The Effect of Listening Strategy Instruction on Iranian Pre-intermediate EFL Learners’ Listening ability

Farzaneh Ghaed Sharaf,Melika Mobaraki,Maryam Rabani Nia

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.7n.3p.188

Abstract

Listening comprehension plays an important role in the process of language learning as it is one of the four major skills in language acquisition. This study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of listening strategy instruction on improving listening comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. To achieve this goal, forty students studying at Birjand University were participated in the current study. All of thestudents were within the age range of 18 to 22. Then, they were non-randomly divided into two groups, as a control and an experimental group. Theexperimental was taught based on a guide lesson plan regarding listening strategies while the control group did not receive any treatment. The listening section of TOEFL was utilized to measure the listening performance of the participants before and after the treatment. The results of Independent Samples Test indicated thatinstructing listening strategies had no significant impact onlistening comprehension of Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners.

Highlights

Listening has an important role in communication, so that 4050% of the total time spent on communication is allocated to listening (Mendelsohn, 1994)
This study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of listening strategy instruction on improving listening comprehension of Iranian EFL learners
A listening post-test was given to the groups in order to investigate whether the treatment had a significant impact on the participants’ Listening Comprehension (LC)

Summary

Introduction

Listening has an important role in communication, so that 4050% of the total time spent on communication is allocated to listening (Mendelsohn, 1994). Understanding and comprehending spoken language is fundamentally an inferential process (Rost, 2011). Listeners apply both linguistic knowledge and world knowledge to create a mental representation of what they have heard (Hulstijn, 2003). According to Nunan (1998), in language learning, the basic skill is listening.Unlike listening in First Language (L1) condition which is a natural, implicit process and learners use many strategies automatically to help them fully comprehend the message, in a Second Language (L2) setting, it is even more important to use these helpful strategies to decode the message. Through Strategy Instruction (SI), the learners’ awareness of useful strategies can be raised, at the very least, and in practicing strategies in a controlled, comfortable classroom setting, learners will see their capabilities when using these strategies and breakdown the helpless feeling that can often come when listening in an L2 (Mendelsohn, 1994)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion