strategy-based instruction is needed to increase students’ conscious learning and further to help them transfer learnt strategies to a variety of situations outside the classroom.

1. IntroductionIn recent decades, research into the area of language learning strategies in

second or foreign language learning (L2 or FL) has attracted growing interest. This increased interest has yielded a large number of publications across the defined discipline, including Naiman et al. (1996), Oxford (1990), O’Malley et al. (1985a), Cohen (1998), Vandergrift (1997b; 2007b), Macaro (2001), Graham (1997), and Goh (2002). The underlying assumption of the previous research is that a learner is self-regulated and is able to take control of his/her learning process in planning a goal and carrying out a series of conscious actions to achieve the desirable outcome. This also implies that the quality of characteristics that successful language learners possess provides a basis for under-achieving learners to improve their target language learning, and further to achieve the optimal goal of communicative competence.

However, the relationship between language modalities (e.g., speaking) and various factors (e.g., personalities) has been scarcely investigated in second or foreign language learning. In particular, the interrelation between listening comprehension and learning style is an under-researched area (Macaro et al. 2008; Vandergrift 2003a; 2006; Graham 2003). As listening plays an essential role in the development of speaking skills and meaningful mental representations in the target language, it deserves to receive more attention from researchers. Besides, the learning style that a listener prefers to solve problems is closely related to the conscious actions taken by the individual (Ehrman et al. 2003; Flowerdew and Miller 2005). The current study highlights the view that the way an individual manipulates the auditory information is closely related to his/her inherent learning tendency, and more importantly, it is hoped the research will to throw some new light on this under-investigated topic.

2. Literature ReviewThe underlying construct of information processing, developed by Anderson

(2005) in cognitive psychology, depicts how information is processed, stored, and retrieved. In second language listening, the way individuals handle acoustic information is complex; the strategic processing they use can be divided into three distinct stages, and the three-stage process takes place in a recursive or cyclical manner (O’Malley and Chamot 1990; O’Malley et al. 1989). In the perceptual processing stage, one is selectively attending to auditory stimuli and the information is stored in the short-term memory; due to the short-term memory’s limited capacity, the new information undergoes an initial analysis. One difficulty that can be expected for non-native listeners during this stage is the segmentation of words and word recognition because of various factors, e.g., speech rate, accents, and the like, that raise attentional problems (Rost 2005). Differences in proficiency levels can be

detected in that effective listeners are better than ineffective listeners at discriminating linguistic features. In the parsing stage, the newly perceived information is matched with old information held in the long-term memory to deduce the meaning of propositions, or to make meaningful mental representations. A significant variation in the meaning interpretation between effective and ineffective listening can be differentiated; proficient listening tends to process larger sections of aural information than does less proficient listening (Vandergrift 2007b). Therefore, when mishearings occur, fluent listeners are likely to pars entire functional phrases for meaning rather than single words (Rost 1990; 2005). In the last stage of utilisation, the new information that has been parsed interacts with an individual’s prior knowledge to enhance comprehension, and they retain and revise the information in their long-term memory. Proficient listeners accommodate higher levels of cognitive processing or schematic knowledge by using prior experience or world knowledge to enhance understanding. In contrast, less proficient listeners fail to activate relevant schematic knowledge, which results in poor comprehension, or in only a superficial understanding.

