• Hosney M. El-daly

  Author

One of the major issues that has been the focus of much SLA research is “Is SLA unconscious in the way L1 acquisition seems to be?” The controversy over conscious versus unconscious learning has been at the heart of much debate in the field of L2 acquisition. Although this debate has attracted a growing number of researchers, one area of worthwhile research that has received minimal attention is the effect of learners’ training on their ability to notice linguistic forms and meanings, which, in turn, may affect the rate of development of their metalinguistic knowledge. On the other hand, listening comprehension has been characterized as a highlycomplex problem-solving activity that can be broken down into a set of distinct subskills.

With this theoretical background in mind, the present study reports the results of an experiment conducted on 200 learners of English as a second language. It attempts to answer three interrelated questions: (1) to what extent does the advanced students’ performance in listening tasks differ from that of the beginning students before and after training?; (2) how can two types of training (intensive listening vs. improving learners’ linguistic skills) affect L2 learners listening comprehension skill?, and (3) what does students’ performance, before and after training, tell us about their abilities to transfer?

The instruments used are (1) pre-test; (2) classroom instruction sessions; (3) post-test, and (4) interviews. The data analysis has a quantitative and a qualitative, interpretative part. Results are obtained and discussed, and pedagogical applications are suggested.

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