A few empirical studies have been conducted to uncover the listening strategies used by second/foreign language learners. Murphy (1985) worked with twelve intermediate ESL university students and concluded that the high achievers used their prior knowledge ("personalizing"), made guesses ("inferring"), and monitored their comprehension ("self-describing") more often than did the low achievers. Vandergrift (1992) found that the successful French-as-a-second-language learners monitored their own listening comprehension and identified aspects which hinder comprehension twice as frequently than their unsuccessful counterparts, but the differences were not statistically tested.
O'Malley, Chamot, and Küpper (1989) described a hierarchical order of listening comprehension strategies based on a three-stage language processing model (Anderson, 1985) and argued that the subjects selected their attention in the "perceptual processing" stage, inferred the meaning of the text in the "parsing" stage, and utilized their background knowledge in the "utilization" stage. Their conclusion, however, was not drawn from any thorough examination of the think-aloud protocols, and the systematicity of the strategy patterns was not tested.
Although previous studies have provided exhaustive lists of strategies, they do not include a hierarchical order of strategy use, which could have been a valuable source for the pedagogy (McDonough, 1996). Accordingly, this paper reports on a study which performed implicational scaling and protocol analysis on the strategy data. The combination of these two methods enhanced the precision in the description of the sequence of learners' strategy use in second language listening. The study focused on the following question: Is there a pattern underlying the strategy use of these Chinese undergraduates when they are listening to audio-texts selected from advanced ESL textbooks? This question merits investigation for two reasons: (1) the systematicity of the strategy checklists can be enhanced if there is a sequence of strategy use; (2) if such a sequence exists in second language listening, language professionals can predict the strategy use of their learners and tailor strategy instruction programs which pinpoint certain weaknesses of their students.
Listening materials. Three recordings of commercial tapes for listening skills development were chosen according to five criteria: (a) the English used was natural in speed and tone; (b) the recordings were authentic or unscripted; (c) the maximum length of each recording was less than five minutes; (d) the topic of the recordings could arouse interest of the subjects; and (e) the recordings were suitable for advanced ESL learners. As reflected by the pilot subjects, these passages matched the criteria. "The Friend of the Earth" was an interview with the then director of Friends of the Earth (Harmer & Elsworth, 1989), who talked about the aims of the organization and its global campaigns for the protection of the rain forests. "Misunderstood" was a story of a baboon and a cock (Collie & Slater, 1993b), while "Teeth and Dentists" was an informal conversation of four people about their childhood memories of dental problems (Collie & Slater, 1993a).
In the Briefing session, the author restated the purposes of the study and reassured the anonymity of the subjects. The subjects were reminded that they were asked to "think aloud," that is, they would report whatever that came to their minds when performing a task. Each subject signed a consent form before they proceeded to the next session. In the Warm-up session, the subjects were given instructions to think aloud with three tasks selected from Ericsson and Simon (1993). For example, they were instructed to speak whatever came to their minds when they had heard of the mathematical task "36 times 24." The subjects did not explain their thoughts, but verbalized what they were thinking. In the Trial Listening session, the subjects thought aloud with a trial listening tape. They were instructed to give the investigator a signal (for example, by raising their fingers) when they thought of anything. The investigator would stop the tape and let them verbalize their thoughts.
In the think-aloud session, the subjects thought aloud with the three recordings described above. The topics of the tapes were not disclosed to the subjects, but were represented by the letters A, B, and C. As a means of counterbalancing, the subjects selected the order of listening at random. To minimize carryover effects, the subjects took short breaks between the tasks.
In the Feedback session, the subjects discussed with the investigator informally about the interview. At the end of the meeting, each subject completed the Background Questionnaire and was offered a small amount of money (HK$100) for traveling expenses. The average timing of each data collection interview was fifty-two minutes.
Derived from Murphy (1985) and Scholfield (1994), the formula used to calculate the intercoder reliability coefficient was
where A, E, and N represented the author, the expert coder, and the novice coder respectively. The intercoder reliability coefficient was .80.
