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C. Listening Strategies
Learning a new language could be challenging for some learners. To help learners achieve the course objectives, they need strategies to develop their listening
skill. Richards 2008 stated that strategies can be thought of as the ways in which learner approaches and manages a task p.9. Several studies found that due to
limitation of memory capacity for the target language, listeners use different listening strategies which are some techniques and steps taken by learners in general and
listeners in particular to help them to acquire, store, retrieve, and utilize information O’Malley, Chamot, Küpper, 1989; Richards, 1983; Vandergrift, 1997. The
strategies are used to help students to get information from the recording more easily. The two kinds of strategies in listening is described by Buck 2001, p.104 as
cited in Richards 2008. The first is cognitive strategies, which are mental activities related to comprehending and storing input in working memory or long-term memory
for later retrieval. There are three processes in this strategy, namely comprehension process, which is associated with the processing of linguistic and nonliguistic input;
storing and memory process, which is associated with the storing of linguistic and nonlinguistic input in working memory or long-term memory; and using and retrieval
process which is associated with accessing memory, to be prepared for output. The
second is metacognitive strategies, which are those conscious or unconscious mental
activities that perform an executive function in the management of cognitive strategies. There are four functions in the metacognitive strategy, including assessing
the situation, monitoring, self-evaluating, and self-resting.
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Similarly, Chamot and O’Malley 1994 and Oxford 2010 also proposed two strategies that they named cognitive and metacognitive strategies. They pointed out
that cognitive strategy consists of summarizing, induction, auditory representation, making inferences, using resources, grouping, note-taking, elaboration of prior
knowledge. Meanwhile, metacognitive strategy consists of planning, monitoring, and evaluating.
Besides cognitive and metacognitive strategies, there are two types of processing that may help understanding in listening practices called top-down and
bottom up processing. According to Long 1989, the distinction between top-down and bottom-up is based on the learners attempt to understand what they hear or read.
With bottom-up processing, students start with the component parts; words, grammar, and the like. Top-down processing is the opposite. Learners start with their
background knowledge, either content schema general information based on previous learning and life experience or textual schema awareness of the kinds of information
used in a given situation. The aforementioned listening strategies and processing may be used by students in the development of their self-regulatory competence.
Pintrich and Zusho 2002 as cited in Schunk 2005 showed that students become more strategic with development and cognitively capable of using both basic
and more complex cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Moreover, they pointed out that cognitive factors play a role in the development of self-regulatory competence in
two ways. For one, with development students are better able to set goals, assess progress toward their goals, and change strategies as needed. For another,
development helps to improve the speed and efficiency of self-regulatory processes e.g., storage and retrieval of information from memory. Furthermore, Bacon 1992
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as cited in Shang 2008 stated that to be more successful listeners should employ a greater number and range of listening strategies; listeners should be flexible in
changing strategies to meet the task and be motivated to understand the oral message. In sum, strategies could help students to become self-regulated learners and develop
their skill and ability. Indeed, listeners need to suit themselves with the most appropriate strategies in order to achieve the academic goal.
D. Review of Previous Studies
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