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摘 要

英语是国际交流的重要工具，但英语听力学习在中国往往被忽视。学生听力能力普遍较弱。很多专家和英语教师探究了研究听力策略，尤其是元认知策略。另一方面，初中是学生认知发展和学习语言的关键期。因此本文主要研究初中生应该如何听力学习过程中使用元语言认知策略。首先，本文会研究有关定义及其重要性；其次，通过分析初中英语听力学习中存在的一些障碍，对元认知策略在英语听力学习中的应用提出一些具体的建议，以提高学生的听力技能。

关键词：初中英语；听力学习；元认知策略

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Introduction of Metacognitive Strategy and Listening Comprehension 3

3.1 Listening comprehension 3

3.2 Metacognitive strategy 4

4. Problems Existing in Students" English Listening Learning in Junior Middle School 5

4.1 Characteristics of students’ mental development 5

4.2 Obstacles in students’ English listening learning 6

5. The Application of Metacognitive Strategy in English Listening Learning 7

5.1 Preparation before listening 8

5.2 Monitering during listening 9

5.3 Evaluation and self-reflection after listening 9

5.4 Suggestions on English listening learning in junior middle school 10

6. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 13

Introduction

With the rapid development of technology and economy, the cooperation between our country and others is becoming more frequent in many aspects, such as politics, culture, science and so on. Under these conditions, we can’t deny that being taken for diffusely applied language around the globe, English are becoming increasingly significant in communications between any two nations.

Listening, additionally, the crucial resource in language input, is included in the important dimensions to measure learner’s integrated competence of English. However, the current situation of attaching more importance to some other skills has led to a phenomenon that a considerable number of students have terrible listening comprehension ability. Sometimes it is difficult for them to communicate in English because they cannot catch or understand others’ words. What’s worse, they cannot do well even in some basic English listening tests. Therefore, what’s critical right now is to improve current situation of English listening learning, cultivate and develop students’ listening ability.

The research about language learning strategies has been attracting linguists since 1970s, and the related achievements do have great influence on the foreign language learning whether in theory or in practice. Among these learning strategies, metacognitive strategy, in particular, more often being studied, has produced enormous impacts. In a word, the research has become more and more abundant and excellent on the topic of metacognition and metacognitive strategy in the field of English listening learning, but further study is still needed. or example, when it comes to the chosen subjects in these research, students in college or vocational school are more often appeared than those junior students in middle school. Hence how to incorporate metacognitive strategy into junior middle school English listening learning is a topic worthy of discussion and further research.

On the basis of above analysis, the first part introduced in this thesis will be some pertinent definitions and importance of metacognition and metacognitive strategy. Next, some obstacles existing in junior middle school students’ English listening will be analyzed. Last but not least, in order to improve students’ listening skills, the thesis will also raise some concrete suggestions about the application of metacognitive strategy in English listening learning, so as to further comprehensively enhance students’ listening ability, and cultivate habit of using strategies in English learning process.

Literature Review

Compared with the other learning strategies, metacognitive strategy is higher-order executive one which embraces the ability of using metacognitive knowledge consciously to plan, monitor and evaluate the learning process. Oroginally, American child psychologist J.H.Flavell mentioned the word metacognition in 1976 in the book titled Cognitive Development(Flavell 908). Brown,who made a simple definition of metacognition, believed that “Metacognition is an ability to test, adjust, and evaluate individual thoughts. It is a cognitive control of knowledge in the cognitive field.” (Brown 13). Since then, scholars from all over the world have undertaken relevant research and constitutes notable achievements. Eleven years later, O’Mally and Chamot proposed three learning strategies based on information processing theory: metacognitive strategy, cognitive strategy, and social or affective strategy(O’Mallyamp;Chamot 11). As stated by O’Malley and Chamot in 1990, Metacognitive strategy can develop independent learning habit and better facilitate success in learning, ( O’Malleyamp;Chamot 46).

More often being implemented, the metacognitive strategy is used to plan, monitor and evaluate learning activities to better language learning. However, the first study on metacognitive strategy in listening was launched by Thompson and Rubin in 1996. And after their research, many of the experimental studies at home and abroad are carried out and focus on the application of metacognitive strategy to listening in schools.

