The effect of instructional activities designed with metacognitive strategies on developing listening skills of students in university prep class

The aim of this research is to investigate the effect of instructional activities designed with metacognitive strategies on English listening success of students getting English education in prep class at a university. A quasi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test with control group has been used as the research design. Both qualitative and quantitative data tools were used for observing the effect. An achievement test prepared for listening skills, structured learning diaries and reflective forms were used for quantitative and qualitative data. The research was undertaken in seven weeks on two groups chosen from 'pre-intermediate' English proficiency level in prep class education at a state university (experimental group, n=11 and control group, n=11). Metacognitive strategy training for the experimental group was given systematically, in mother tongue, consciously and integrated into the listening lessons. Any kind of intervention wasn't applied to the control group rather than the ongoing application. According to the results of the listening skills achievement test used as pre-test and post-test in both groups, statistically significant difference between the listening successes of the two groups wasn't observed according to Mann Whitney U test results although there was more increase in listening test marks of the experimental group compared to the control group. However, it was identified that metacognitive strategy training caused an increase on the motivation concerning the listening practises of the students. Though a deliberate metacognitive strategy training didn't cause an increase to be observed perceptibly via a test in the success of the students, the necessity of the use of metacognitive strategies in language learning and reflection of it into other language skills are emphasized in this research for the students to develop attitudes to be more successful in listening skills.