The Impact of Metacognitive Instruction on EFL Low-level Learners’ Listening Performance and Metacognitive Awareness

Abstract

The teaching of listening skills in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms has been dominated by a product-based approach, in which the focus is on obtaining correct responses. However, there is a need to engage learners in the process of listening with a metacognitive approach, so they become effective listeners. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the impact of metacognitive instruction on the listening performance and metacognitive awareness of two groups of EFL low-level learners: skilled listeners and less-skilled listeners. The participants were twenty male and female learners enrolled in an A1 general English course. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative data. After a listening pre-test to measure learners’ listening performance before the intervention, learners were divided into skilled listeners and less skilled listeners and were asked to complete both the Metacognitive Awareness of Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) and an open-ended questionnaire to explore their metacognitive awareness prior to the instruction. Learners completed both two standardized listening tests as pre-test and delayed test to determine the effect of the instruction on their listening performance, as well as the MALQ and the openended questionnaire to find out their metacognitive awareness after the intervention. The results of the two listening tests revealed that less-skilled listeners’ scores were significantly higher after the intervention. Furthermore, the results of the MALQ and the open-ended questionnaire showed that both types of learners made a significant improvement in two (person knowledge and strategy use) MALQ factors, suggesting that the intervention was effective in improving the listening performance and metacognitive awareness of the participants.