The effect of metacognitive listening strategy instruction on EFL learners' listening comprehension and awareness levels and the role of ted talks as a listening resource on students' perceptions

This mixed-method study explored the effect of metacognitive listening instruction on students' listening comprehension and metacognitive awareness of listening. It was also intended to find out students' attitudes towards the instruction (whether it should be a part of the curriculum) and Ted-Talk videos as instruction materials. In this regard, four research questions were formed: 1) Does metacognitive listening instruction improve Turkish EFL university students' listening performance? 2) Does metacognitive listening instruction increase Turkish EFL university students' metacognitive awareness of listening? 3) What are the attitudes of Turkish EFL university students' towards the use of Ted-Talk videos as metacognitive listening instruction materials? 4) What are Turkish EFL university students' perceptions of metacognitive listening instruction? To answer the research questions, the study was implemented on 30 pre-intermediate level (13 Male, 17 Female) freshmen students studying Tourism Management. The data was collected by Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) that was applied as a pre- and post-test, a listening test consisting of two parts (Part A and B) that had 20 questions, which was also applied as pre- and post-tests, and finally a semi-structured interview that was conducted at the end of the study. As the data are of both quantitative and qualitative quality, the analysis was carried out in two different ways. The quantitative data was analyzed by SPSS program (SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 21.0.) while the qualitative data was subjected to content analysis. The findings showed that metacognitive listening instruction improved students' listening performance significantly. It was also found that students' metacognitive awareness was increased on the whole, while the most of significant increase occurred in directed attention and problem-solving strategies. The analysis of the qualitative data showed that students found Ted-Talk Videos more helpful compared to audios only. Besides, participants had a positive attitude for the metacognitive listening instruction and thought that it should be a part of the curriculum to assist students overcome their listening problems.