Abstract
Listening is one of the fundamental skills to acquire knowledge in an academic setting. Employing appropriate listening strategies can improve focus and stimulate listening comprehension. Looking into the cognitive process from the perspective of metacognitive awareness during listening activity could enhance their performance in listening test. Despite that, listening skill in learning English as a second language (ESL) is often overlooked and the least practiced compared to other skills. There is a need to address the dearth of focus and research on approaching listening skills to improve the students' proficiency. The present study aims to investigate the relationship between Metacognitive Awareness of Listening Strategies (MALS) and listening achievement. To attain this, one hundred and sixty-nine science foundation students answered Metacognitive Awareness of Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) and took Malaysian University English Test (MUET). The result of the analysis shows that there was a significant relationship between students' MALS and listening performance. Subsequently, listening performance marks were found to be positively related to person knowledge strategies and inversely to mental translation strategies. Triangulation data was also done where 20 students were involved in further discussion of strategies that they have applied. The study also recommends looking into the practice of listening in Malaysia, particularly in pre-university level.
Highlights
Listening skill is the initial step in using the language and using it effectively can ensure academic success in university setting [1,2]
Metacognitive Awareness of Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) contains 19 items and each item is rated on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 6 without a neutral point
A study investigates the effects of metacognitive strategy training on lecture listening comprehension abilities to undergraduate students in one of Malaysia’s public universities which shows that students who frequently use metacognitive strategies when listening to lectures in English scored higher in the listening test [18]
Summary
Listening skill is the initial step in using the language and using it effectively can ensure academic success in university setting [1,2]. Listening comprehension problems were accentuated by many experts to improve learning. Listening skill in Malaysian classroom is not given the treatment or status in most language learning. In secondary school, listening skill is the least practiced skill and receives significantly less attention compared to writing and reading making it unsatisfactorily acquired by the students [9,10]. Listening test was not appropriately introduced to the lower form students in secondary school until 2014 where Penilaian Tingkatan Tiga (PT3) was introduced to replace the Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) examination [11].
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
