ening Awareness and StrategiesThis section first introduces methods that studies have used to investigate ening awareness and strategies. Then it reports studies of ening awareness-raising. Finally this section reviews research in ening strategy training.
igate ening Awareness and Strategies
The scope of listening strategy research has recently expanded to eitive knowledge. Listeners are asked to explicitly report their perceptions about theanding of listening deitive goals, their approach to listening tasks, and their listening strategies. To elicit learners' itive knowledge about listening, various procedures have been used, only diaries (Goh, 1997), interviews (Goh, 2002a), and questionnaires (Goh, 2002b; Vandergrift, 2002 & 2005a). Results of these studies have shown that L2 learners possess knowledge about listening process, albeit to varying degrees, and that this knowledge appears to be linked to listening abilities.
One cohod that researchers have used to assess learners' itive awareness in listening is the analysis of diaries. Goh (1997) adhe earliest studies exaacognitive awareness of L2 listeners through diaries. Forty adult Chinese ESL learners in Singapore were asked to keep a diary for ten weeks about their listening study, i. e., their reflections on what they did to understand better and how they practiced their listening after class. Goh argued that keeping a diary provided the right stimulus for students to reflect on their listening.
In addition to such qualitative analysis of texts as diaries, questionnaires have also been used. Vandergrift (2005a) used an 18-iteo assess students' itive awareness of the listening processes and strategies. Participants rated the extent to which the item in the questionnaire described their actual use of each strategy on a scale ranging from 1 to 5. A high score indicated strong agreement with the statement of the item. However, results of the study were limited because the questionnaire used in the study was not sufficiently prehensive (18 items only) and had not been subjected to rigorous validation procedures.
To make up for the inadequacy of the instrument, Vandergrift et al. (2006) developed the itive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) to assess L2 learners' awareness and perceived use of listening strategies. To validate the MALQ, Vandergrift and his colleagues conducted an exploratory and a confirmatory factor analysis with two large and different samples of language learners. Based on Flavell's (1979) theoretical ition, the sists of 21items related to five ors: problem solving, planning-evaluation, mental translation, person knowledge and directed attention. Table 4 shows the strategies in each of the five distinct ors based on Vandergrift et al. (2006, ). Participants rated the extent to which the items in the questionnaire described their perception and actual use of strategies on a scale ranging from 1 to 6. A high score indicated strong agreement with the statement of the item.
The o ges in listeners' itive awareness (e. g., Mareschal, 2007; O'Bryan & Hegelheimer, 2009; Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari, 2010), and the questionnaire can be administered retrospectively, i. e. immediately after a listening task, or at any time during a listening course, depending on its purpose. In addition to being a research instrument, this questionnaire can also be used as a teaching tool for raising learners' awareness about L2 listening, as was in the study by Coskun (2010).
Table 4 rategies by the Five Factors in the MALQ
(Source: Vandergrift et al., 2006, )
ening Awareness Raising Studies
Raising learners' itive awareness about listening has been advocated for a long time now (e. g., Mendelsohn, 1994). ESL/EFL teachers are advised to help their students to develop ening awareness. Given the ietacognitive awareness in suessful listening, researchers began to investigate the effect of raising learners' awareness on listening cot studies have shown that itive knowledge can be increased through classroo (e. g., Vandergrift, 2002 & 2003b) or peer-peer dialogue (Cross, 2010).
Vandergrift investigated the effect of a strategy-based approach on student awareness of the listening process. In two investigations, students were guided in the use of prediction, individual planning, peer discussions, and post-listening reflections. Both beginner-level elementary school students (Vandergrift, 2002) and beginner-level university students of French (Vandergrift, 2003b) exposed to such an approach found it motivating to learn to understand rapid, authentic-type texts and responded overwhelmingly in favor of this approach. Students mented on the power of predictions for suessful listening, the importance of collaboration with a partner for fidence-building role of this approach for enhancing their ability to prehend oral texts. Vandergrift's sequence for guided listening was adopted for teaching tertiary-level Chinese ESL students; they too reported increased d strategy knowledge (Liu & Goh, 2006).
Froultural perspective, Cross (2010) administered a small-scale study exploring itive awareness of L2 listening in Japan. Twelve Japanese female adult EFL learners were put in 6 pairs and enrolled in five 90-minute lessons. In each lesson, the participants followed the pedagogical cycle based on Vandergrift (2007), i. e., the five stages consisted of prediction: first listening, second listening, verification, and reflection (). The pedagogical cycle was modified to include explicit sharing, selecting, and reflecting on listening strategies by learners as a ism for stiitive awareness. Unlike the studies by Vandergrift (2002 & 2003b), the participants in this study did not receive any input from the researcher throughout the research, but autonomously coheir own pace guided by a pros used in the study were BBC News videotexts. Each of the five lessons was audio and video recorded for subsequent transcription and analysis. At the end of each session, learners spent 15 minutes individually writing in a diary their reflections on the pedagogical cycle, news videotext, suesses and difficulties, working with their partner, and what they felt they learned from their partner in the lesson.
The study results of Cross (2010) showed that peer-to-peer dialogue was the central is and co-construction of itive awareness, and it also acted as the primary unit of analysis. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the six pairs' dialogues and corresponding diary entries showed that through the dialogues they took part in as part of the structured pedagogical cycle, they were able to exploit opportunities to enhance their L2 ening awareness.
ening Strategy Training Studies