Adolescent EFL Learners' Perceived Use of Listening Test-taking Strategies and L2 Proficiency

Abstract

The ability to listen in a second language (L2) is important for Korean secondary school EFL learners who need to excel on the national high-stakes exam. However, the current practice of teaching L2 listening and testing are mainly product-oriented where primary interest is on the outcome of the test. After completing an L2 listening test, the test-taking process of 1,134 Korean EFL high school learners were explored via questionnaires with interest in general proficiency. Exploratory factor analysis yielded ‘online listening strategies’ (LS), ‘planning & evaluation’ (PE) and ‘test-taking strategies (TS).’ The results indicated that the frequent use of PE and LS was associated with rising proficiency levels, but that the use of TS was detrimental to L2 proficiency. The results indicated the significance of employing LS to ascertain the main idea of listening and PE for directed attention. However, the use of mental translation was found to be a detrimental LS. The results present implications for teaching learners to strengthen rudimentary listening skills and to work consistently towards introducing listening tasks that will deter the use of test-wiseness skills.