Based on the theory of O’Mally and Chamot, Canadian language expert Vandergrift developed a detailed graph of the metacognitive strategy in listening in 1997. He had participated in a number of effective researches on metacognitive strategy and found that the better a student masters a foreign language, the more frequently metacognitive strategies are used in the learning process. Therefore, he advocated teachers to motivate students to use metacognitive strategy to improve their ability in listening learning(Vandergrift 575). After conducting extensive research, other scholars have also confirmed that metacognitive ability not only reveals the roots of differences in students’ achievements, but also plays a decisive role in language learning and use. In1997, Graham had already pointed out that metacognitive strategy is an important tool for improving academic achievement because it enables students to plan, control, and evaluate their own learning(Graham 783).

Domestic research on metacognition and metacognitive strategy started slightly later. Similar to what Vandergrift has discovered, in Tang Yifei’s survey in 2000, she found out that students with high levels of listening are good at using metacognitive strategy. They plan well before the activity, monitor attention during the activity, and make assessments after the activity. Conversely, students with low listening levels seldom use it(Tang 85).

Afterwards, in 2005, Chen Jiaxu introduced metacognitive strategy into multimedia English listening teaching. In the process of listening comprehension, he tried to improve the students" listening skills through the training of strengthening their knowledge, experience and control of metacognitive strategy in listening comprehension process(Chen 46). In view of the above, in 2006, Zhou Ying suggested that the form of self-test and self-assessment should be used to help students find their weaknesses and problems in listening practice(Zhou 52). Till now a number of specialists’ research all indicates that high metacognitive consciousness is of great benefit to the discipline of foreign language learners" listening skills.

Introduction of Metacognitive Strategy and Listening Comprehension

According to Flavell, metacognition is knowledge about cognition and control of cognition. Specifically, metacognition is the knowledge of personal cognitive process and the ability to regulate these processes: knowledge of thinking, control of thinking and learning activities(Flavell 908). That is to say, learners can know, inspect, evaluate and adjust their cognitive activities through metacognition. Based on this, metacognitive strategy comes into being and begins to be applied in many fields of language learning, including in listening comprehension.

3.1 Listening comprehension

Listening comprehension is viewed theoretically as an active process in which individuals focus on specific aural input, construct meaning from passages, and relate what they hear to existing knowledge(Zhang 4). According to American foreign language teaching experts Rivers and Temperly, the time of listening accounts for 45%, while 30% for speaking, 16% for reading, and only 9% for writing in human communication (Riversamp;Temperly 135). Therefore, listening plays an important part in English learning. Upon the definition, many scholars hold different perspectives, but today people usually consider listening comprehension as a kind of receptive skill: it needs people to focus on listening and understand the meaning of words and expressions in the target language.

3.2 Metacognitive strategy

Strategy refers to the ways and methods to solve problems and can be divided into three kinds of categories, including cognitive strategy, metacognitive strategy and resource management strategy. As a strategy of great importance in human cognitive activity and learning strategy system, metacognitive strategy reflects learners’ self-studying ability and intelligence. It demands learners take various measures to manage learning resources and operate learning process effectively based on the comprehensive analysis of related factors and tasks.

Generally speaking, metacognition can be made of metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience and metacognitive monitoring. Metacognitive knowledge, namely knowledge about the cognitive subject, refers to every point the individual knows about the cognitive subject which could be himself or anyone else. And the cognitive or emotional experience generated in cognitive activities exactly is metacognitive experience. As for the metacognitive monitoring, it is a process in which the individual actively, consciously and continuously implements monitoring, control and regulation of ongoing cognitive activities.

In English listening learning, metacognitive strategy includes three stages: pre-learning planning, while-learning monitoring, and post-learning adjusting. Before starting listening, it is advisable to set learning objectives, look through questions and predict listening material contents to analyze how to complete learning tasks. As soon as the listening begins, the individual should track attention, ask self questions about the material and monitor speed by choosing decisively. And in the last stage after listening, some suitable adjustments or remedial actions should be prepared for next time once the problems are discovered by checking the result.

