On the Relationship Between Perceptual Learning Style Preferences and Listening Comprehension Strategies

This study sets out to identify the learning styles and listening comprehension strategies employed by Iranian intermediate EFL learners and to find out their relationship, if any. To this end, on the basis of a language proficiency test,64intermediate language learners were selected, classified as high and low proficient listeners, and asked to complete 2 questionnaires which were used to decide on the students‘ perceptual learning style preferences and their listening comprehension strategies. Think-aloud protocols were also held to determine the cognitive and metacognitive strategies students used while listening. The data analysis revealed that both high and low proficient listeners‘ selected visual and kinesthetic learning style as their major learning styles, whereas significant difference was found in the preference of group learning style. The results, also, indicated that cognitive and metacognitive strategies were favored the most by the 2 groups, and kinesthetic learning style had a significant relationship with memory and social strategies. Findings suggest that Iranian EFL learners prefer receiving information from visual channel, learning by working in group and getting involved in learning kinesthetically. The findings, also, suggest that listening strategy use seems to be related to learning styles as proficiency level increases.