Regarding the processing of information, O’Malley et al. (ibid.) focus primarily on the mental processes of L2/FL listeners and identify three types of strategies used during the three processing stages (perception, parsing, and utilisation), namely, metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies. Metacognitive strategies as higher order executive skills refer to the strategies employed when learners are planning, monitoring, and evaluating their comprehension of the text. Cognitive strategies directly related to the auditory information consist of an array of top-down and bottom-up processing, e.g., elaboration, inferencing, and translation. Social/affect strategies include asking for clarification during a conversation, and taking control of one’s emotions while listening in the language. Regarding the use of listening strategies across levels of proficiency, an effective listener is able to concentrate on what is being heard, to plan what to listen for, and to interact with both textual cues (bottom-up) and personal prior experience (top-down) whereas an ineffective listener is likely to employ predominately bottom-up processing, which involves listening for single words, and using strategies at random. Research findings from Goh (2002) and Vandergrift (1997b; 2003a) are in line with previous studies and reveal that an effective listener employs both cognitive and metacognitive strategies to achieve meaningful interpretation of a text, and is able to use prior knowledge, linguistic cues, and contextual information. On the other hand, an ineffective listener is often distracted by unfamiliar words, and will use only low-level comprehension strategies, e.g., translation.

In addition to strategy use in listening, learning or cognitive style refers to information processed in a preferred way according to the learner’s habitual style or characteristics. Some individuals may prefer learning the target language aurally by using cassettes or videotapes, while others may have visual preferences such as reading books or using graphics. In the L2/FL learning field, cognitive style as one of factors that affects language performance has been extensively studied, e.g., Reid et al. (1998), Hansen and Stansfield (1981), Willing (1993), Wintergerst et al. (2003), and Ehrman et al. (2003). In Willing’s study (1993), a group of adult immigrants in Sydney, Australia, studied English as a second language; their learning styles were assessed using a questionnaire survey. His research findings indicate that the Type 2 authority-oriented or Type 4 analytical style was preferred among Vietnamese, Chinese, Arabic, South American, and Polish students. As such, ‘practising sounds and pronunciation in English’ and ‘teacher explains everything to me’ or ‘teacher tells me my mistakes’ were the most preferred strategies. These ESL students showed the least preference for learning through playing games or watching films.

In Reid et al.’s investigation (1998), participants with multi-cultural backgrounds (e.g., Japanese, Malay, Korean, etc.) reported their preferred learning styles. The majority of learners demonstrated a strong preference for kinaesthetic (e.g., actively participating in activities, and role-play) and tactile (i.e., writing notes) types of learning, but they demonstrated the least preference for group learning. These investigators concluded that the variations in learning style resulted from the cultural or language backgrounds and disciplines (e.g., engineering, computer sciences) of the subjects, and claimed that the longer ESL students stay in the United States, the more their learning style preferences are akin to the preferences of native English speakers.

Research on listening strategy use and learning styles supports the view that the techniques a learner consciously employs to tackle a language task are intriguingly related to the learner’s personal characteristics. Macaro et al. (2007) cite the research by Braxton (1999), who claims that visual and auditory learning preferences might influence the deployment of listening strategies. In other words, presumably, learners who are inclined to approach learning materials aurally use listening comprehension and strategies better than do those who prefer learning visually.

On the basis of the information-processing model, a qualitative think-aloud method is used in this current investigation to elicit the strategy use by learners. Such a type of verbal report, which emphasises learners’ internal processing, proves useful for understanding how each individual processes an external input in order to facilitate effective comprehension. According to Ericsson and Simon (1987), the information for verbal reporting is stored in several memories with different capacities and accessing characteristics. When an informant is able to report her sequence of

thoughts, she firstly attends to the information, which she keeps in the central processor, that is, the short-term memory. Then, if the information is directly accessible for further processing (e.g., for producing verbal reports), it must interact with parts of the information held in the long-term memory, and the thoughts can be reported.

3. The StudyIn the present investigation, we examined the listening comprehension

strategies used by two Chinese Mandarin speakers, one at the upper- and one at the lower-intermediate level of listening proficiency, and investigated whether both learners’ learning styles were related to their strategy use. The research instruments, the backgrounds of the subjects, the procedures of data collection and data analyses, and the results of the study will be dealt with in the following sections.

3.1 Methodology3.1.1 Subjects

Two subjects, aged 24 and 25, both of whom had studied English for nearly eight years, were recruited from a local language institute in Taipei, Taiwan. Both learners were second-year university students in Business and spoke Chinese Mandarin. In order to protect their privacy, they were given false names: Mei, a female with a higher listening proficiency, and Ming, a male with a lower proficiency.