Problems Existing in Students’ English Listening Learning in Junior Middle School

As for the learners in junior middle school, it is ubiquitous that they are not good at English listening. They could not understand the other side in a conversation or talk with others fluently because they cannot follow it or catch particularly some key words. It’s granted that they cannot perform very well in some basic listening exams as well. Such situation is due to a variety of factors, including their immature development of mentality and lack of some proper skills or abilities needed in English listening learning.

To be specific, these obstacles in their listening learning involve characteristics of their mental development, lack of vocabulary or too much new words, difficulties in recognizing pronunciations, weakness in grammar, differences in cultural backgrounds, improper application of listening strategy and lack of reflection. If such situation couldn’t be improved from now on, other three language skills would eventually come to a dead end.

4.1 Characteristics of students’ mental development

First, junior middle school students are not mentally mature enough in adolescence especially in emotional development. In such special stage of life, students are commonly sensitive and easily be enraged. They cannot control the unstable emotion very well so the negative one might burst out at any point during the learning process. Meanwhile, their personality development is also ongoing. Adolescents tend to feel puzzled to establish identity, which can prevent them from role confusion and behavioral problems. They might live without purpose, without sense of direction, and sometimes even feel lost. But beyond that, their cognitive development is much more deeply concerned with English listening learning. Junior middle school students’ ability to distribute and transfer concentration is still not good. Furthermore, they lack self-control to some extent. Hence it’s still difficult for them to focus on a particular activity for a good while. Consequently, the immature cognitive development can hinder junior middle school students’ English listening learning.

4.2 Obstacles in students’ English listening learning

Except for the aspect of mental development mentioned above, the thesis also finds out that most students has the following problems in listening learning.

4.2.1 Lack of vocabulary or too much new words

Most junior middle school students’ English vocabulary is fairly limited, mainly because of inertia resulting from mental development and lack of appropriate word memorization skills. In many middle schools, it’s still a pervasive phenomenon that students memorize words mechanically by repeating the spelling and the Chinese meaning again and again. In fact, such inefficiency always leads to poor vocabulary and then they might find more unfamiliar words in listening, which will result in the loss of interest in English learning. At that time they wouldn’t like to make more efforts to do it, thus mechanical memorization would still be the only choice. Such vicious circle of learning habits would be endless, and students’ listening ability would come to a standstill or decline.

4.2.2 Difficulties in recognizing pronunciations

As mentioned before, many students memorize new words with inaccurate pronunciation, resulting in insensitivity to some particular sounds, thus they are more likely to fail to distinguish words immediately. That means they need more time to ponder on, which makes it tougher to keep up with listening process then some crucial information might be missed. As a matter of fact, they could have avoided this kind of mistake if they never mistaken the one-to-one correspondence between word spelling and pronunciation.

4.2.3 Weakness in grammar

Due to the exam-oriented education, many students just memorize grammar without understanding it or putting it into specific language context, thus they are not familiar with it enough to recognize fixed sentence patterns and understand it in listening. Sometimes the ignorance or mistake of tense voice could also be a fatal error, which might affect sentence understanding.

4.2.4 Differences in cultural backgrounds

It’s beyond all question that cultures vary from country to country. Different countries have different cultural backgrounds. It’s the same situation between China and those English-speaking countries, so students can hardly comprehend the content since negative transfer of native culture would present, if they don’t have enough knowledge about western culture, etiquette, etc.. Accordingly, in order to understand the essence of listening comprehension, students should grasp related background knowledge and its relationship with listening comprehension, as well as the similarities between native and foreign language listening.

4.2.5 Improper application of listening skills and lack of reflection

According to domestic and foreign surveys on the frequency of using listening strategies, scholars in our country find out that pupils in our country, in particular these students have poor listening competence, are at a great disadvantage as to the application of metacognitive strategy. They simply increase the amount of listening, and seldom or never reflect on the strategies used in the listening process. Under such circumstances, even if a lot of energy is invested, the learning effect is not necessarily ideal.

