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Listening Strategies

Article · January 2019

DOI: 10.1002/9781118784235.eelt0588

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 Listening Strategies
DAT BAO AND CHENG GUAN

­Framing the Issue

Second language listening strategies can be defined as the ways in which listeners
manage real‐time interactions with a spoken text to achieve comprehension.
Applying such strategies effectively also involves the ability not only to perform
mental processing but also to know what to do when one fails to comprehend
a text.
Listening strategies can be classified into four main types: cognitive, metacogni-
tive, affective, and social strategies. Cognitive listening strategies refer to all m
­ ental
abilities and processes related to knowledge (Von Eckardt, 1995), such as applying
linguistic and sociocultural knowledge to resolve the problems. Some examples of
cognitive performance include inferring, predicting, interpreting, storing, and
recalling information, summarizing, translating, repeating, elaborating, resourc-
ing, grouping, note‐taking, substituting, and drawing images. Cognitive strategies
are important for listening comprehension because they help learners monitor and
control their mental processing, identify comprehension break‐downs, and con-
nect world knowledge to listening content.
Metacognitive strategies refer to the ability to understand one’s own method for
learning and assimilating information, that is, thinking about one’s own mental
processes in a learning context (Goh & Taib, 2006). These skills are important
because they play the role of managing and supervising learners’ strategy use, and
for planning, monitoring, and evaluating mental processes and for managing
­difficulties during listening. Such manipulation functions help learners define task
objectives and propose strategies for handling them. They direct learners’ atten-
tion to specific aspects of language input, such as discourse markers, content
phrases, and main ideas.
The process of using metacognitive strategies covers the acts of planning, moni-
toring, and evaluating the listening text. Planning refers to how one develops the
awareness of what needs to be done to accomplish a listening task. Monitoring
refers to how listeners can check, verify, and correct comprehension. Evaluating is
about the need to check the results of learners’ listening comprehension against

The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching.

Edited by John I. Liontas.
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118784235.eelt0588

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 2 Listening Strategies

the internal measure of completeness and accuracy. These acts can be performed
through three stages of listening, including pre‐listening, while‐listening, and
post‐listening.
Affective strategies are concerned with managing emotions that can be either
negative or positive. Negative emotions such as anxiety might cause learners to
feel upset and interfere with listening results, while positive emotions such as
relaxation, enjoyment, and a cohesive sense of community can encourage concen-
tration and peer cooperation. Social strategies, in the meanwhile, refer to learning
by interaction with others, such as appealing for help and asking for confirma-
tion. These two types of listening strategies can be grouped together into
social‐affective listening strategies, which are applied to procure the assistance of
interlocutors to help understanding and to facilitate students to overcome
­negative feelings such as anxiety. This practice is also known as the cooperative
listening technique which is often preferred for teaching a group of learners.

­Making the Case

The four types of listening strategies, namely cognitive, metacognitive, social, and
affective strategies, serve different aspects of comprehension achievement. This
understanding is based on both scholarly discussion of, and research efforts into,
listening instruction and practice.
Cognitive strategies, which make use of learners’ knowledge in processing
text meaning, provide greater depth of interaction with the text, including the
ability to ignore irrelevant information. Compared with metacognitive strate-
gies, however, these skill types are considered less efficient as they involve lower
processing practices such as translation, repetition, and summary. Within this
awareness, there has been an appeal for more research into the relationship
between learner knowledge and mental translation (Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal,
& Tafaghodtari, 2006).
Metacognitive strategies, which are considered the most reliable predictors of
listening skills development in metacognition, denote the ability to reflect on and
control one’s own learning. Recent research into metacognition has provided evi-
dence that effective listening performance can happen through classroom instruc-
tion to assist learners’ mental process in coping with listening materials (Rost &
Ross, 1991). Researchers also discover that successful learning comes from the
ability to combine different strategies to meet various tasks and situations (Rahimi
& Katal, 2012) and that more skilled learners tend to apply these types of skills
intensively, especially monitoring comprehension through evaluating information
and questioning for clarification (Alavinia & Mollahossein, 2012).
Social strategies and affective strategies are closely connected and thus often
discussed together. This is because individual feelings and social relationships
are mutually connected parts of the L2 learning process. Empirical studies on
these types are less frequent compared with that on cognitive and metacognitive
strategies. Research on socioaffective ability shows that the lack of social

