A preliminary investigation of the listening problem-solving processes and strategies of five advanced learners of Italian as a Second Language.

摘要

The listening skill has not been fully investigated in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) mainly because listening processes are difficult to explore. One of the reasons why listening is so hard to describe is that it is a covert activity. Students' listening is generally poor. Also researchers and teachers do not know much about the nature of the process of second language (L2) listening comprehension.;In particular, this study investigated: (1) the types of problems encountered by the subjects in listening comprehension; (2) the kinds of planning processes activated and the strategies applied to cope with problems in listening comprehension; and (3) the correlation between types of problems and strategies in L2 listening.;An immediate retrospective technique was used to collect qualitative data while subjects listened to three kinds of Italian language recordings (news, debates, commercials). Also memory and comprehension measures were used in this investigation. This researcher adopted Faerch and Kasper's (1980) model of intellectual behavior in order to determine what problem-solving processes are activated in listening comprehension. The analysis of the immediate-retrospective verbal data produced three interconnecting taxonomies of nine problems, three planning processes, and seven strategies.;Subsequently, a quantitative analysis was employed to determine the existence of a correlation between types of listening problems and strategies. A Chi-square statistical technique and a measure of association were used to assess this correlation. The tests of association showed that there is some (.0012) degree of association in problem and strategy type. The measure of association assessed that the prediction of a certain strategy improved by 29% if the problem encountered was known. This value indicates a significant degree of association and prediction between problems and strategy use.;A review of the literature on L2 listening shows a dearth of studies and a need for investigation in this area. Since listening is a relatively unknown field in SLA, the focus of the current study was to explore the mental steps involved in L2 listening comprehension. This research used a psycholinguistic approach to listening and tried to identify and classify the processes and strategies used by five advanced learners of Italian as a foreign language.