Sometimes when encountering new words or topics that they do not understand, some students tend to stick to what has already past, or hesitate to pick which option while others already have made choice or just skip it. The students of these types are not in the minority in junior middle school. Failing to predict the material and monitor the listening process, in other words, lacking good preparation and timely decision, these students always find it difficult to do well in English listening.

The Application of Metacognitive Strategy in English Listening Learning

In the light of the before-mentioned problems and current situation in listening learning, it is particularly important to apply listening learning strategies to English listening learning in junior middle school. In the first instance, listening strategies could advance learner’s competence in this aspect. Secondly, effective implementation of listening strategy training helps those learners to evolve both good habit of English learning and English thinking. For example, students accomplish language input in the way of using the web, watching TV, and listening to the radio, so as to develop a good habit of self-management and grow into a lifelong learner.

At the same time, teachers as well have met demands in new curriculum reform. On the other hand, the comprehensive development concept in the theory of constructivism requires student-centered teaching mode. In addition, according to the new curriculum reform, the shift from "teacher-centered" classroom teaching mode to "students-centered" teaching mode calls for learners" responsibility for their own learning. Therefore, here are some specific solutions with regard to how to use metacognitive strategy in English listening learning.

5.1 Preparation before listening

Generally, people do everything out of different motivations. However, not everyone could contribute to the best effect. Hence what junior students ought to do at the beginning is to find a proper motivation for learning. Even if it’s difficult for them to be self-actualized, they could also do well if there are proper prizes in proper time from teachers or parents. Secondly, students should be psychologically prepared. Some students fear listening owing to ignorance of features of listening and learning methods. At this point, students should be clear that the key point of listening is to be able to understand and remember the essential thought of the listening content. In the meanwhile, they should overcome psychological barriers, knowing that although listening might be a little bit difficult at first, they can make progress through systematic training and learning.

It also needs learners to grasp some words and expressions that appear extremely frequently in listening. With the excellent mastering of knowledge they could get the job done well in limited time, which can in turn help them build up confidence. Except that, the introduction of relevant background is required, too. and the encouragement to predict the listening material should not be ignored by teachers. Teachers should involve these in class or create some opportunities by organizing some after-school activities. Also, students have to understand the cultural differences between China and the west and read books about customs and cultures of British and American countries in order to increase their relevant knowledge and background.

In addition, some listening skills can be prepared in this stage. In addition to predicting listening content according to questions in the paper so as to call up schema impressions, awareness of monitoring and taking remedial measures ought to be established in this part, too. What’s more, in daily life, students can set listening practice plans and goals for days, weeks, months, even years, and the practice should includes both intensive listening and extensive listening, which would help them establish a sense of language.

5.2 Monitering during listening

At this stage, first of all, learner’s concentration along with reasonable attention distribution are crucial. During the process of listening, students don’t have to figure out each single word, phrase or fragment distinctly. Instead, skipping the new words to follow the speed of listening material is more advisable. Just based on some crucial information in passage, students can deal with the content of the material well, and the effect of listening can be improved through selective focus. Moreover, the prime consideration should be the theme of dialogue or monologue, viewpoints of different characters and some important factors of events, especially the critical number, place, character, and timing. Students can simply mark some key points like numbers just in case they forget it. In addition, during listening pupils need to actively monitor a series of actions in the activity of listening. And some remedy should be taken if it’s needed. Specifically, it will help them better understand the material if they grasp the symbolic linking words from which some missing points could be inferred.

5.3 Evaluation and self-reflection after listening

All of the learning activities would become meaningless without the last step evaluation and self-reflection. First, evaluation could be divided into three types: teacher evaluation, peer evaluation, and self evaluation. Teachers have to teach students the use of metacognative strategy through the way of class teaching and extracurricular training. They can allow students to narrate the way they using what kind of specific listening skill under what circumstances, the effect of it, and problems they has encountered. Besides, the teacher should give their own evaluation on the students’ performance in the listening activities and the effect of the application of strategies, especially on the aspect of planning, process and result. In addition, after a practice of English listening, the teacher should also give the students some praise in order to encourage them to take part in the listening activities actively. In group discussion, group members can communicate the successful skills using experience, and discuss or analyze the cause of listening difficulties and improper use of skills. In this way, they can exchange learning method so as to make better achievements. Students should also examine themselves by answering some questions, such as how much do I understand this material? Is it easy or difficult? How many words am I unfamiliar with? Have I follow the speed of material and made choices timely? etc. They could not only review the content and reflect on their skills used in listening but also find out some problems existing in listening comprehension. By this way they can clearly understand their level of listening comprehension, set the foundation for adjusting planning in the next step, improve awareness of metacognition and cultivate ability to learn autonomously and independently.

