Strategic Listening: Can Instruction in the L2 Listening Process Increase Metacognitive Awareness or Improve Listening Comprehension?

Successful L2 listeners use metacognitive strategies more often and in more effective combinations than novice listeners. Raising learners? awareness of metacognition and training them to self-select and use strategy clusters is hypothesized to improve L2 listening abilities. This study examined the effect of 10 weeks of explicit strategy instruction, delivered in a cyclical format to sensitize learners to the metacognitive processes underlying listening, on the listening comprehension, metacognitive awareness, and opinions of intermediate level ESL learners. These constructs were examined with an alternate group for comparative purposes. This monograph reports on the findings of this classroom based research project and discusses the pedagogical implications of those findings.