An Investigation of the Relationship between Motivation and Metacognitive Awareness Strategies in Listening Comprehension: The Case of Iranian EFL Learners

Abstract

This study sets out to investigate the relationship between patterns of motivation and L2 listeners’ metacognitive awareness and perceived use of strategies. A total number of 3o upper intermediate students from two English language teaching Institutes in Isfahan took part in this study. They were asked to fill in two questionnaires: (a) a questionnaire on motivation, which was developed by Vallerand et al. (1992), and (b) a questionnaire on Metacognitive awareness strategies in listening developed by Vandergrift et al. (2006). The results of the study revealed that: 1) there is no significant difference in terms of type of motivation among Iranian upper intermediate EFL learners .2) In the category of mecognitive strategies, problem solving was the most frequently used strategy and planning and evaltuation was the least frequently used one. 3) Positive relationship was found between both types of motivation and use of metacognitive awareness strategies, except for mental translation and intrinsic motivation. 4) There was significant difference in mean scores of high and low motivation groups, for three categories of metacoginitive awareness strategies including planning and evaluation, directed attention, and person knowledge. This study suggested that listeners’ metacognitive awareness should be cultivated and strategy instruction should be integrated into the teaching of listening.