A Study On English Listening Strategies Of Adult Learners

Language is learned for the purpose of communication and listening is the most frequently used mode of human communication, so the study, of listening strategies is one of the major concerns in second language acquisition. The present thesis presents an experimental study of the listening strategies employed by Chinese adult learners in English training. Specially, the relationship between listening strategies and listening achievement, and the differences between younger and older adults are investigated. Moreover, the differences between effective adult listeners and ineffective adult listeners are also invested according to Anderson's (1983, 1985) "three-stage theory" about listening comprehension process.Sixty-eight Chinese adult learners who ranged from 17 to 45 years old were taken as subjects in this study. They were from two lower-intermediate English classes at the Adult Educational College of Fuyang Teachers' Institute. A questionnaire, a listening comprehension test, and a think-aloud method were adopted. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analyzed. The results are (1) the use of strategies has positive effect on the listening achievement of Chinese adult learners; (2) older adults and younger adults have no significant difference in the frequency of strategy use; but older adults can use strategies more effectively than younger adults (3) listening comprehension process can be divided into three phases: perceptual processing, parsing, and utilization. The learning strategies used in each phase can be clearly identified. In each phase, effective listeners and ineffective listeners are different in a variety of strategies.The present study has both theoretical and pedagogical implications in the following two senses: (1) it has confirmed the influence of age on adult learners in strategy employment and revealed that different strategies are used in different phases of listening comprehension, thus nroviHinp Chinese teachers with useful information about strategy training- (?) it has nrnvide.rl authentic empirical data to the study of listening strategies, especially on the topic of "adult learners".