3.1.2 Instruments The subjects’ levels of proficiency in listening were assessed with a listening

practice paper from IELTS (International English Language Testing System, by Tucker and Bemmel 2002), a widely recognised examination for those who wish to study in institutions in the United Kingdom or Australia. This practice paper consisted of four sections with a total of 41 questions, e.g., multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-gaps, and so on, and each student was required to complete it in 30 minutes. As recommended by the publisher, each correct answer scores one point, with a possible 41 scores in total, and these scores can be divided into three levels: a score between 31 and 41 at the top level indicates that a student is likely to do well in the actual IELTS Listening Test, a score between 17 and 30 at the mid level means the student will achieve an adequate result in the real test, and a score between 0 and 16 at the bottom level implies the student is unlikely to obtain an adequate result in the test. Both subjects’ testing results in our study were in the mid range: Mei scored 30 and was classified as an upper-intermediate listener; Ming scored 18, and was classified as a lower-intermediate listener.

Two listening passages chosen from a textbook, International Express, by Taylor (1996), were provided for strategy elicitations during the think-aloud protocols. Text 1, Can Venice be saved? (ibid. p:60-71), a talk on a radio programme given by a member of Venice in Peril, an organisation for the preservation of the city’s artistic heritage, consisted of 384 words with a running time of 3.10 minutes, and probably less than 3% difficulty of vocabulary, e.g., ‘lagoon’, ‘extraction’, ‘tanker’ and ‘fertilizer’. Text 2, Doing Business in China (ibid. p:84-95), a conversation between two friends about giving advice and information, contained 492 words with a running time of approximately 3.58 minutes, and perhaps 2% difficulty of vocabulary, e.g., ‘commitment’, ‘frustration’, ‘banquet’, ‘sea slug’ and so on.

Immediately after the think-aloud sessions, the subjects were asked a list of questions drawn from Bacon (1992). The purpose of the post-listening interview was to check the subjects’ comprehension of an aural text and to determine their strategy use. Again, such immediate retrospection was ideal to obtain the necessary information after the task was completed, as much information in the STM was directly accessible and could be directly reported or used as a retrieval cue. Thus, this type of retrospective verbal report provides us with the closest approximation to actual memory structures (Ericsson and Simon 1987).

The questionnaire about learning style, adapted from Willing (1993) and Nunan (1996) and translated into the learners’ first language, consisted of 24 items with four main types of learning styles – Type 1 communicative, e.g., ‘learning by using cassettes and videotapes’; Type 2 authority-oriented, e.g., ‘learning by reading’ and ‘studying grammar’; Type 3 concrete, such as ‘learning by playing games or watching films’; and Type 4 analytic, i.e., ‘studying alone’ or ‘working on the problems given by the teacher’. Each type contained six statements with rating scales from 0 to 3, which represented frequencies from ‘never’ to ‘always’.

3.1.3 Procedures of Data Collection The researcher first accessed the subjects recommended by their English

teacher at the language school, after explaining the aim of the research, and then obtained the subjects’ consent. The subjects met the researcher for an hour-long training session during which they were instructed to think aloud while listening to an aural text. During the training session, both subjects were assessed using the IELTS listening test to measure their listening proficiency levels.

After two weeks, the researcher met the subjects individually for verbal reporting sessions. Before the listening exercise, each informant was directed to read the instruction of the think-aloud method, which had been translated into Chinese. Basically, the subjects were instructed to report their thoughts in three stages. In the

pre-listening stage, the subjects began by practising some multiplication sums (e.g., 24x36) in their mind, reporting from the time of seeing the question until giving an answer. In the while-listening stage, the subjects listened to the same text twice; for the first listening, they heard the entire text without any pauses then during the second listening, a few pauses were indicated within the passage, which signalled to the informants they should report what they did to make sense of what they heard. If the subject fell silent for more than 15 seconds, s/he would be reminded with prompts (e.g., ‘Now, tell me what you can remember about your thinking’). Immediately after the think-aloud protocols, each informant was interviewed using the semi-structured questions derived from Bacon (1992).

