Metacognitive instruction for helping less-skilled listeners

This article reports on a small-scale study of the effect of metacognitive instruction on listeners’ comprehension. Twenty adult, Japanese, advanced level EFL learners participated in a task sequence, or ‘pedagogical cycle’, of predicting, monitoring, problem identification, and evaluating in each of five listening lessons aimed at promoting their comprehension of television news items. A comparison of pre-test and post-test scores illustrated that three of four less-skilled listeners made notable gains across the five lessons, whereas only one of four more-skilled listeners improved. Findings add support to the view that metacognitive instruction utilizing a pedagogical cycle may help less-skilled listeners to develop their listening ability, though there seems to be a threshold for higher skill levels beyond which effects are minimal.