Intracoder reliability coefficient was the code-recode agreement of the author over five random samples of protocols. The intracoder reliability was checked by having the investigator recode the above mentioned random samples of protocols six weeks after the first coding. The investigator did not study the five sample protocols during that period, and the following formula was used to establish the intracoder reliability coefficient:
The twenty types of listening comprehension strategies were coded for each listening task in the think-aloud session. The presence and absence of a strategy type in a subject's repertoire in each passage was represented by "1" and "0" respectively. To test whether there was a scale in each set of strategy data, computer software specially designed for implicational scaling analysis was used.
In the qualitative analysis phase, representative think-aloud protocols were analyzed for the identification of possible sequence in strategy use. This paper reports on the analysis of one protocol.
Table 1 illustrates the scale of the strategy data in "The Friend of the Earth." The strategy items on the triangular pattern at the right end of the matrix were "expected" to be present in the subjects' repertoires, while those strategy items on the left of the trace line were "expected" to be absent in the subjects' repertoires. The bracketed items were those which did not fit the "ideal" pattern. In other words, these strategy types were present in the subjects' repertoires when they were "expected" to be absent, and vice versa.
Table 1 Implicational Scale of the Listening Comprehension Strategy Data
The scales reflected that those subjects who were on the upper-third of the matrices (S1, S3, S8, S11, S18) were males and females with different English language achievement. Those subjects who were on the lower-third of the matrices (S15, S16, S17, S20), however, were males and females who got a Grade D or E in their English Language examinations in the Hong Kong Certificate Education Examination (HKCEE), which is a local public examination taken by the students when they finish their secondary education. The results were consistent with previous studies (O'Malley, Chamot, & Küpper, 1989; Vandergrift, 1992), suggesting that the less successful students used a narrower range of strategies in second language listening comprehension.
Further analysis of the three matrices revealed that subjects who had greater repertoires of listening comprehension strategies constantly used the following six strategies: Self-evaluation, Summarization, Elaboration, Inferencing, Feedback, and Reprise. Given the position of a subject on the scale, one could "predict" that if a subject had used five strategies in a listening task, that subject must have used Reprise, Feedback, Repetition, Inferencing/Self-evaluation, and Summarization, but not Grouping, Resourcing, Deduction, Transfer, Note Taking, Hypothesis Testing, or Uptaking.
An ideal implicational scale for the learners' listening comprehension strategy repertoire should reflect that the presence of a strategy type on the left of the matrix implied the presence of another on the right of it. The strategy pattern of S11 in "The Friend of the Earth" can be shown to interpret the results of the implicational scaling analysis. S11 used seven types of strategies when listening to the passage. According to the position of S11 on the implicational scale, his use of Translation implied his use of Imagery, Feedback, Self-evaluation, Inferencing, Elaboration, and Summarization as well. Since the trace line was set between Translation and Self-monitoring, it was "expected" that those strategy types on the left of the strategy item Translation were absent in S11's strategy repertoire.
Unlike Chesterfield and Chesterfield (1985), who used the implicational scales to show an order of strategy acquisition, this study illustrated the popularity of strategies in listening comprehension. The technique, however, could not illustrate the sequence of strategy use. Hence, a qualitative analysis of the think-aloud protocols was conducted to examine the strategy patterns on the implicational scales.
The following were the transcribed think-aloud reports of S1, together with the transcripts of the original recordings of "The Friend of the Earth," a conversation between a reporter and Mr. Porritt, the director of Friends of the Earth. Special symbols such as {S1A1} were used to show the point when S1 started to report her thoughts. Each verbal report was individually numbered ({S1A1}, {S1A2} and so on). The protocol presented below was translated by the author and checked by the back-translation technique. The italicized words were translated from original Cantonese, while the words in quotations were the English remarks of the subject.
