A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON STUDENTS ’ ENGLISH LISTENING STRATEGIES IN SV-UGM AND CDTC

This study attempts to identify the use of listening strategies by technical and vocational college nonEnglish majors, explore the relationship between listening strategies and listening proficiency and investigate the difference between good and poor learners in the use of listening strategy to provide some pedagogical implications for teachers to guide the students to select, manage and adjust their listening strategies effectively in order to improve autonomous learning abilities, learning efficiency and English proficiency. The subjects in the study are 75 first-year vocational college non-English majors from Chengdu Textile College and SV-UGM. First, all the participants took the model listening comprehension test. Second, the participants were given half an hour to complete the questionnaire after finishing the model test. Thirdly, 10 students from both groups of participants were interviewed individually for further information in the use of listening strategies and also explore the relationship between the students’ listening strategy use. Finally, all the data was collected, and was processed by SPSS22.0, then was analyzed as answers to the research questions. The result shows that Indonesian students are more inclined to ask questions for explanation and verification. Furthermore, they focus on cooperative learning, which promotes a greater use of learning strategies than individual learning. However, Chinese learners are inclined to study English by themselves and get used to independent study. They would ask for help unless they meet some problems which cannot be solved by their own effort.


INTRODUCTION
Listening has been recognized as an important language skill among the four basic skills in language learning.The ability to speak, read and write depends on one's ability to listen.How to use learning strategies to improve learners' listening ability has attracted lots of attention.
A wide range of studies on listening strategies have been conducted by many researchers.Most of the studies concentrated on identifying what learners actually did while listening, examining the relationship between listening strategy use and listening performance, exploring the differences between good listeners and poor listeners.
However, studies on language learning strategies in China began in the early 1980s and developed from late 1990s . Huang Xiaohua (1985)'s master's thesis "An investigation of learning strategies in oral communication that Chinese EFL learners in China employ" marked the beginning of research on learning strategies in China.Domestic research on foreign language learning are carried out in two aspects: macro study focusing on the learning concept, strategy preference, relationship between strategy and achievements, etc., and micro study involving reading, listening, speaking, writing and word skills, etc.
However, the majority of research focused on activities such as reading and writing skills.Little attention has been paid to listening and speaking skills.This study focuses on the listening strategy used by non-English major students in vocational college in China and Indonesia, I.e.CDTC and SV-UGM.Three research questions to guide the study are: (1) What English listening strategies do the vocational college students use? (2) Is there any correlation between listening strategy use and listening proficiency?(3) Are there any differences in the use of listening strategies between students in China and Indonesia?

Definition of Learning Strategies
Since different researchers would like to focus on different characteristics of learning strategies, it's not easy to define and classify learning strategies.Rod In SV-UGM and CDTC Ellis (1994) listed five typical definitions of learning strategies: Stern (1983), Weinstein and Mayer (1986), Chamot (1987), Rubin (1987), Oxford (1989), had also pointed out their problems, and then listed the main characteristics to help defining learning strategies.
Wen Qiufang's (1996) definition of learning strategies is the steps taken for effective learning, which is focused on the following two points: strategy use aims at improving learning efficiency; strategies are not learner's thoughts but activities, and the activities may be internal or external.We may tentatively define learning strategies as general beliefs, methods and intended actions that a learner takes to improve the language learning.Some learning strategies, such as behavioral actions, are observable, while others, such as mental processes, are unobservable.Language learners use different kinds of strategies consciously and subconsciously in natural and trained settings.

Classifications of Learning Strategies
As regard to the classification of language strategies, divergences in the criteria are even more greatly than the definition of learning strategies.There are four kinds of classification of learning strategies are more popular, which was presented by Oxford, Cohen, O'Malley & Chamot and Wen Qiufang respectively.

O'Malley and Chamot's Classification
According to the function of language learning, O'Malley and Chamot (1985) classified learning strategies into three categories: metacognitive, cognitive and social-affective strategies.O'Malley and Chamot's classification is based on psychological studies in cognition, and it is preferred by many learning strategy researchers because it is more suitable for the language learning process.

Wen Qiufang's Classification
On the basis of P. Skehan's (1989)  The present study is carried out on the basis of the frame of O'Malley and Chamot's classifications, and some of the strategies in Wen's classifications are also taken into consideration as complement.

