Impact of Metacognitive Strategy Instruction on Iranian EFL Learners’ Listening Anxiety

Subject Areas :

Parisa Mohamadpour ¹ , Reza Talebinejad ² , Omid Tabatabaei ³

1 - Department of English Language, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2 - Associate professor, Department of English Language, Shahreza Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahreza, Iran
3 - Department of English Language, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran

Received: 2019-02-05 Accepted : 2019-05-11 Published : 2019-09-01

Keywords: metacognitive strategy instruction, listening comprehension anxiety, task-based metacognitive strategy instruction, embedded metacognitive strategy instructionlistening comprehension anxiety, embedded metacognitive strategy instruction,

Abstract :

This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of metacognitive strategy instruction intervention on reducing language listening anxiety of Iranian EFL learners in the light of 2 listening metacognitive strategy instruction models of Integrated Experiential Learning Task (IELT) (Goh, 2010) and Metacognitive pedagogical Sequence (MPS) (Vandergrift, 2004). Participants were 63 B1 level learners who were chosen through random sampling and were randomly assigned to 2 experimental and 2 control groups. Before and after the intervention, Kim’s (2000) Foreign Language Listening Anxiety scale (FLLAS) and the listening section of Preliminary English Test (PET) were administered to all groups as pre and post tests. All four groups were taught by the same researcher and the listening comprehension material was constant over the groups. The first experimental group received IELT intervention, the second experimental group received MPS intervention, and both control groups received traditional product-based listening comprehension instruction while the active control group also received explicit instruction of the metacognitive strategies. ANCOVA results proved that although both IELT and MPS were effective in lowering anxiety level, the performance of MPS was of a large effect size, and it was a better model to lower learners’ anxiety. Both models significantly improved learners’ listening comprehension.

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