| Reporter: | So...Jonathan Porritt...you're, you're the director of Friends Of The Earth, is that right? |
| Porritt: | That's right. I have been for three years. |
| Reporter: | And what exactly is Friends Of The Earth? |
| Porritt: | It's a campaigning pressure group, dealing with {S1A1} |
| {S1A1} | Er, I think of an "interview." But I couldn't understand in the beginning, what "com-plain-ing," that was, I couldn't even "catch" what the sound was, but then I felt that it wasn't important. |
S1 used Inferencing to guess the context of the passage after listening to it for a few seconds. Her correct hunch enabled her to contextualize her comprehension. Although S1 failed to understand the meaning of the word campaigning and could not even get the pronunciation right, she evaluated her comprehension and knew that the word was not the key word of the sentence.
| Porritt: | a whole series of environmental issues. Some of those are international issues, such as the protection of the rain forests or acid rain. Some are to do with national concerns, such as er, planning policy or protection of the countryside, and a lot of the things that we're involved in are to do with people's ordinary backyard environment, as it were, small-scale things like what the individual can do on recycling, or just improving the quality of their own environment. So it covers a vast range of different issues, um, all the way down from - all the way up, if you like, from the very small personal concerns right through to the biggest international issues. |
| Reporter: | About big international issues; what do you see as the most important environmental issues of the moment? |
| Porritt: | It's quite difficult to make a kind of hierarchy of worry here, because so many issues are there, and so...and they're all very very important. But I think it has to be said that as far as we're concerned, as a campaigning organization, it really is the rain forest that we are concentrating on most. If we {S1A2} |
| {S1A2} | Er, as a matter of fact, I was "kept," "keep" listening to what he said, but it passed very quickly, that was, when (he) finished talking something, I had had forgotten what he had been saying, so I couldn't "repeat." But I have "grasp"(ed) an "idea" that he's talking about "environmental" issue. He said, that was, the main points I could hear were a lot of words about "environment," and something about "rain forest". What "issu-," that was,, I thought those "campaign"(s) were about protection that kind of things. <<what are you thinking?>> Er...thinking...nothing. But again there's a picture. There were two men talking to each other, and these two were, I thought, in the beginning, I thought it could be an "interview," but now I don't think that it's an "interview," it's like a er...that is, it's like a job interview, but now I think that it's like a reporter interviewing a er higher-ranking er "officer" in the "governor, government," who talks about how to protect the environment. <<What else are you thinking?>> Er... very...that is, the English is a bit "colloquish" (colloquial), and they speak in the authentic speed and tone, and so it's relatively difficult to understand, right. <<Lets carry on>> |
The first half of the verbal report {S1A2} revealed the evaluation of S1's own listening approach. According to her report, S1 had tried to take a bottom-up approach to grasp the meaning of every word she heard, but the speech rate was so high (200 wpm) that she could not focus on the word level. Instead, she took an interactive approach and linked the key words she heard to her prior knowledge. She used Imagery to further analyze the "interview" in her first hunch in {S1A1} and to monitor her understanding of the setting of the interview and the identities of the speakers. She also guessed the style of the speech by referring to the speed and tone of the utterances (Inferencing).
| Porritt: | don't take action on that issue within the next five years, then environmental pressure groups won't have anything to do in ten years' time, because there won't be any rain forests, really, for them to campaign about. So this is a critical period for the rain forests, the next five years, and there is enough flexibility in the system to allow use to hope that we're going to be able to make some changes during that time. so that's why we've made it our priority. |
| Reporter: | What's so important about the rain forests, then? Er, what's what's the difference between having them or not having them? Isn't it just, you know, basically either there's a lot of trees there or there aren't a lot of trees there? {S1A3} |
| {S1A3} | I couldn't hear this sentence. [LAUGH] That was, I couldn't hear his question at all. Right, er, very fast, I thought that he did it on purpose. [LAUGH] Couldn't hear it. |
S1 did not comment on the utterance of Porritt but focused on her failure to hear the reporter, who spoke very fast when he asked the ques-tion. The high speed of speech delivery might have affected the perception of the listeners because a similar problem was faced by S5 and S10, who could only give an incomplete summary of the question. Other students such as S6 tried to report the question but failed: "He said he asked him what the difference was, but I don't know, he asked him- (he) mentioned two, sort of two things, and asked him the difference between the two" ({S6A11}). S8 was the only subject who had a complete summary of this question in her think-aloud report: "(I) felt that the person had, that was, why the presence and absence of rain forest was so important. (I) felt that he was silly to ask this question because the answer was so obvious" ({S8A6}).
