Introducing metacognitive approaches to cultivate sustained self—directed language learning in the listening courses of Chinese universities

【Abstract】Listening skill has long been considered as the most difficult skill among the four skills of English learning. In the past decades， an increasing interest has been shown in the research of promoting metacognitive awareness in listening teaching. The first part of the essay identifies an issue in listening course in China where metacognitive approaches have rarely applied to the classroom and metacognitive instruction is absent. The second part touches upon the theories of the metacognition and autonomy. The third part of the essay discusses some ways to introduce metacognition to listening courses in Chinese universities.

【Key words】Metacognitive approaches； autonomy； self-directed； Listening courses

【作者簡介】鄧林竹，湖南農業大學國際學院。

1. Introduction to the Issue

As an English teacher working with university students in China， most our listening courses are test-oriented（CET BAND 4， TOEFL， IELTS）. Ive noticed that the majority of intermediate level students in my listening classes lack the self-directed autonomous learning ability which is a key obstacle on their way to listening mastery. This lack of ability can be shown in the following aspects： Firstly， many students lack a clear idea of what their own listening problems are， not to mention knowing how to deal with them， Whats more， many students rely too much on teachers hoping that they can impart the secret techniques to them to achieve good marks in exams （such as， CET band 4， or 6， TOFEL， IELTS）in short amount of time. However， given that classes in China are usually conducted in a large size（45-50 students or more）， teachers are impossible to monitor every student in and outside of the classroom， and cant control the process of listening drills that students have done at home. To truly improve students listening ability， it is urgent for students to find out their individual yet most efficient way to improve their listening ability by constant self-discoveries. But how can teachers encourage and help students to promote their self-directed study within and outside of the classroom to become good listeners？ The solutions of the issue in this essay have two theoretical bases： Metacognition and autonomy.

2. Theoretical basis

Even though the concept of metacognition has never been consistently defined， common basic understanding of this term has been reached as “our ability to think about our own thinking” （Vandergrift & Goh， 2012 p. 84）. Extensive researches have shown that it is very important to promote listeners metacognitive awareness， especially for the less-skilled. And Metacognitive approaches and instructions by teachers in listening classes are strongly recommended by Robin， w （2014）.

One significant dimension that brought by metacognition is that it can not only enhance the students awareness and beliefs about language learning process， but also can cultivate self-regulated learning（Philip， 1996）.

3. Possible solutions

My suggestion to improve autonomous learning in listening courses for students at intermediate-level is to introduce metacognitive approaches into the following three aspects of listening teaching：curriculum arrangement， classroom instruction as well as the post-classroom homework.

3.1 Curriculum arrangement

The adaptations of curriculum arrangement can be implemented by incorporating questionnaires， checklists and group discussions. More specifically， a small questionnaire can be added three times at the beginning， middle and the end of the curriculum arrangement to constantly reinforce students metacognitive awareness. This is done by first giving a small listening test to students， and as soon as they finish it， a questionnaire is asked to be done as their cognition about their own listening process is still retained. The questionnaire that I would like to recommend is the MALQ （Vandergrift et al， 2006） as it is shown at Appendix 1. This questionnaire is designed to raise the metacognitive knowledge of students about person， strategy and task knowledge（Vandergrift & Goh， 2012）. Besides the questionnaire， right after each questionnaire that has done， a small checklist designed by myself （in appendix II）， containing the top ten listening problems discovered by Zeng （2007） can be followed. This problem-identifying checklist can not only help students become more aware of their own listening problems， but also give teachers more ideas about which listening problems should be the focus of teaching. In addition， the process-based discussions recommended by Goh to be “as part of the course curriculum” （2006， p. 367） about how to solve listening problems can be organized at least three times throughout the entire curriculum. The process-based discussion should be led by teachers at first inside classroom， then gradually move to the students-organized activities after class. By doing so， students can discover more about themselves and can learn from each others. These adaptations to the curriculum can enhance students self-awareness of listening and become more autonomous to practice listening in the long run.

