Spoken-English Word Recognition by Two University Students: A Case Study from Listening Strategies Viewpoint

Abstract

This case study on two university students aimed to find individual differences within the learners' use of listening strategy during a spoken-English word recognition task. The two first-year female students completed (a) a general English listening test, (b) a word-recognition task, (c) a retrospective interview on listening tasks, and (d) questionnaires about the use of listening strategy and the participants' personality traits. Results showed that the learner who tried to listen and recognize words from phonetic information was more likely to recognize words correctly, while the learner who tended to use background knowledge to understand the material that she heard was likely to misrecognize words. Word-recognition success appeared to be related to listening strategy preferences and use. Further research is required to reach a generalized conclusion and apply these results to teaching practices.