A Survey On The Use Of Cognitive Strategies In English Listening Of Junior High School Students

English listening comprehension is an important part of English learning,and it shows students’ cognitive thinking in the process of listening.Cognitive strategies as a kind of skill,which are formed in the process of cognitive thinking,and it could help students’ improve their listening level and cognitive thinking.Thus,it is of great significance to investigate the cognitive strategies used by junior high school students in listening comprehension for improving the students’ listening achievement and teachers’ teaching method.Giving all that,this study investigates the use of cognitive strategies in English listening comprehension by junior high school students.Based on the analysis of the questionnaires of200 students and the report materials of think-aloud of 9 students of different levels,this research aims to find out the features of cognitive strategies used by junior high school students and differences in the use of cognitive strategies by students with different listening levels,and whether the English listening performance of junior high school students is related to the use of cognitive strategies.Based on the result of three questions,suggestions are put forward that can provide students with effective cognitive strategies and improve teachers’ listening teaching methods.The results show that junior high school students use keywords,note-taking and translation the most in English listening comprehension,while using transfer,summary,and memory the least.There are significant differences in the use of cognitive strategies among students of different grades.Males use them more than females in distinguishing and using rules,summary strategy,and memory strategy.Females use keywords,note-taking and inference more than males.High-level students use more cognitive strategies in listening than lower-level students,especially,as the difficulty of listening comprehension increases,high-level students use more types of cognitive strategies than low-level ones.In addition,according to Pearson correlation coefficient,it was found that students’ listening score was positively correlated with the use of cognitive strategies,especially keyword strategy,note-taking strategy,and repetition strategy.In view of the above research results,this research provides following suggestions.In English listening teaching,teachers should pay attention to developing the consciousness of cognition strategies used by junior high school students,and focus on cultivating the use of different kinds of cognitive strategies according to students’ level,grade and gender.Especially,teachers attach particular attention to the use of cognitive strategies for low-level students and provide assistance.In daily listening exercises,students are encouraged to use keywords,note-taking,and repetition these cognitive strategies to help them improve their listening achievements quickly.At last,because middle school students use cognitive strategies for summarizing,memorizing and transferring the least,the shortcoming of junior high school students’ listening comprehension is filled in the chart.Therefore,teachers need to strengthen the guidance these three kinds of cognitive strategies for students.