The Relation between English Listening Ability and Other Linguistic and Metacognitive Abilities : A Study of Japanese High School Students

Abstract

The purposes of this study are to clarify (1) which linguistic abilities both in English and Japanese contribute to the English listening ability of Japanese high school students, and (2) to what extent their meta-cognitive abilities are involved in their listening performance. The analyses were carried out using a statistical package (SPSS Ver10.1). Nine language tests, including listening, reading and cloze tests, both in English and Japanese, were given to 80 Japanese high school students. In addition, in order to analyze their metacognitive abilities used while listening, questionnaires were conducted just after the listening comprehension tests. By using a factor analysis, seven factors were extracted for listening to English and listening to Japanese. Multiple regression analyses were performed, with the score of the English listening comprehension test as the dependent variable, and with the scores of the tests or factors in English and Japanese as independent variables. The results showed that the most important element contributing to Japanese high school students' English listening comprehension is English linguistic ability, above all, the ability of aural recognition of English words.