Listening comprehension strategies of Arabic-speaking ESL learners

The main goal of this investigation was to identify the listening strategies of advanced and intermediate second language listeners in English and to compare the listening strategies of both groups of research participants. A total of 30 Arabic-speaking ESL learners were administered a listening comprehension test and a listening strategy use questionnaire. The test instrument was constructed by the researcher to serve as both a listening comprehension measure and a listening input upon which the participants could reflect with regard to their mental strategies while completing the questionnaire items. The test consisted of two lectures, each followed by subtests comprised of multiple choice and essay questions. After completing the test, participants were also asked to complete a Likert-scale questionnaire that included 20 items asking about the use of cognitive, metacognitive, and socioaffective strategies. The listening test and listening strategy use questionnaire data was run through multiple statistical tests, including factor analysis, multiple regression, and t-tests, to identify the strategies the research participants had used and explain the relationship between strategy use and listening comprehension. The results indicated that both advanced and intermediate listeners used metacognitive, cognitive, and socioaffective strategies. However, there was some variation in terms of the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies. As far as cognitive strategies were concerned, the results revealed that the advanced listeners employed more top-down strategies than the intermediate listeners, whereas there were no significant differences in the use of metacognitive strategies. The results also indicated that cognitive strategies are the most powerful predictor of listening comprehension, followed by socioaffective strategies, whereas metacognitive strategies were the predictor that accounted the least for listening comprehension.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor dc:publisher

Colorado State University. Libraries

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Authors dc:creator

• Abdalhamid, Fouad, author
• Flahive, Douglas, advisor
• Ehlers-Zavala, Fabiola, committee member
• Hirchi, Mohammed, committee member

• cognitive
• socioaffective
• metacognitive
• listening comprehension strategies

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.

Language dc:language.iso

eng, English

Identifier URI

https://doi.org/10.25675/3.018416

Identifier

ETDF2012500001ENGL

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:mountainscholar.org:10217/65198