5.4 Suggestions on English listening learning in junior middle school

In junior middle school, teachers should not only emphasize the accumulation of practice and the repetition of the simple actions of “listen and check answer”. Instead, the application of learning strategy is quiet indispensable when it comes to how to better students" performance. From the discussion of obstacles and the application of metacognitive strategy in English listening, it is not difficult to conclude how necessary it is to develop students" ability to use metacognitive strategy. That is to say, applying metacognitive strategy to English listening learning helps students develop interest in learning and improve their academic performance. Teachers should guide students actively and effectively, help them establish learning goals, develop listening learning plans, supervise the use of metacognitive strategy in listening process, and also feedback and summarize after listening. Only in this way can those pupils get to know the weaknesses in listening activities in time and discover proper ways to improve.

To be more specific, with the help from teacher, students firstly can make feasible learning plans based on their actual situation. If they focus on improving themselves and understanding conversations that are appropriate for a variety of social situations, teachers should help them become familiar with various practice and do more conversational exercises based on real-life scenarios.

Before listening, students should make overall preparation, including mindset, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, culture, and some skills. In English listening learning, the awareness of prediction should be increased and gradually evolve into a advantageous practice of learning. After prediction, they have to develop abilities to find out keywords and then take notes, so as to immediately activate background knowledge related to listening content. Once a viable goal is achieved, students will naturally have a sense of accomplishment, which will also make them more confident in English listening and that could be another positive motivation.

In the process of listening, to grasp the main idea of listening is unquestionable necessary. Besides, skills of intensive listening and extensive listening should be combined together. For example, paying attention to the linking words would help students distinguish between important and non-critical information. Additionally, they need to be clear that during listening they ought to actively monitor their own series of actions during the activity of listening. And some remedies ought to be taken when it’s necessary. When students aware that their thinking is free or slow down to ponder on one particular fragment, what they ought to do now is to consciously control the mind and try to follow the speed of listening.

At the end of the listening activity, evaluation and self-reflection are integral to it. In this step, students can self-assess by asking themselves some questions. Self-assessment can not only help students to check whether they understand the listening contents and to what degree they understand but also help students check if they have improved their listening after a period of metacognitive strategy exercises. Such productive method of supervising or evaluating the process could catch up on their weakness in information or understanding of any particular fields of this kind of activity. At the same time, students should adjust their listening strategies more consciously, actively and flexibly to achieve the goal of improving their performance.

Conclusion

From the above analysis, it is easy to be known that junior middle school students are poor at listening learning for all sorts of reasons. In order to solve these problems, many experts employ themselves in the study of strategies related to listening learning process. After all, the use of learning strategy can get the result better in less time. On this topic, it is imperative to improve the application of metacognitive strategy in English listening learning since it can help students perform many cognitive tasks more effectively. Therefore, preparation, monitering, evaluation and self-reflection are suggested to be done respectively in three basic stages of English listening. That can not only develop students’ competence in English listening, but also conform to the requirements of New Curriculum Reform. In addition, all the three activities are indispensable, none of which can be omitted. Otherwise the learning effect would be greatly reduced.

Works Cited

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Rivers, Wilga.M. and Mary S. Temperley. A Practical Guide to the Teaching of English as a Second or Foreign Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

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[Tang Yifei. “Teaching and Learning of Metacognition and Foreign Language Listening Comprehension.” Journal of Shandong Normal University College of Foreign Languages 3(2000): 82-85. ]

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[Zhang Jie. “The Application of Emotional Strategy in Middle School English Listening Teaching.” Shandong Normal University 2007. ]

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