Metacognitive listening strategies and language proficiency among Malaysian ESL pre-university students

Metacognitive listening strategies have recently been highlighted for the many positive learning outcomes associated with them. In Malaysian ESL listening context, research in this area is still relatively new and growing. Thus, this study investigates the awareness and perceived use of metacognitive listening strategies among 171 Malaysian ESL pre-university students at a local postsecondary institution. It specifically identifies the students' level of metacognitive listening awareness, their perceived use of the most and least types of strategies during listening comprehension, and the relationship between students' perceived strategy-use and language proficiency. Using an adapted Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ), findings indicate moderate metacognitive listening awareness among the ESL pre-university students at the post-secondary institution, with problem-solving and person-knowledge strategies perceived as the most and the least frequently used during listening respectively. The findings further reveal a statistically significant but practically weak relationship between perceived metacognitive listening strategy use and language proficiency, suggesting that proficiency differences do not translate into substantively different strategy use among the students. Given the limitations in using self-report data, a gross measure of proficiency categorisation and samples drawn from a single-institution context that tend to limit the generalisability of the findings, future studies may consider employing other observational measures to better capture strategy-use during authentic listening tasks, and utilising specific language proficiency tests for more precise proficiency categorisation among samples across different institutions to further illuminate the contextual factors mediating metacognitive awareness and strategy-use among Malaysian ESL pre-university students.