3.1.4 Data AnalysisThe verbatim data tape-recorded from the verbal reporting in Chinese

Mandarin were transcribed and later translated into English. Protocols of strategy use were coded according to three main strands of listening strategies in the existing classification system (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990; O’Malley et al. 1989; Vandergrift 1997): cognitive, metacognitive and social/affective strategies (see Tables 2 and 3 in which are given some examples of Mei’s and Ming’s verbal protocols.). To check the reliability of the protocols, the researcher and her research associate in Applied Linguistics coded the data independently; a level of .81 reliability was achieved.

4. ResultsThe results of the listening strategies and learning styles are summarised and

discussed in this section. Table 1 shows that the think-aloud protocols revealed more strategy use (77.27%) than did the post-listening interview data (22.72%). In the list, the frequency of strategy use by Mei (64%) was much greater than that by Ming (36%); it was found that both subjects deployed many more metacognitive (45%) and cognitive (53%) strategies than social/affective (1.5%) strategies, and slightly more cognitive strategies than metacognitive strategies. That is, when confronted with unfamiliar lexis in a text, the more proficient listener was able to use a broader range of strategies to achieve a meaningful interpretation, whereas the less proficient listener used a smaller range of strategies and was often distracted by unknown words, and so lost attention, and misinterpreted the text. In addition, the more effective listener used strategies in a more systematic way than did the less effective one. When mishearings occurred, the former listener would employ ‘inferencing’ followed by ‘elaboration’, and ‘comprehension monitoring’, a combination of techniques that aided meaning construction, whilst the latter listener used ‘inferencing’ but without ‘elaboration’; such strategy use on a random basis might help the listener understand a

text on a superficial level. Moreover, the more effective listener made an effort to reconstruct meaning despite encountering new words or expressions while performing the listening task; on the contrary, the ineffective listener made hardly any effort to guess the meaning; instead, he repeated unfamiliar words. Lastly, the findings regarding learning style as measured with a pencil-paper structured questionnaire showed that both subjects were inclined to prefer Type 2 authority-oriented learning. In addition, in the results for learning styles, both subjects had similar preferences for Type 2 authority-oriented learning (e.g., ‘studying grammar’, ‘I like the teacher to explain everything to us’). However, both Mei and Ming showed the least preference for Type 1 communicative and Type 3 concrete respectively.

Table 1 – Categories of Listening Strategy Use by the InformantsMei Ming

First

Passage

Second

Passage

First

Passage

Second

Passage

T P T P T P T P

Metacognitive strategies

Advance organisation ˇ ˇ ˇDirected attention ˇ ˇ ˇ ˇ ˇSelective attention ˇ ˇ ˇ ˇ ˇComprehension monitoring ˇ ˇDouble-check monitoring ˇ ˇ ˇ ˇ ˇ ˇSelf-management ˇ ˇ ˇProblem identification ˇ ˇ ˇ ˇPerformance evaluation ˇStrategy evaluation ˇSub total 7 4 7 2 4 1 3 2

Cognitive strategies

Linguistic inferencing ˇ ˇ ˇ ˇ ˇExtralinguistic inferencing ˇBetween-parts inferencing ˇ ˇPersonal elaboration ˇ ˇ ˇWorld elaboration ˇ ˇ ˇQuestioning elaboration ˇ ˇCreative elaboration ˇ ˇImagery ˇ ˇSummarisation ˇ

Resourcing ˇ ˇTranslation ˇ ˇ ˇNote-taking ˇ ˇ ˇRepetition ˇ ˇ ˇ ˇSubstitution ˇ ˇSub total 10 1 9 2 6 2 4 1