3.2 Classroom instruction

Classroom instruction can be improved by adding some metacognitive activities inside classrooms. Since many listening tests（including CET Band 4， TOEFL） require students to have strong ability of predicting the questions before and during the listening. For the purpose of raising metacognitive awareness and encouraging self-directed studies， I would suggest that after students have already been exposed to certain amount of practices and have familiarized with the task questions， teachers may organize some predicting activities in the pre-listening step inside the classroom which can help students to gain more metacognitive knowledge. For example， teachers can ask five to six students to listen to one audio for the next class at home and to create one question respectively based on the listening material and bring it back to the class. In the classroom， after listening the designated material， the other students are asked to do the devised questions， at the same time， students who create the questions are asked to give their reasons for setting up the questions. In the end the originally set questions from the listening material will be revealed to make a compare and a class discussion can be arranged to identify the task points. By encouraging integrated activities like this， students will know what and how to listen to and become more familiar with the common task points in the listening tests， thus more metacognitive task knowledge will be acquired.

3.3 Post-classroom assignment

To further reinforce the metacognitive awareness of students and encourage autonomous learning outside of classroom， I recommend introducing listening log as part of post-classroom assignment for I believe students can gain much person knowledge by reflecting and talking to themselves. Moreover， keeping listening diaries or logs can help students to put what theyve learned from classes into practice. Goh once observed： “Diaries can encourage learners to think about their own listening and consider ways of improving this skill”（1997 p. 367）and they “can also stimulate awareness of listening and growth in metacognitive awareness and listening success” （ Goh， 2006 p. 197）. Since I believe dairy is an time-consuming undertaking， students may feel reluctant to write it on daily basis based on my understanding of students， I would recommend students to write or record listening logs immediately after every time they finish a listening practice at home， be it homework or self-practice， at least 4 times a week， throughout the entire courses and hopefully this habits will continue to perform after the courses. As regards to the content， teachers should initiate some prompts for students to be included in their logs， on the basis of “the objectives of metacognitive instruction” advocated by Vandergrift & Goh （2012 p. 134）. It is necessary to include reflection on three aspects： 1. how you predict the questions and what strategies have you used during the listening； 2. what problems have you encountered during the listening， what might the solutions to them？ 3. What have you learned through this listening practice and whats goal for the next？ By keeping the listening logs as it is suggested by Kemp， metacognitive awareness will be enhance substantially and independent listening study will be greatly encouraged. （Kemp， 2010）

4. Conclusions

In this essay， I have introduced the metacognitive approaches from three aspects： the curriculum， the classroom instruction and the after-class assignment to the listening teaching in Chinese universities. By doing so， students with a good metacognitive awareness will know how to improve their listening and will eventually achieve autonomous learning ability as a result.

References：

[1]GOH，C and TAIB，Y.2006.‘Metacognitive instruction in listening for young learners ELT J，Vol.60 no 3，pp 222-232.

[2]GOH，C.1997.‘Metacognitive awareness and second language listeners.ELT J Vol.51 no 4，pp 361-9.

[3]KEMP，J.2010.‘The Listening Log：motivating autonomous learning ELT J，Vol.64 no 4，pp 385-395.

[4]PARIS，G.，&WINOGRAD;，P.1990.How metacognition can promote academic and cognitive instruction.In B.F.Jones&L.idol;（Eds.），Dimensions of thinking and cognitive instruction（pp.15-51）.Hllsdale，NJ：Lawrence Erlbaum.

[5]PHILIP.H.W.1996.‘A metacognitive view of individual differences in self-regulated learning Learning and Individual Differences，Vol.8 no 4，pp 327-353.

[6]ROBIN，W.2014 ‘Teaching and Learning Second Language Listening：Metacognition in Action ELT J，Vol.68 no 2，pp 211-213.

[7]VANDERGRIFT，L&GOH;，C.M.2012 Teaching and learning second language listening：metacognition in action.London：Routledge.

[8]VANDERGRIFT，L.，GOH，C.，MARESCHAL，C.，&TAFOGHOHODTARI;，M.H.2006.The Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire：Development and Validation.Language Learning，Vol.56 no 3，pp 431–462.