The Use of Listening Comprehension Strategies by Non English Majors

With the development of psycho-linguistics in the past twenty years or so, listening comprehension strategy has become an increasingly important aspect of research on Second Language Acquisition and Instruction. Although much has been done by researchers like O’Malley, Bacon, Richard, there is still some argument about what are listening comprehension strategies, how they can be classified, and what, as well as how they can be taught in class. This article is intended to contribute some ideas to these controversial fields of research on Listening Comprehension Strategy.\;For the theoretical aspect, the writers of this article venture a system of strategies, which is based on the well-established cognitive classification of learning strategies, and at the same time includes those strategies characteristic of listening comprehension.\;For the practical aspect, in order to find out on what strategies students need more training, a survey has been conducted on how students (first year and second year non-English majors) make use of listening comprehension strategies in the process of listening comprehension. By analyzing the students’ response to the survey, the writers of this article find that both first year and second year students are weak at using listening comprehension strategies. Of the 25 strategies, only 8 strategies are within the students’ command. This is explained as a result of lack of training in class. The writers appeal for more strategy-consciousness on the part of English teachers. The writers also find that the most serious problem in strategy using lies in discourse strategies, the difficulty of which often goes hand in hand with that in reading comprehension. And the training of discourse strategies is predicted by the writers of this article to be the most difficult part of listening class.\;