Metacognitive Instruction Delivered through a Socio Constructive Methodology and the Development of Listening Skills in a Beginner EFL class

Abstract

Listening instruction in EFL has acquired great interest over the last 40 years. This qualitative study reports an action research intervention with 17 beginner EFL learners with the purpose to determine to what extent the implementation of Vandergrift’s (2012) Listening Metacognitive Pedagogical Cycle delivered through Michaelsen’s Team-Based Learning Methodology affects the development of understanding Main Ideas, Details and their ability to decode, as well as to what extent it increases their metacognitive awareness. Findings show interesting potential for this approach to listening instruction in the long term. However, in the short term, results are not positive. This is likely due to high cognitive demands that overload beginner EFL students’ working memory capacity and individual neurological differences, as well as motivational factors, which represent a limitation of this study. In spite of its qualitative nature, the results are accompanied by quantitative data to strengthen it. Key words: Metacognition, Team-Based Learning, Listening, EFL, A2