| Porritt: | Uhh...well that's what some people would like to think, I think President Reagan was famous for saying 'Seen one tree, seen them all'...and basically this is not the attitude that we have. Um, there, it's important in may different ways, important firstly for the countries themselves In terms of the fact that millions of people depend on the rain forests for their livelihood, and for their...the quality of their environment, through the protection of watersheds, and so on. Secondly, they're important because of the biological richness of the rain forests. Um, a genetic ches...treasure chest is how they've been described. Um, more than 60% of the world's species is to be found in the rain forests. Write that off, and you write off that genetic storehouse. Lastly, they're important at international level because of the impact on climatic patterns that one would find if the rain forests were destroyed. So, whether you're looking closely at the tribal people who depend on them, the countries which depend on them, the international community which depends on them, indeed the, the you know, the creatures themselves, um, it's actually the most critical issue that we face. And our prime job is of course to try and get people to understand how it is, even in countries where there are no rain forests, that they still have a connection with the rain forests. {S1A4} |
| {S1A4} | Er this paragraph was the one that I felt more comfortable. Er it's clearer, perhaps because of the simple words used, and he-, but I was thinking that it's about "rain forest" in "Geoga" (Geography), so sometimes I was thinking about that subject. But then, that was, (I) felt that it didn't matter if (I) "miss"(ed) some words in this paragraph, because he's talking about similar things. <<What are you thinking?>> Mm...think of nothing, just tried to chase every word and to do "translation," and to see what he's trying to say. (I) was thinking in Chinese, I thought I was. <<Mm>> Right. <<What else are you thinking?>> Er, nothing, but think about what he said "rain forest> and many, although now we, that is, although some countries have no "rain forest"(s), but er, they have close relationship, that is, this is what I'm thinking of. |
S1 remained silent for a long while before verbalizing her thoughts. {S1A4} was in fact an immediate retrospective report of what S1 had been thinking when she was listening in silence. She reported that her prior knowledge of geography (the use of Elaboration) had helped her understand the excerpt and allowed her to skip some of the unimportant words. As she had remained silent for a relatively long time, the investigator used a think-aloud reminder "What are you thinking" to prompt her. S1 reported that she was thinking back and evaluating her own strategy use (Self-evaluation), and she was aware that (1) she had been translating the words, and (2) she was thinking in Chinese rather than in English.
There was evidence that the use of the cognitive strategies Inferencing and Elaboration were the most salient to many of the listeners in this sample, especially when they did not know the topic of the spoken message before listening. Unlike McDonough (1995, pp. 59-60), who speculated that the time constraint might discourage listeners from using their prior knowledge, this study revealed that listeners relied on their background knowledge (the use of Inferencing and Elaboration) to construct an interpretation of the oral texts. After they activated their background knowledge and connected it with the aural text, these listeners used metacognitive strategies such as Self-monitoring and Self-evaluation to direct and monitor their comprehension. Social strategies appeared to be optional in the processing of information, and the use of Feedback enabled the listeners to remain in the interaction with the (imaginary) speakers.
I am grateful to Addison Wesley Longman Limited for permission to reproduce the transcript of "The Friend of the Earth" by Jeremy Harmer and Steve Elsworth, in The listening file (p. 79), published by Longman Group UK Limited 1989.
