THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEPTUAL LEARNING STYLE PREFERENCES AND LISTENING COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES OF IRANIAN INTERMEDIATE EFL LEARNERS

This article aims to identify the learning styles and listening comprehension strategies of students, to check whether there are significant differences in the learning style and strategy preferences between high and low proficient listeners, and investigate whether there is any relationship between students’ learning style and listening strategy preferences. To achieve this purpose, a language proficiency test was administered to ninety language learners majoring in English Language Translation and ultimately sixty intermediate language learners were selected and they were assigned as high and low proficient listeners through administering a listening comprehension proficiency test. They were asked to complete two questionnaires. One was used to identify students’ perceptual learning style preferences and the other was used to identify students’ listening comprehension strategies. In addition, think aloud protocols were held to determine the cognitive and metacognitive strategies students used while listening. The data analysis of the first questionnaire revealed that high and low proficient listeners’ major learning style preferences were visual learning and kinesthetic learning. Furthermore, significant difference was found in the preference of group learning style between high and low proficient listeners. The analysis of the second questionnaire revealed that cognitive and metacognitive strategies were favored the most, respectively. In addition, significant difference was found in the preferences of listening strategies between high and low proficient listeners. The analysis with respect to the relationship between learning styles and listening strategies revealed that