Investigating Listening Problems and Strategy Use: A Qualitative Study of Four Taiwanese EFL College Learners

[[abstract]]本研究探討以英語作為外語(EFL)的臺灣大專生，如何發展他們的英語聽力能力與策略使用。研究對象為四名就讀於文藻外語學院二年級主修英文的學生，他們是從兩班中低程度的聽力課程中挑選出來。資料收集的時間從2004年九月到2005年一月。資料收集的方法：問卷、與授課講師一次半結構式的訪談、與研究對象四次半結構式的訪談、研究對象每週寫一篇週誌，共為期十六週、最後是他們在期中考、期末考和大專英語檢定考的聽力成績。 研究結果顯示：(一) 研究對象對於如何使用聽力技巧來幫助聽力理解以及解決聽力問題有一定程度的瞭解；(二) 研究對象主要的聽力問題是關於字彙、說話速度以及句子長度和複雜度；(三) 在Oxford於1990年提出的六個語言學習策略類型中，研究對象最常使用認知策略，其它依次為記憶策略、補救策略、後設認知策略、社會策略和情意策略；(四) 聽力任務型態可能影響研究對象在策略上的使用；(五) 研究對象可能會根據不同的聽力任務來改變策略的使用；(六) 研究對象總是喜歡使用他們長期使用的策略或是在課堂上所學習到的策略來解決聽力問題；(七) 研究對象所使用的策略在他們聽力考試表現上是有效的。本研究針對EFL聽力教學上提出相關的教學應用及建議。[[abstract]]This study investigates how college students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) in Taiwan develop their listening comprehension competence and strategy use. Participants were four sophomores majoring in English and selected from two low-intermediate listening courses at Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages. Data collection began from September 2004 to January 2005. The instruments used were a questionnaire, a semi-structured interview with the instructor, four semi-structured interviews with the participants, a weekly diary kept by each participant one day per week for sixteen weeks, and the listening scores each participant had for the midterm exam, final exam, and CSEPT. Results indicate that (1) All the participants had some knowledge of how to use listening strategies to facilitate their comprehension and handle their problems; (2) The major listening problems they had were vocabulary, speaking rate, and sentence length and complexity; (3) Among the six strategy groups proposed by Oxford (1990), cognitive was most often adopted by the participants, followed in descending order by memory, compensation, metacognitive, social, and affective; (4) The types of listening tasks might affect strategy use by the participants; (5) The participants might have the ability to alter their comprehension strategies in accordance with different listening tasks; (6) The participants almost always liked to use the strategies they had long adopted or they learned in class to handle listening problems; (7) The strategies the students adopted were effective for their performance in listening comprehension tests. This present study proposed several pedagogical implications and suggestions for the instruction of EFL listening