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Open Access Knowledge and Scholarship

Date of Award

10-2015

Culminating Project Type

Thesis

Degree Name

English: Teaching English as a Second Language: M.A.

Department

English

College

College of Liberal Arts

First Advisor

John Madden

Second Advisor

Choonkyong Kim

Third Advisor

Hsueh-I Lo

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Keywords and Subject Headings

listening comprehension, outside-of-class activity, language exposure, authentic language input, metacognitive awareness, self-efficacy

Abstract

Abstract An increasing number of international students choose to study English in United States so they have the authentic language environment to effectively improve their language skills. The current study conducts a statistical analysis to examine the relationship between learners’ outside-of-class language activities and their listening comprehension performance in listening tests. In addition to language activities, learners’ metacognitive awareness level and self-efficacy level are examined with respect to their relationships to learners’ listening comprehension performance. Based on the survey, learners do get involved in different outside-of-class English language activities and enjoy an authentic language environment by studying abroad. Also, the results of the regression analysis reveal evidence on the significant correlations between some outside-of-class activities and listening comprehension performance. Activities such as having people speaking English around or being spoken to and English reading are shown to be significantly correlated with learners’ listening comprehension improvement either positively or negatively. Furthermore, the analysis shows a positive relationship between learners’ self-efficacy level and their listening comprehension level, and suggests the necessity to help leaners improve their self-efficacy performance.

Comments/Acknowledgements

Special thanks to my Chair Dr. John Madden for his support on my project. With his help, I was able to finish my thesis with careful thoughts and detailed inspections. Also thanks to Dr. Choonkyong Kim and Dr. Hsueh-I Lo for their valuable comments that helped me further improved my analysis.

Thanks to my parents Hua Yin and Jifu Peng for their generous support on my studies. And to all my Chinese friends who have helped me unconditionally and shared with me all the information I need.

My upmost gratitude should be devoted to St. Cloud State University for the invaluable knowledge I have acquired and all the treasured memories I have received.

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