Social/Affective strategies

Self-encouragement ˇSub total 1

Grand total: 17 6 17 4 10 3 7 3

Note: T=think-aloud protocols, P=post-listening interviews

Table 2 – Listening Strategy Use by MeiCategories Examples

I. Metacognitive Strategy

1. Planning

a. Advanced organisation “I first looked at the title and pictures of the article, … and then thought

what I had to do to understand this passage…”

b. Directed attention “… must be something … about the city umm, Venice…”

c. Selective attention “I focused on key information… that helped me comprehend the text”

d. Self-management “I’m trying to understand things said in English”

2. Monitoring

a. Comprehension monitoring “Umm, the word doesn’t fit that context… it … doesn’t make any sense

at all.”

b. Double-check monitoring “I think… ‘level’ is more appropriate than ‘Lebanon’ to fit in this context

because I heard ‘floods’ er… ”

3. Evaluation

a. Strategy evaluation “I was lost many times when … listening to the text… I might have

focused too much on something I shouldn’t have”

b. Problem identification “It could be a place or an area?”

II. Cognitive Strategy

1. Inferencing

a. Linguistic inferencing “… he said something about invitations and banquets. .. the word I don’t

understand should be something in banquets”

b. Extralinguistic inferencing “the way they talked was like … friends, maybe they chatted about doing

business when they met and …

c. Between-parts inferencing “because of the ships coming to Venice. When the ships arrive at the

harbour … they must create many problems … and because of this

reason, it has caused Venice more floods… I guess”

2. Elaboration

a. Personal elaboration “…I cannot understand the variety of food mentioned um… but the food

items may be typical Chinese dishes…”

b. World elaboration “… because of the ships… when the ships arrive at the harbour, they

need deep water, and this would cause… floods”

c. Academic elaboration “… people overdeveloped this city because of doing business, um, this

makes me think about the conflict between environmental concerns and

industrialization… I learned something about this when I was at

university because I majored in business….”

d. Questioning elaboration “um…I heard ‘extracted’… a lot of water from the seabed, then it

perhaps causes the sea level to rise and Venice sinks…”

e. Creative elaboration “too deep? um… it seems to say… it needs two big things to stop the

water going to the place or the building of a reservoir to keep the

water… sorry, I don’t understand what he says.”

3. Resourcing “When I don’t know a word, I usually check it on my electronic

dictionary”

4. Note-taking “I jot down some key words from what he says”

5. Repetition “…bank…er… bank-quet (for banquet) … um … I still don’t know what

that means”

III. Social/Affective strategy

1. Self-encouragement “…I was telling myself, don’t panic! I kept telling myself I couldn’t

focus on these words… I ought to continue to listen the next’

Table 3 – Listening Strategy Use by MingCategories Examples from the Protocols

I. Metacognitive Strategy

1. Planning

a. Directed attention “The background information about the passage came to my mind first…

and I kept reminding myself to concentrate on the passage”

b. Selective attention “… I first focused on this city… Venice, and then floods… I think these

key elements are relevant to the text…”

2. Monitoring

a. Double-check monitoring “If I can’t understand what is said, I’ll try to listen to it a few more times

until I understand…”

3. Evaluation

a. Problem identification “…he speaks so fast, could I listen to the previous sentence again?…

What is ‘la-goon’?…um… it could be a place or an area?”

II. Cognitive Strategy

1. Inferencing

a. Linguistic inferencing “… I heard ‘drink … alcohol…’ these words made me guess that it must

be a kind of invitation or having a meal…””

2. Elaboration

a. Questioning elaboration “… And then he said the sea level seems to rise 23 cm higher… erm…

maybe””

3. Translation “I try to translate some English words to Chinese; that helps me

understand better what the text is about...”

