EFL High School Students’ Listening Strategies: A Survey Study

Abstract

Although there has been extensive research discussing listening strategies, few studies have investigated these strategies using the Nix questionnaire instrument. This study employs a quantitative survey method using the ELLSI (the EFL Listening Strategy Inventory) questionnaire by Nix (2016). It involved 220 students in a private high school from Central Java. The survey study aims to identify the listening strategies used by EFL high school students. The research question of this study is: what are the listening strategies used by Indonesian high school students? The findings indicate that high school students in Indonesia use various listening strategies, including understanding speakers through global knowledge strategies (M=3.66, SD=1.046) and guessing unfamiliar words (M=3.62, SD=1.085). Emotions and feelings also play a role in their listening ability (M=3.47, SD=1.225). Applying a note-taking strategy and a dictionary helps students with listening comprehension. Also, the students generally listen to English music, play games, and watch movies to develop and support their listening ability. Moreover, future research suggests employing a larger scale of the various schools with numerous students. Also, future research might use mixed methods to gather more data, providing a more comprehensive perspective in identifying the listening strategies in EFL high school students. The study implicates that teachers should implement various and enjoyable listening activities to enhance vocabulary and comprehension while encouraging note-taking and dictionary use to support student learning in listening tasks.