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Ming Yee Carissa Young is a lecturer in the Centre for English Language Communication at the National University of Singapore. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Essex, where her thesis was in second language listening comprehension strategies. In 1996, she designed an academic listening course for undergraduates at the City University of Hong Kong.
| Code | Strategy | Description | Examples from the protocols |
|---|---|---|---|
| INF | Inferencing | Using acoustic, vocal, or lexical information within the text to guess the meaning of unfamiliar language items, or to fill in missing information | It's like there are three people talking {PF2C11}. I heard a female voice at the end {S3A6} |
| ELA | Elaboration | Activating prior knowledge outside the text or conversational context to construct meaning or to fill in missing information | I think of the "course" I took in the beginning of the term. It's about "environmental studies" {S8A5} I think of a film about these things {S3A3} |
| IMA | Imagery | Using mental or visual images to represent information | I'm thinking of how "rain forest" looks like... {S3A3} |
| SUM | Summarization | Making a mental or oral summary of the information presented in a listening task | He's explaining the aims of Friends of the Earth... {S10A16} He's sad, someone has died, and then, right, he comes before the grave {S5B17} |
| NTA | Note Taking | Writing down key words and concepts while listening | (The subject heard): "This is an older story than most of our others. It dates back indeed to the year 1864." (The subject wrote): "oldest story" 1874 {S6B1} |
| DED | Deduction | Reaching a conclusion about the target language because of other information the listener thinks to be true | Because of the "terms" she's using, and things like that, it seems that she's thought over it before speaking, or she's reading a script {S11B6} |
| TRL | Translation | Expressing target language words in the listener's first language in the listening task | "Amusement" means entertainment, right {PM2B14} (I) just tried to chase every word and to do "translation," and to see what he's trying to say {S1A4} [in collaboration with SEV] |
| TRF | Transfer | Using knowledge of one language to facilitate listening in another | "Mould," I think it's about wearing a brace {PM2C9} |
| REP | Repetition | Repeating a word of phrase in the target languae mentally or orally | (The subject heard): "Because in Scotland we tend to eat a great deal of sugar" (The subject said): "Sugar" {S9C3} |
| RES | Resourcing | Using available references about the target language, including textbooks or the previous tasks | (The subject heard a female voice in the previous task) But I remember that it's again a woman talking {S3C1} [in collaboration with INF] |
| GRO | Grouping | Classifying information such as words or concepts according to their meaning or according to the listener's own organization | Perhaps there's a mountain called "Rocky," about "environment," and the "planning," perhaps the "planning" is to move the "Rocky" that sort of things {S4A8} |
| PLA | Planning | Developing an awareness or an action plan of what needs to be done to accomplish a listening task, or making predictions while listening | ... and so he asked him about it, and this guy, he must explain I believe {PM2A16} |
| SMO | Self-monitoring | Checking, verifying, or correcting one's listening comprehension while performing a task | I can't "catch" the meaning of the text {S1C2} ... Er now I'm "sure" that she's talking about wearing a brace {S1C3} |
| SEV | Self-evaluation | Checking the concentration of oneself or assessing one's strategy use | I wasn't concentrating then {PM2C15} |
| PID | Problem Identification | Pointing out the central point needed to be resolved in a task, or identifying an aspect of the task that hinders its successful completion | I'm thinking what "hierarchy" means, not sure what the word means {PM1A6} I'm thinking of the story and not sure the meaning of "boom boom" {S1B1} |
| RPR | Reprise | Showing the "speakers" that they did not get the message across | What's (she) talking about? Don't know what this passage is about. {S13B4} |
| FEE | Feedback | Giving comments aout the aural text | She's exaggerating ... {S19C1} This story doesn't seem to be interesting. {S11B8} |
| HTE | Hypothesis Testing | Asking specific questions about facts in the text to verify one's schematic representation of the text | Is it an experiment? {S18B10} Is it because - (he) has used a wrong method? {S18B12} |
| UPT | Uptaking | Using kinesics and paralinguistics to signal the "interiocutor" to go on | Mm. Mm {S10A10} |
| CLA | Clarifying | Asking for explanation, verification, rephrasing, or examples about the language and/or task, or posing questions to the self | What's so important? {S10A7} |
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