4. Resourcing “Um… (looking at his notes)…””

5. Note-taking “I was trying to jot down every word I heard…”

6. Repetition “… ‘taks’ (for tankers)… ‘taks’… I don’t know what ‘taks’ is…”

7. Substitution “… because I don’t know them, but I try to use some other words which

are pronounced similarly …”

Note: The above list of strategy categories is based on O’Malley et al. (1989) and Vandergrift (1997b).

Subsequently, differences in strategy use between Mei and Ming can be detected from their think-aloud protocols, in providing access to their internal processing of the acoustic stimuli.

Excerpt 1:The floods, of course, are not a new problem. Venice has always had floods, but in the last forty years or so, the problem has got worse. Mei: Um… he seems to mention forty years ago … er…he says forty years ago,

the problem happened…um it sounds like the problem particularly happened in the place and ...

Ming: He says within 40 years… um it’s worse… 40 years…

Although both listeners were engaged in bottom-up processing in the first place, or focusing on words, they processed the input differently, which resulted in effective understanding for one and poor understanding for the other. Mei might not have heard the initial utterance, but she continued to listen, and was able to elaborate upon the piece of information by using the referents of ‘forty years ago’ and ‘the problem’, using the strategies of questioning elaboration and comprehension monitoring. Unlike Mei, Ming understood only a few words and interpreted them inadequately; he focused on individual words and translated from what he heard.

Excerpt 2:The level of the floods has increased and they have become more frequent. The two main reasons are that the sea level has risen and Venice has sunk.Mei: ‘leveller’, what is ‘leveller’? er.. Is it for Lebanon? um… maybe

‘level’, ok, the first reason is the level rises? … then Venice is sinking, I guess. It is the flood that is causing the problem. It looks like the sea level goes up …er… the city goes down.

Ming: He says, the sea ‘livel’, the sea ‘livel’… ‘suk’… I don’t know what he says.

Mei misheard ‘the level of’ as ‘leveller’, and then carried out sequences of self-correction by using contextual cues ‘flood’ and ‘Venice’ to extract the word ‘level’ (linguistic inferencing). In repeating the connected words of ‘The level of’’ (repetition), she provided an alternative word ‘Lebanon’ (auditory monitoring), but it did not fit the context (comprehension monitoring), and then she gave the most plausible word ‘level’. When she attempted to work out the meaning for the word ‘level’, some information (the level of the floods has increased … frequent) seemed missing, but she was still trying to elaborate on what she heard and arrived at a reasonable explanation. On the other hand, Ming was obviously struggling with the ambiguous sounds in ‘the level of’ as did Mei, but did not make any attempt to guess what it could possibly mean; the attention he paid to the unknown words consequently caused a serious breakdown in his interpretation of the excerpt.

Excerpt 3:In the past, the industrial areas of Mestre and Maghera extracted vast quantities of water from under the seabed of the Venetian lagoon. This caused the seabed to sink and Venice to sink with it. Mei: Um…it sounds as if there have been many floods in Venice, and then

er… so much water going to Venice… um, it is sinking. Is that right? Ming: …it is like some factories um… water from the place. What is lagoon? I

can’t follow it.In this excerpt, a number of distractors, e.g., the foreign names of places, ‘Mestre’ and ‘Maghera’, and a new word, ‘lagoon’, might affect both listeners’ understanding, resulting in a lack of comprehension. Mei was still attempting to get a possible ‘picture’ for the context by ignoring the distractors (directed attention), and adding more or less information to what she had already heard (between-parts inferencing). As could be expected, Ming had great difficulty in comprehending the excerpt and experienced a breakdown of comprehension. However, he explicitly identified the problematic area, ‘lagoon’ (problem identification).

