| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 英語研究所 === 93 === Abstract
The purpose of this study aims to investigate the effect of learner autonomy promotion on listening comprehension, strategy use and learners’ attitudes. 230 10th grade students of Taipei County Jing-Ho Senior High School participated in this study, and the final total number of subjects for valid data analyses was 171. Both the experimental and the control group learners were required to listen to the English 4U broadcasting program. The experimental group learners were aided with an autonomous learning plan, which helped them develop metacognitive strategies. The collected data included listening pretest, posttest, listening tests in the three monthly exams in the first semester, three monthly exams in the second semester as the delay test, listening comprehension strategy pre- and post- questionnaires and the experimental group learners’ weekly self-evaluation checklists and journal entries.
The results showed that the experimental group learners self-reported higher frequency of listening to the program than the control group. The former also had significantly better performances in the listening posttest and the three monthly exams. Their performances of the three monthly exams in the second semester without the treatment of autonomous learning plan were also significantly better than the control group, which might indicate that they have learned to listen to the program autonomously without the required worksheets. The results of listening strategy questionnaires showed that the metacogntive strategy was used most frequently, followed by the cognitive strategy and then the social / affective strategy. Although the experimental group learners did not increase the metacognitive strategy uses after the training program, they did exercise these strategies through the weekly worksheets. Also, most of them showed very positive attitudes toward the broadcasting program and the autonomous learning plan. They perceived themselves as having made progress in many aspects, increased confidence and interest in learning English and considered the weekly worksheets effective.
Besides, the females performed significantly better than the males in all the listening tests and used strategies more frequently. The HP group learners also performed significantly better than the MP and the LP groups in all the listening tests and used strategies more frequently. However, the LP group learners made the most progress in the listening posttest. The experimental group learners listening to the program for 3-4 days also made the most progress. The reason why the HP group learners and those listening for 5-6 days did not make the most progress may due to ceiling effect. Learners listening for 5-6 days used significantly more strategies than those for 3-4 days and those for 1-2 days. Females, HP and MP group learners without parental monitoring also used significantly more strategies than those with parental monitoring. In other words, autonomous learners tend to use more strategies.
The positive results of this study have proved that learner autonomy promotion is feasible in senior high school context and has significant proficiency gains. Therefore, English-teaching broadcasting programs with the aid of an autonomous learning plan should be recommended as supplementary autonomous learning materials. The weekly worksheets do not need to be in a fixed format and more autonomy promotion tasks should be offered to increase the metacognitive strategy use. During the training program, teachers should keep offering support and suggestions to motivate students to put more emphasis on listening. Learners need guidance to schedule their time well so that they can form the habit regardless of pressure from schoolwork. They also need more opportunities to do self-assessment and keep passion burning when facing dissatisfying grades. The LP group learners can benefit a lot from this training program, but they may need more time to make great progress. The HP group learners need more challenging materials and tests to increase their motivation. Finally, suggestions for further studies on the effect of autonomy promotion are provided.
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