Abstract
The study in hand intends to investigate the comparative analyses of the perceptions of Saudi EFL learners with high grade point average (HGPA) and low-grade point average (LGPA) towards cognitive, metacognitive and socio-affective listening comprehension strategies employed by them to comprehend listening texts. A modified 5-point strongly agree to strongly disagree Likert-scale questionnaire has been administered to Saudi EFL learners with HGPA and LGPA to generate data for this empirical study. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire has been determined. The instrument was translated into Arabic which was administered to the cohort from both levels to identify their responses towards the various questionnaire items. Independent-samples T-test was run to determine descriptive statistics as well as to identify whether any statistically significant difference exist along GPA. The data generated through this comparative analysis were used to test three null hypotheses set for this study. The results have reported that by and large no significant differences exist in the perceptions of the HGPA and LGPA participants of this study and null hypotheses were accepted. It was found that Saudi EFL learners represented by the participants of this study resort to cognitive strategies the most followed by the metacognitive ones to comprehend listening texts. As far socio-affective strategies are concerned, the results indicate their least use by the participants of this study. The findings of this empirical study suggest that Saudi EFL learners like to exploit bottom-up strategies more than the top-down ones. Recommendations have been forwarded at the end based on the findings of this empirical study.
Highlights
English language teaching has a well-established history in Saudi Arabia and during the last two decades huge resources have been earmarked and serious efforts have been exerted to enhance English language teaching/learning process at all levels in general and at university level in particular to ensure the desired results
Table above details the comparative mean values assigned by high grade point average (HGPA) and low-grade point average (LGPA) groups to various cognitive, metacognitive and socio-affective strategies to increase their listening comprehension
The cumulative mean has indicated that HGPA group uses cognitive strategies the most followed by metacognitive whereas the socio-affective strategies are used the least confirming a growing mass of research in the Arab world as well as other parts of the world
Summary
English language teaching has a well-established history in Saudi Arabia and during the last two decades huge resources have been earmarked and serious efforts have been exerted to enhance English language teaching/learning process at all levels in general and at university level in particular to ensure the desired results. It has been reported that Saudi EFL learners bear serious lacking in the target language in general and oral skills in particular. Goh (2000) has informed about these problems in terms of several barriers that negatively affect listening comprehension According to him, these problems are caused by learners’ low proficiency in the target language, their beliefs barriers, listening textbooks, information processing barriers, affective barriers, habitual berries along with lack of appropriate LCS. These problems are caused by learners’ low proficiency in the target language, their beliefs barriers, listening textbooks, information processing barriers, affective barriers, habitual berries along with lack of appropriate LCS This situation calls for an identification of ijel.ccsenet.org
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