Apart from the think-aloud protocols above, several metacognitive and social/affective strategies were discovered from the post-listening interviews. When asked, ‘What was the first thing that you did in order to make sense of this?’, Mei described how she prepared herself in the beginning of the listening task (advance organisation), and how she used ‘double-check monitoring’ to enhance comprehension, and encourage herself. Examples of these are given below:

‘I first looked at the title of the article and tried to recall something related to this article that

might help my comprehension ... When I heard the text for the first time, I would focus on

something I wasn’t sure of, and then for the second time… I would especially pay attention to

that part and check … whether my interpretation was correct. If I still couldn’t figure it out, I

would keep thinking about these words, but I was telling myself that I couldn’t focus on these

words… I ought to continue to listen to the next’

Ming described how he first used ‘self-management’ to help his comprehension:

‘Um I think the most important thing is to concentrate on the text, and don’t think anything

else. Before listening, I closed my eyes for a few seconds… and kept telling myself to

concentrate on the listening passage’

In the following example, Mei explained that she reminded herself not to panic when faced with a difficulty, so she used the strategy of self-encouragement to motivate herself to move forward:

‘… I was telling myself, don’t panic! I kept telling myself I couldn’t focus on these words… I

ought to continue to listen to the next’

Ming deployed linguistic inferencing to guess the unknown word ‘banquet’, which was heard while listening to the text, and he reported it using the strategy during the

post-listening interviewing, as in the example below:

‘In the beginning, I didn’t know the word, but I tried to guess its meaning… for example, … I

heard ‘drink … alcohol…’ these words made me guess that the word must be kind of

invitation or having a meal… ‘

5. DiscussionsGiven the above results, differences in strategy use can be distinguished

between the proficiency levels of the subjects. The more effective listener combined cognitive and metacognitive strategies, and used her prior knowledge or experience to interact with the text to achieve meaningful interpretation. The less effective listener used a rather limited range of strategies to arrive at only minimal comprehension. Moreover, although a higher level of cognitive strategies (e.g., inferencing and elaboration) were applied by both subjects, the more effective listener deployed these strategies to facilitate a deeper understanding of the text, and demonstrated an ability to comprehend the text at a discourse level. The less effective listener, in contrast, used these strategies to facilitate understanding on a sentential level, and was unable to develop a conceptual framework. As Vandergrift (2003a) suggests, the development of a conceptual framework during on-going listening is pivotal because it enables the listener to build coherent meaning from the text and to leave out irrelevant information. Similarly, the listener is able to determine the extent to which relevant information in certain situations or events represents meaning in his/her mind (Cook 2001; Carrell and Eisterhold, 1998). That is, scripts (or schema theory) resemble a play where actors and actresses are given instructions to say words or to perform actions, which implies that to comprehend a spoken or written discourse requires more than linguistic knowledge. To interpret an event or situation requires not only an understanding of the linguistic elements but also the ability to use one’s knowledge to construct a coherent meaning.

In addition, in his protocols, Ming encountered serious breakdowns of comprehension at the time when he noticed unknown words, and this was the most serious problem to hinder his comprehension. Because he tried to figure out what the words meant, he stopped attending to the next part of the utterance. He paid great attention to the unfamiliar items by repeating them in an attempt to remember their meaning, rather than guessing the unknown lexis by means of a contextual situation or prior knowledge. Trying to ascertain the meaning of every word or to retain individual words in the limited capacity of the short-term memory does not allow the listener to use higher levels of cognitive processing (e.g., inferencing or elaboration), which might help to develop an appropriate mental framework for an entire passage.

The existing empirical investigations by O’Malley et al. (1989), Goh (2002), and Vandergrift (1997b; 2003a) reported their subjects using sounds of L2 to infer meaning from spoken discourse, such as ‘voice inferencing’, or ‘listening for intonation and pauses’. Nevertheless, the informants in the current study seemed unaware of the phonological aspects, and this could be due to the sound systems being different in Chinese and in English. As can be expected, Chinese speakers of English are not able to use intonations or rising/falling tones as a strategy to guess meaning from a string of utterances, perhaps because the amount of exposure to English is relatively limited in an EFL setting like that of Taiwan. It is self-evident that learners that have more exposure to real-world communication may be more aware of the suprasegmental features of the language. For example, in Goh’s study (2002), her Chinese students in an ESL environment, Singapore, reported using the sound rehearsal technique by repeating particular words to accustom themselves to the target language, or practising target words prior to listening to a spoken text.