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 Listening Strategies 3

sympathy in the classroom often intimidates learners from asking questions

­during the listening process (Serri, Boroujeni, & Hesabi, 2012). It also shows that
socioaffective strategies can help learners stay motivated and well‐focused, as
well as control emotion, communicate with peers, and get help from them
(McCombs, 1982, 1988). Studies on metacognitive instruction have confirmed
positive values in the effect of visuals (Kim, 2004), the use of videotexts (Gruba,
2006), and the role of technology in learners’ ability to mediate listening scripts
(Robin, 2007).
Overall, research on listening strategy instruction clearly indicates that such
training often leads to positive results in improving comprehensibility (see, for
example, Rost & Ross, 1991). A study on students’ learning improvement based on
strategy training (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990) adds more nuance to the above
understanding by showing that such training only works if a text is not too diffi-
cult and students have some prior knowledge of the listening content. Another
project by Ozeki (2000) contributes a good idea to strategy instruction by high-
lighting the need to identify students’ existing listening strategy use knowledge
prior to the training plan. Other studies have proven the value of modeling, peer
discussion, selective attention, anticipation, and note‐taking in improving learn-
ers’ comprehension (Vandergrift, 2003). Other areas of attention comprise oppor-
tunities to explore various strategies and genres, providing timely feedback, being
goal‐oriented during practice, developing self‐regulated strategies without dis-
traction, understanding context‐specific strategies (Goh & Taib, 2006), participat-
ing in real‐life communication (Jou, 2010), developing a performance checklist, as
well as focusing both on the process and product of listening (Vandergrift, 1999).
The social climate of the classroom also plays a role in training learners with listen-
ing motivation, efficiency, and autonomy.
The main weakness of many studies on listening strategies is their short‐­
duration design as well as the absence of follow‐up research. Areas for further
research include studies on the long‐term effect of students’ exposure to strategy‐
practice activities, learners’ ability to reflect on and improve strategy use, second
language beginners’ learning pace with the support of strategy training. Besides,
until recently there have been few studies focusing on the training of language‐
learning strategies in classroom settings (Chamot, 2005). There is also a lack of
research investigating the development and change of listening strategy use in
the absence of explicit strategy training. Such areas are vital for the planning of
listening strategy instruction and for the teaching of listening in the second
­language curriculum.

­Pedagogical implications

Teachers’ role in understanding learners’ existing strategy use is of great impor-

tance, which requires teachers to be equipped with knowledge and understanding
of the listening process to assist students’ listening practice effectively. Below are
five key areas of learning support that teachers might like to consider.

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 4 Listening Strategies

First, learners need to be aware of their use of strategies and try to improve
strategies for enhancing listening ability. Such awareness maybe directed towards
the sequence of listening, differences between more‐and less‐proficient listeners,
listening strategy instruction, and identification of listening problems. There is
also the need to be equipped with a wide array of skills required for developing
effective listening ability such as word recognition, guessing, comprehending,
body language, conversation responses, language prosody such as rhythm, stress
and intonation, and lip‐reading. Lip‐reading assists learners in connecting ges-
tures with sounds, which, according to (Nunan, 2002) is useful particularly for
listening practice among lower‐level learners.
Second, understanding the text types, genres, and the nature of tasks is also
a necessary step to consider. Teachers should be able to assist learners in devel-
oping appropriate mental and emotional responses to various tasks and
­listening focuses. When learners become aware of the nature of such demands,
they will be in a better position to evaluate and manage the requirements of
different tasks.
Third, teachers need to be aware of the negative attitudes and beliefs that learn-
ers hold, which could make progress difficult to achieve, such as expectation of
perfection, self‐perception of low‐ability, awareness of peer pressure, and anxiety
toward failure. Such thinking can be reduced through goal‐directedness, good
attention, background knowledge of the listening content, and recommendation of
appropriate strategies.
Fourth, learners need to be exposed to a wide range of listening materials that
tap into many diverse listening strategies. Such materials should come in a vari-
ety of forms and levels, which may be coupled with teacher and peer input as
well as interaction as an information source in combination with other skills. A
useful method of listening development is extensive listening, which has origi-
nated from extensive reading, an approach that aims to improve a variety of
reading skills through exposure to materials that approximately match profi-
ciency level. It is through exposure to extensive and various listening texts that
learners gain opportunities to practice and refine their listening process, recog-
nize linguistic and lexical features, and increase cultural knowledge related to
the target language.
Finally, a good understanding in students’ interactions with digital media is
helpful in teachers’ decisions toward effective instruction of listening strategies. In
today’s context, where communication technology and business environments
have changed considerably in recent years, multimedia learning environments can
assist second language students in the process of listening comprehension as well
as the awareness of what skills can be employed for listening. For example, the use
of pictorial annotations, that is, associating words with images, can support learn-
ers in the acquisition of new vocabulary that plays a role in comprehension
(Fernández‐Pacheco, 2016).

SEE ALSO: Affect in Second Language Listening; Cognitive Listening Strategies;

Metacognition in Second Language Listening; Socio-Affective Listening Strategies

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 Listening Strategies 5

References
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Fernández‐Pacheco, N. N. (2016). Multimodal digital tools and EFL audio‐visual
comprehension: Students’ attitudes towards vodcasts. Language Value, 8(1), 49–76.
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 6 Listening Strategies

Suggested Readings

These articles investigate listening strategies in specific cultural contexts, with helpful
recommendations and implications for both students’ learning and future research.

Imhof, M. (2001). How to listen more efficiently: Self‐monitoring strategies in listening.

International Journal of Listening, 15(1), 2–19.
Seo, K. (2002). Research note: The effect of visuals on listening comprehension: A study of
Japanese learners’ listening strategies. International Journal of Listening, 16(1), 57–81.

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