Impact of Use of Listening Strategies (LSs) on the Listening Comprehension Skill of ESL Learners

Abstract

Listening skill is the most basic skill for acquisition and learning of any language. Mendelsohn (1994) has described that listening takes up 40-50% of the communication whereas the other basic skills take up to 25-30% speaking, 11-16% reading and about 9% writing. This study is meant to calculate the use of Listening Strategies (LSs) and its impact on the listening comprehension of ESL learners. This quantitative study falls in the domain of Quasi-experimental study so far as the procedure of the research is concerned. It is also descriptive study so far as the objectives of the study are concerned. It is also longitudinal research as pre-test and post-test is used for the collection of data. Convenient sampling technique is used to select a representative sample of ESL learners from Government College of Technology Burewala. Data collection involves administering pre-test and post-test assessments to measure the use of LSs and its impact on the listening comprehension of the participants before and after the interventional teaching and practice of listening strategies. A structured intervention protocol based on CAMBRIDGE IELTS ACADEMIC 16 (2016) comprising various listening tasks along with introduction of LSs including Negotiation for Meaning while Listening LSs (NML LSs); Scanning LSs (S LSs); Getting the Gist LSs (GG LSs); and Word Oriented LSs (WO LSs) as described by Nakatani (2006).  Data analysis includes simple percentage and Paired Sample T-test in order to compare the results of pre-test and post-test before and after the interventional/experimental teaching of LSs for 8 weeks. A listening comprehension test has also administered as pre-test and post-test in order to determine the level of listening comprehension skills of the ESL learners before and after the interventional/experimental teaching of LSs for 8 weeks.  Data were analyzed by using SPSS-26 version. Findings of the study show that use of 4 types of LSs based on simple percentage and Paired Sample T-test show that almost, half of the sample of the ESL learners is found to use of LSs in ‘low frequency’ and ‘medium frequency’ in pre-test and the use of LSs is increased in post-test by almost 100% to ‘high frequency’. The results of Listening Comprehension Test show that Listening Strategies (LSs) has significant positive impact on listening comprehension skill of the participants.