A Study Of English Listening Strategies Used By Students From A Vocational College

Since the beginning of the 1970s, great emphasis has been attached to the research on language learning strategies in language teaching and learning. Of the four language skills, listening comprehension is the most important but also the most difficult language skill in language learning. Hence, a wide range of studies on listening strategies have been conducted by many researchers. However, the majority of these studies were carried out in western countries, which is completely different from that of the EFL teaching in China. In addition, there is little research on the English listening strategy use of vocational college students. As we know, vocational college students nowadays consist of a large group of EFL learners in China, and have their own characteristics in listening strategy use. Therefore, it is necessary to do further empirical research to deepen our understanding of vocational college students'listening strategy use in China.The present study attempts to identify the listening strategies used by vocational college students, to explore the relationship between listening proficiency and the use of listening strategies, and to examine the effects of gender on listening strategy use. More importantly, it aims to provide some pedagogical implications for English teachers and learners.The study selected 166 first-year science and engineering major students of Jiangxi Industry Polytechnic College as the subjects. Of all these subjects, 50 were females and 116 were males. In order to collect the data, three types of instruments were employed in the study: a listening strategy questionnaire, a listening comprehension test and the interview. With the assistance of SPSS 15.0, descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlation analysis, ANOVA analysis, and Independent Sample T-test were conducted to analyze the collected data.The study revealed the following findings. Firstly, the science and engineering students of vocational college used the listening strategy at a medium frequency level. They used cognitive strategies most often, followed by metacognitive strategies, and social-affective strategies. Secondly, the correlation between listening strategies and listening proficiency is statistically significant. High proficient listeners used all the metacognitive sub-strategies, affective strategies, and most of the cognitive sub-strategies significantly more often than the other two groups. Low proficient group used translation strategy significantly more often, and intermediate proficient group significantly used the social strategy more often. Finally, the female students used the monitoring, inferencing, prediction, resourcing and imagery sub-strategies significantly more often than the male students.On the basis of the findings obtained from the present study, some pedagogic implications for English teaching and learning in the vocational college can be drawn. Since EFL teaching in China is deeply rooted in the Chinese context, EFL teachers in Chinese vocational colleges should cultivate students'awareness of listening strategy use. Only after being aware of students'use of listening strategies can teachers then instruct their students how to use the listening strategies properly and effectively.