Definition of Listening Strategies
Listening strategies are based on the theoretical frame of learning strategies, so it is a kind of learning strategy.Vandergrift (1997) defined listening strategies as "the steps that are taken by learners to help them acquire, store, receive, and/or use information during listening and the mental processes that are activated by listeners to understand, to learn, and to retain new information from utterances" (Vandergrift, 1997: 389).Rost (2005) gave another definition as "conscious plans to manage incoming speech, particularly when the listener knows that he or she must compensate for incomplete input or partial understanding" (Rost, 2005: 92).

Classification of Listening Comprehension Strategies
According to O'Malley and Chamot's (1990) classification of learning strategies, Vandergrift (1996Vandergrift ( , 1997) ) classified listening strategies into three categories: meta-cognitive strategy, cognitive strategy and social-affective strategy.The substrategies of metacognitive strategy include planning, evaluation problem identification and monitoring.Cognitive strategy's substrategies are elaboration, inference, translation, repetition, transfer, deduction, summarization, notetaking, substitution, resourcing and grouping.And social-affective strategy consists of lowering anxiety, taking emotional temperature, self-encouragement, questioning for clarification and cooperation.

Research on Listening Strategies in the West
Systematical research on listening strategies originates from study on learning strategies, which mainly contains two fields: the listening strategies employed by foreign language learners and training of listening strategies (Huang Zidong, 1998).

Research on Listening Strategies in China
In China, listening strategies is not the focus of researchers; however, there are also some influential achievements in listening strategies studies.Wang Chuming and Qi Nuxia (1992) conducted an investigation on two English majors and found that the academic performance of listeners mainly depended on their language aptitude.Jiang Zukang (1994) conducted a research on English majors and non-English majors to explore the relationship between listening strategies and listening proficiency.
Liu Shaolong (1996) examined the hypothesis that intermediate level students used Schema Theory Model in the study.Lu Changhong (2001) conducted his study with a survey of the factors affecting learners' listening performance, which was followed by an experiment of strategy training.
Wang Yu (2002), investigated the listening strategies of 178 Chinese non-English majors and found that listening strategies could have positive effect on listening proficiency to an extent.Also, there are differences between good learners and poor learners in strategy use.

Research on Listening Strategies in Indonesia
There has been various themes of research on listening strategies in Indonesia.Bambang Yudi Cahyono and Utami Widiati (2009) investigate effective teaching methods of listening in EFL classrooms.Frances L. Sinanu, Victoria Usada Palupi, Antonina Anggraini S and Gita Hastuti ( 2008) study about the effectiveness of strategies used by high school students when practicing listening through the use of diaries.Asep Saepulmillah (2008) studied the use of English pop song in the teaching of listening to high school students through three steps of learning.
Fibriani Endah Widyasari ( 2016) conducted a study on listening strategies to describe the use of Multiple Intelligences, a concept introduced by Howard Gardner in his book titled The Frame of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligencies (1983), in the learning of English in an international junior high school that focuses on learning strategies and learning activities.Meanwhile, Susilawati and Mia Fitriah (2014) conduct a study investigate the role of note-taking strategy of vocational high school students toward the listening skills.
After a general review of the literature on learning strategies in the past decade, it's not hard to see there are not many researchers engaged in empirical studies on listening strategy use by learners, especially in China.Most of the listening strategy researches in China are about English majors and non-English majors in the universities.Little research has been done on the listening strategies used by vocational college students.

RESEARCH DESIGN Subjects
The subjects in the study are 75 first-year vocational college non-English majors from Chengdu Textile College and SV-UGM.Their average age is 19, ranging from 18 to 22.As for the students, most of them have studied English for more than 7 years, and they have formed their own learning methods and habits.

Instruments
The following instruments are used in the study: (1) English listening strategy questionnaire (2) listening comprehension test (SCET-3) (3) interview

Listening Strategy Questionnaire
The questionnaire used in this study is based on Oxford's (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL), O'Malley & Chamot's (1990) andWen's (1995) framework.It is used to identify listening strategies use of the students.
There are two parts in the listening strategy questionnaire.Part one is about students' personal information, such as name, gender, age, major, etc.It also includes 8 questions about their opinions of English learning, the status of listening among the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) and their attitude towards listening strategies.Part two is made up of 30 statements concerning listening strategies with three categories: metacognitive, cognitive and social-affective strategy.
All the strategy items are rated on a five-point scale (Likert Scale) ranging from 1 (this statement is never true of me) to 5 (this statement is always true of me).
In SV-UGM and CDTC

Listening Comprehension Test
A listening comprehension test is carried out to differentiate the listening proficiency of the subjects.SCET-3 is a provincial standardized English test in China and had moderate difficulty for the students of vocational college.To make it more reliable and convincing, the listening comprehension part of a SCET-3 model test paper includes three sections, short conversations, long conversations and a passage for spot dictation.

