teachingefllisteningstrategiestocollegestudentsin.docVIP

Teaching EFL Listening Strategies to College Students in Taiwan Teng, Huei-Chun National Taiwan University of Science Technology Abstract. The purpose of the present study is to look into the instruction of EFL listening strategies to Taiwanese college students. Subjects were one freshman class of about 50 students at a university. The instruments include a listening strategy questionnaire, and a weekly learning diary. First, subjects completed the questionnaire of listening strategies. Second, in the freshman course English Listening Practice, subjects received instruction and practice in the use of EFL listening strategies for 20 minutes weekly for 15 weeks. Each week two listening strategies were taught with examples and exercises designed by the researcher. In total, subjects were able to learn 30 EFL listening strategies. During the instruction phase, subjects were required to keep a weekly learning journal. Finally, subjects received a post-test on the strategy questionnaire. Results of the study provided empirical descriptions of strategy training for L2 listeners. Results also offered some implications for teaching EFL listening comprehension. Keywords: EFL listening, strategy instruction, college English 1. Introduction Listening to spoken language has been acknowledged theoretically to consist of active and complex processes which determine the level and content of comprehension. Listeners engage in a variety of mental processes in an effort to comprehend information from oral texts. They focus on selected aspects of aural input, construct meaning from passages, and relate what they hear to existing knowledge. However, there is hardly a perfect match between input and knowledge; comprehension gaps occur and special efforts to educe meaning are required, especially for second language learners. The mental processes that are activated by listeners to understand, learn, or to retain new information from utterances are referred to as li