Learners´ Level of Metacognitive Awareness and Its Relationship with Listening Performance

This article reports a survey study (N=1044) exploring the relationship between five metacognitive variables measured in Vandergrift et al. And the participants´ listening performance on two listening tests. Results showed that Chinese undergraduates had a fairly high degree of metacognitive awareness of listening in directed attention, problem-solving, and planning and evaluation, but not in person knowledge factor and the mental translation strategy. Subsequent regression analyses indicated that around 13%-15% of the variance in listening performance could be explained by learners´ metacognitive awareness in listening. The finding provided further evidence to the relationship between the reported metacognitive awareness in listening and learners´ listening performance. Finally, the study identified a differing correlational pattern of MALQ variables concerning Chinese EFL learners, in which mental translation was positively correlated with person knowledge, and negatively correlated with planning/ evaluation and problem-solving. The negative correlations were not reported in previous studies. Theoretical and pedagogical implications of the study are discussed.