Interview
As many as five students from each college are selected randomly to attend the interview so as to find out the differences between Chinese and Indonesian students in the use of listening strategies and also explore the relationship between the students' listening strategy use.Each group of five students from CDTC and SV-UGM were interviewed when the researchers were joining a lecturer exchange program in each   respective institution.The members of the group were interviewed separately.They were asked about their difficulties in answering the Listening test part and how they managed to anticipate them.The result of the interviews from both groups were then compared and analyzed by using a qualitative method.

Data Collection and Analysis
The research was conducted in March and April, 2016.First of all, all the participants took the model listening comprehension test.Secondly, the participants were given half an hour to complete the questionnaire after finishing the model test.
Students were told the data collected would be used only for research so that they could do the survey as honestly as possible.Thirdly, 10 students were interviewed individually for further information.Finally, all the data was collected, and was processed by SPSS22.0, then was analyzed as answers to the research questions.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION Students' attitude towards English Learning and Listening Strategies
It is quite necessary to have a general idea of students' attitude towards English learning and listening strategies before we are going to analyze the overall strategy use.
Since most of the students rank listening in the first and second place, it is as an important language skill.Therefore, they will definitely make great effort to acquire the knowledge of listening strategies in order to improve their listening proficiency.

Types of English Listening Strategies Use of Vocational College Students
Descriptive statistics is employed to analyze listening strategies used by the objectives.Oxford (1990) divided the frequency of strategies use into three levels, which are high, medium and low.To be specific, if the mean is greater than or equals to 3.5, it is regarded as high frequency; the mean comes within 2.5-3.4,it is medium frequency; and if lower than 2.5, it is considered as low frequency.
Table 5 provides an overview of the three categories of listening strategy use of the whole 75 participants.The overall mean for the samples of Chinese students is 2.99085, while it is 3.09844 for Indonesian students.Following Oxford's frequency scale, the frequency of the total listening strategy use falls in the range of 2.5-3.4,so we can see that both Chinese and Indonesian students using listening strategies are in the medium level.To some extent, the results are related to the students' beliefs on language learning.Table 2 shows that most of the students emphasize that their listening skills need improving, which may affect students' motivation to a large extent.Table 3, more than 93% of the students approve the importance of applying useful listening strategies in listening learning.Moreover, as shown in Table 5, socialaffective strategies are used more, followed by metacognitive, and cognitive strategies are used less by the students.
To obtain more specific information, the mean of the substrategies use of the three categories are demonstrated in the Table 6.

The Metacognitive Strategies Used of Chinese Students
Here is the overview of Strategies Used of Chinese Students: Table 5 According to Vandergrift (1997), selfmanagement refers to understanding the conditions for helping language learning and striving to create those conditions.Directed attention means to "deciding in advance to attend in general to the listening task and proposing strategies for handling it".The frequent use of these two strategies indicates that the students have the ability to adjust the content of listening and prepare the mind for it, which is due to the development of autonomous learning methodology.As for the cognitive category, the translation strategy is the most high-frequency strategy used by the students for both countries.Translation strategy refers to rendering ideas from one language in another in a relatively verbatim manner.The result indicates that both Chinese and Indonesian students rely too much on their native language in listening comprehension.Followed by that, Chinese students prefer to use top-down strategy, which means deduction.They like to consciously apply self-developed rules to understand the target language.While Indonesian students prefer to use summarization, which making mental or written summary of language and information presented in a listening task.These indicates that students can usually use contextual knowledge to assist their listening comprehension.They like to work together with one or more peers to solve a problem, check a learning task, or get feedback on oral or written performance.They believe that with each other's help they will improve their listening skills better.In order to get good grade in English test, Chinese students would like to think of ways to ease their tension, such as taking a deep breath.Therefore, they also prefer use lowering anxiety strategy.As for Indonesian students, self-encouragement is frequently used, which can provide personal motivation through self-talk and arrange rewards for themselves.With self-attraction of awards, attraction of awards, students can get better listening performance.

