An investigation on metacognitive listening strategy use and listening anxiety in EFL classrooms

Abstract

Employing a survey design, this study aims to examine learners’ metacognitive listening strategies, their listening anxiety and whether there is a relationship between these two research matters in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms. The participants included 112 freshman students at a university context and they were taking a listening and comprehension course during the study. Two scales were used to collect the data for this study; Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Scale (FLLAS) was used to measure the participants’ listening anxiety and Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) was used to identify their strategy use. The collected data were analysed by using a statistical program and with the help of descriptive statistics. The findings revealed that the participants experienced a moderate level of foreign language listening anxiety. In terms of their metacognitive listening strategy use, problem solving strategies were found to be used the most while mental translation strategies were used the least. It was also found that there was a low positive relationship between the participants’ listening anxiety and their listening strategy use. Furthermore, no significant change was found among low, moderate and high anxious learners in terms of the types of their metacognitive listening strategy use. Parallel with those findings, the study offers several suggestions for practitioners to apply in language classrooms and for researchers to further investigate the nature of these two phenomena.