A Comparative Study on High-school and College Students’ Awareness in Metacognitive Listening Strategies in EFL Context

The present study aims at comparing awareness in metacognitive listening strategies of high-school and college students who learn English listening in EFL context. For this study 614 college students and 716 high-school students (1,130 students in total) from 7 districts in Korea were asked to respond to Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire. The results of the study are as follows: the two groups of the participants reported an overall moderate level of strategy use, while college students used the strategies more frequently than high-school students; and the analyses showed considerable intrapersonal variation concerning different aspects of metacognitive awareness in English listening in that the participants used problem-solving strategies most frequently followed by directed attention, mental translation, planning & evaluation, and finally person knowledge, irrespective of school levels. These results lend support to EFL learners revealed different levels of metacognitive awareness across school levels and different patterns of strategy use in individuals. (Chungnam National University)