The Correlation between Listening Strategy Use and Listening Proficiency
To investigate the correlations existing between the listening strategy use and listening proficiency, the analysis of Pearson Correlation is conducted in the study.
As the shown in Table 7, metacognitive, cognitive and social-affective strategies are not correlated with the listening scores significantly.
However, from the interview with students of both countries mention that there is a correlation between listening strategy use and listening proficiency.They are familiar with some of the learning strategies, and use them in listening practice both consciously and unconsciously.Those good learners would always apply the strategies in listening comprehension intentionally, appropriately and flexibly, such as guessing the meaning of new words with the context, predicting the filling information from context, analyzing and correcting the mistakes and so on, which would contribute to their listening proficiency.

Comparison of Listening Strategies Use between students in China and Indonesia
Based on the results of Independent Samples T-tests, the differences of the three categories of listening strategies between the two groups are shown in Table 8.
As the data from Table 8, Indonesian students display higher frequency than Chinese students in using metacognitive and social-affective strategies.While, Chinese students use cognitive strategies more frequently than Indonesian students.And the differences are significant.
As far as metacognitive strategies are concerned, there are significant differences at the level 0.01 in finding out about planning, personal knowledge, self-management, self-monitoring and self-evaluation strategies (see Table 9-1).
Indonesian students have a better command of language knowledge and learning strategies than Chinese students.They can monitor and make plans for English learning.During listening practice, they could check the outcome of their listening comprehension, give attention to the mistakes and analyze the mistakes for progress.
There are significant differences between the two groups in elaboration, summarizing, top-down, and inference strategies.Having good learning habits and forming one's own effective learning methods are quite important for improving one's language proficiency.Take inference for example, Indonesian students often use information with in the context to guess the meanings of unfamiliar language items associated with a listening task.It is proved in the interview, they state that it is easier and more convenient for them to make inference in the listening comprehension according to the context, speaker's intonation, transitional words, relationship of the speakers, etc.
As for social-affective strategy category, the difference between the two groups lies in the use of question for clarification and cooperation strategies.

CONCLUSION
From the result of the analysis, it can be concluded that Indonesian students are more likely to ask questions for explanation and verification.Furthermore, they focus on cooperative learning, which promotes a greater use of learning strategies than individual learning.However, Chinese learners are inclined to study English by themselves and get used to independent study.They would ask for help unless they meet some problems which can not be solved by their own effort.
In regard to those results, it is essential and urgent for teachers of English to raise students' awareness of the significance of improving their listening proficiency by applying listening strategies and train students to appropriately and accordinglyuse listening strategies they are most comfortable with.

STATEMENT OF GRATITUDE
Finally the researchers would like to express their gratitude to both institutions, School of Foreign Studies CDTC, China and Diploma of English, SV UGM, Indonesia for all the facilities and helps during the completion of this research.Hopefully both institutions can maintain their joint involvement and cooperation in similar academic and research activities in the future.

Table 1 .
The Nationality, Major and Number of Students

Table 1 .
Students' Attitude towards Their Own Listening Ability In general, over half of the students think that their listening ability need improving.

Table 2 .
Students' Attitude towards Listening Strategies Generally speaking, most of the students hold positive attitude toward listening strategies.

Table 3 .
Students' Attitude towards the Importance of Listening among the Four Skills In the survey, students are required to rank listening among the four skills in the order of importance.

Table 4 -
2. Descriptive Statistics of Three Categories of Listening Strategy Use of Indonesian student . Descriptive Statistics of Listening Substrategies Here is the overview of Cognitive Strategies Used of Chinese Students:

The Social-affective Strategies Used by Chinese Students
Chinese and Indonesian students are inclined to use cooperation strategy the most.

Table 7 -
1 The Correlation between Listening Strategies and Listening Scores of Chinese Students The Correlation between Listening Strategies and Listening Scores of Indonesian Students

Table 8 .
Comparison of Listening Strategies between Two Groups

Table 9 -
1. Comparison of Metacognitive Strategies between Two Groups

Table 9 -
2. Comparison of Cognitive Strategies between Two Groups

Table 9 -
3. Comparison of Social-affective Strategies between Two Groups