How Learners´ Engagement in a Self-Regulated Learning Program Affected Their Listening Development Differently

This article reports a case study involving four college EFL students in mainland China over a six-month period of self-regulated learning (SRL) in independent settings. The study examined how the met cognition and listening performance of two high-achieving learners and two low-achieving learners may have been affected by the way they engaged with their SRL in extensive listening. It described the learners´ engagement during four phases of self-regulated listening, namely task definition, goal setting and planning, strategy enactment, and metacognitive adaptation. Findings revealed differences in the self-regulatory behaviours of the two groups of learners in three SRL phases. Although all the learners defined each listening task in quite similar ways, the two groups differed substantially in their metacognitive engagement in the remaining three phases. The learners´ mental representation of their listening process and development through the use of a descriptive metaphor further revealed such qualitative differences. The authors argue that the achievements of the respective learners in listening development were affected by these differences. Theoretical and pedagogical implications of applying a SRL approach for second language (L2) listening development are discussed.