The Impact of Listening Comprehension Strategy Training on First Year English Students’ Listening Ability

Abstract

This study was motivated by the weak results the students of English in the University of Blida have achieved over the last fifteen years. Teachers and administrators alike believe students’ weaknesses are mainly due to their non- effective listening strategies in the listening module, which is key to understanding Academic English needed for their university studies. It was important to understand the students’ listening difficulties and to see if a Training Programme involving Strategy- Based Listening Tasks can improve the students’ listening ability. Therefore, a pre- test (Oxford Placement Listening Test) was administered to a sample class of sixty- four first year students to determine their proficiency level. When it was corrected, only thirty students were singled out and divided into an experimental group and a control group of 15 students each. Both groups were administered a 22 item- questionnaire to identify their listening comprehension problems and their listening strategies. The Experimental Group received Listening Comprehension Strategy Training for twelve weeks. The Programme consisted of strategy- based teaching which developed strategies centred on a framework suggested by Brown (1990: 148). During this time, the control group attended the regular listening sessions with no treatment. To triangulate the results, a semi structuredinterview was carried out with the teachers of the module. After the Training Programme, both groups were given a post- test based on IELTS format. The results revealed that the scores of the Experimental Group were higher than those of the Control Group. They had a significantly higher level of listening proficiency and used more strategies, e.g., listening for key words, inferring and listening for gist than they did before Listening Comprehension Strategy Training. However, no significant difference was found in the use of non- verbal cues and asking for clarification strategies. On the other hand, the Control Group used listening comprehension strategies equally before and after the training, except for predicting and note-taking strategies. Based on these findings, it was suggested that listening teachers should be made aware of strategy- based listening tasks and develop materials based on these results.