An Investigation of Metacognitive, Bottom-up and Top-down Strategies in L2 Listening

iii Literature Review. 1 Research Question . 6 Methods. 6 Research Design. 6 Setting. 7 Participant. 7 Source of Data Collection . 9 Procedures. 10 Ethical Considerations and Validity Threats. 13 Data Analysis . 14 Results. 15 Discussion . 25 Limitation and Future Research. 27 References. 28 Appendix A. 33 Appendix B. 35 Appendix C . 36 AN INVESTIGATION OF STRATEGIES FOR L2 LISTENING 1 An Investigation of Metacognitive, Bottom-up and Top-down Strategies in L2 Listening Literature Review When learning a foreign language, people often encounter many learning obstacles, the most intimidating being the need for immediate comprehension of the new language while listening (Andringa, Olsthoorn, Beuningen, Schoonen, & Hulstijn, 2012). Listening is a skill that requires a desire to understand another human being, an attitude of respect and acceptance, and a willingness to open one’s mind to see things from another’s point of view (Rost, 2011). Thus, listening requires a high level of concentration and demands that the listener not have a predetermined agenda and can take on the perspective of the speaker. Listening is often said to comprise nearly half (i.e., 40-50%) of the time spent on communicating, with speaking, reading, and writing combining to make up the balance (Mendelsohn, 1994). Therefore, listening is an essential skill that people must master when they are learning a second language. Definition of Listening Comprehension and the Process of Listening As defined by Vandergrift (1999) listening comprehension is when a listener is required to spontaneously: discriminate among sounds, understand vocabulary, notice grammar and intonation, and interpret meaning. The process of listening occurs in five stages: hearing, understanding, remembering, evaluating, and responding (Rost, 1990). In stage one, the listener is receiving input, hearing the sounds, and distinguishing among them. During the second stage, the listener understands the sound. In second language acquisition, the listener also decodes the words and grammar, while learning from the process. In the third stage, the listener is remembering what has been heard while maintaining working memory for comprehensive checking. During the fourth stage, the listener judges the information and finally in the fifth stage, they make appropriate AN INVESTIGATION OF STRATEGIES FOR L2 LISTENING 2 responses to open-ended questions. In order to aid students who are learning a second language, listening strategies that encompass the five stages must be explicitly integrated into the curriculum. Listening Strategies Although second language (L2) study has been populated with many underlying theories, the principal objective of this study is to examine the relative effectiveness of two forms of L2 processing; bottom-up and top-down, as well as metacognition strategy. Bottom-up and top-down listening processes are two distinct psycholinguistic approaches to understanding others’ speech, and it is virtually impossible to do one without doing the other (Oh & Lee, 2014). Given the operational imperative that bottom-up and top-down processing operate nearly together, this study intends to seek greater understanding of how strength of the language, sentence formation, and metacognition influence a person’s utilization of each the processes alone and both processes together (i.e., bottom-up or top-down versus bottom-up and top-down). Top-down and bottom-up strategies. Both the bottom-up and top-down strategies arose out of 1970s computer science by IBM researchers Mills and Wirth (Nunan, 2010). The bottom-up strategy is text based, relying upon language aspects (i.e., sounds, vocabulary, grammar), and is a process of decoding the sounds, from the smallest units to complete texts (i.e., listening for specific details, recognizing cognates, and recognizing word order patterns) (Nunan, 2010). Alternatively, the learner-based top-down strategy focuses upon the listener’s thinking process, constructing the original meaning of the speaker by using incoming sounds, and using context as clues to interpret the main idea, make predictions, and summarize intentions (Nunan, 2010). Topdown and bottom-up strategies are referred to collectively as Interactive Strategies that focus on both the language and the listener. AN INVESTIGATION OF STRATEGIES FOR L2 LISTENING 3 Research surrounding bottom-up and top-down processing has been focused mainly on the use of either strategy as researchers still debate which process contributes most to listening comprehension (Field, 2004; Tsui & Fullilove, 1998). Some researchers focused on top-down processing (i.e., Hildyard & Olson, 1982; O'Malley & Chamot, 1990). For example, Hildyard and Olson’s (1982) study found that good listeners listened using top-down processing while poor listeners mostly listened using bottom-up. The same held true in the case of learners, the more effective ones using more top-down strategy understanding a message, while less effective learners tending to use more bottom-up strategy (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990). Whereas other researchers (i.e., Eskey, 1988; Perfetti, 1985) believed that good bottom-up skills are required for effective L2 processing, and that poor readers may be poor readers because of their weak word recognition (bottom-up) skills. In the early 1980s, only top-down processing was believed to improve L2 listening comprehension (Hildyard & Olson, 1982). More recently, both top-down and bottom-up listening strategies have been accepted as being able to greatly enhance listening comprehension (Nunan, 2010). Likewise, Vandergrift (2004) stated that learners need to learn how to use both processes to succeed. Students must hear some sounds (bottom-up), and hold them in their working memory long enough (i.e., a few seconds) to connect them to each other and then interpret what they heard before new information is introduced (Nunan, 2010). At the same time, listeners also need to use their background knowledge (top-down) to determine meaning with respect to prior knowledge and schemata (Brown, 2006). Both types of strategies are necessary in developing courses, materials, and lessons to help students not only discriminate among different sounds, but also to use what they already know to understand what they are hearing. Thus, numerous studies have AN INVESTIGATION OF STRATEGIES FOR L2 LISTENING 4 been conducted on L2 listening skills in relation to the use of both processes (i.e., bottom-up and top-down). Li and Renandya (2012) studied the efforts of Chinese teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to help solve their students' listening problems. The results showed that participants preferred the bottom-up approach for recognizing and coping with quickly spoken words in conversation. Additionally, Field (2008) noted that in intermediate level L2 listeners, the content (bottom-up) words were the most readily recognized during the listening process. In another study, Abdalhamid (2012), considered the listening skills of a group of native Arabic speakers living in the US. The study showed that these experienced listeners used more top-down skills than their lesser skilled peers. On the other hand, Yahya (2007) investigating the listening obstacles faced by EFL learners at university in Iraq, reported that the participants’ English cultural paucity left them unable to use prior information and background knowledge to guess at new words and expressions, weakening the effectiveness of a top-down listening strategy. Given the lack of consistency in results, more studies must be conducted to determine how best to meet the needs of L2 listeners. Moreover, a widening range of applications for metacognitive language learning strategies is being posited for the investigati