A case study on the teaching strategies in the EFL academic listening class

Abstract

 Listening is an essential language skill that ensures smooth communication with English speakers. The listening cognitive process enables English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners to acquire English quickly. However, the teaching of listening skills, compared to the other three language skills, is the least studied in Applied Linguistics. The current study aims to investigate the teaching approaches and strategies used by language teachers with different teaching experiences in EFL academic listening classes. This study attempts to understand the similarities and differences in the employment of listening-teaching strategies among those teachers, and to know teachers’ perceptions of their employment of those strategies and perceived factors influencing teachers’ employment of listening-teaching strategies. This case study is a piece of qualitative research to explore and describe teachers’ behaviours and perceptions in the specific research context through classroom observations and in-depth interviews. Four language teachers from different tutoring centres in Mainland China participated in this study, respectively two less experienced and two more experienced teachers. They are language teachers who teach TOEFL Listening. The findings reveal that 1) the Interactive Approach was employed by the four teachers, but their perceptions were varied; 2) the four participants commonly used the cognitive strategy in teaching academic listening to ensure students’ comprehension of academic lectures; 3) the four language teachers believed that the instruction of listening strategy was beneficial to student’s listening abilities; 4) given the specific research context, two perceived factors were reported: the teaching setting in tutoring centres and the test design of TOEFL Listening.