As to the learning style measured in this study, the findings indicate that both subjects were likely to be Type 2 authority-oriented (or Type 4 analytical) learners, rather than Type 1 communicative and Type 3 concrete learners. In the classic view of learning style, while Types 2 and 4 are field independent (FI), Types 1 and 3 are field dependent (FD) according to Willing (1993). FD individuals tend to enjoy interacting with other people and being sociable, whilst FI individuals prefer logical and detail-oriented learning. This result of the investigation is consistent with Willing’s finding (ibid.) that Chinese ESL students were Type 2 learners who highly valued a situation where their teacher led them through learning the target language, but they had the least preference for Type 3 learning. Also, as evidenced by Lynne Hansen-Strain (1989, cited in Reid 1998), Asian students from China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Korea were more field independent or analytical than those who were from the South Pacific, Samoa, and the Philippines. The above results imply that learners’ styles are attributable to their cultural or educational backgrounds. Hence, both the subjects in this study were field-independent learners who preferred using a bottom-up or a detailed approach to listening tasks. Yet, as can be seen from the protocols of strategy use, the more proficient listener had more flexible characteristics than did the less proficient one in terms of adjusting strategy deployment in order to facilitate effective comprehension.

6. Pedagogical ImplicationsBased on the results of this study, we suggest strategy-based instruction within

the L2/FL classroom. There has been a recent trend to train less proficient learners to learn strategies from more proficient ones, thus enabling them to enhance or acquire

specific skills in the target language. The aim of the strategy training sessions is to increase learners’ awareness of making decisions for their own strategy use to tackle language tasks. Strategy training implies that the learners could take control of their own learning by planning a goal, monitoring the processes, and evaluating the learning outcomes. This implies that nurturing learners’ metacognition is the key to successful learning. Wenden (2002), Goh (2002), and Vandergrift (1997b) emphasise that learners’ metacognitive processing is closely related to effective learning and is applicable to all learning contexts. In the current research context, the process operationalised metacognitively in a listening comprehension is to plan what to listen for, to stay focused on the text, to predict what comes next, and to monitor carefully and evaluate one’s comprehension.

Assessments of some strategy-based training for learners who apply taught strategies to improve their language learning or acquire target skills have remained inconclusive. An experiment based on speaking strategy instruction by Cohen et al. (1998) found that learners’ speaking performance in the target language improved, whereas studies by Schwartz (1992, cited in Graham, 2003) and Rees-Miller (1993) revealed that participants did not benefit from the strategy-based intervention, and they suggest some factors, such as cognitive preferences, cultural differences, and learners’ characteristics, should be considered as they may influence a learner’s performance during training sessions.

7. ConclusionIn this present investigation, attempts were made to discover the

interrelationship between listening comprehension strategy use and listening proficiency levels, and learners’ cognitive styles. The protocols indicate that there are differences in strategy use across listening ability. Successful listening could be accounted for by use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies in a systematic way. In considering a strategy-based approach to listening comprehension, this pedagogical application implies an optimal goal in L2/FL education whereby independent learners are able to choose strategies suitable for themselves according to their cognitive preferences, and transfer the strategies to various contexts.

It is noted this research work focused on the non-participatory (or one-way) listening strategy use that is restricted to metacognitive and cognitive processing. So, this study suggests that participatory (or two-way) listening activities are useful to explore the relationship between social and affective strategy use, listening ability, and cognitive style.

Notes:

This research article is a revised version of a conference proceeding paper submitted to the 10th International Conference on Education, 26th - 29th May, 2008, Athens, Greece, and it is also a slightly revised version of a conference paper submitted to the Bera Annual Conference 2008, 3rd – 6th September 2008.

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