Education 3-13

International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education

ISSN: 0300-4279 (Print) 1475-7575 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rett20

English language education in formal and cram

school contexts: an analysis of listening strategy
and learning style

Mu-hsuan Chou

To cite this article: Mu-hsuan Chou (2017) English language education in formal and cram school
contexts: an analysis of listening strategy and learning style, Education 3-13, 45:4, 419-436, DOI:
10.1080/03004279.2015.1103768

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2015.1103768

Published online: 31 Oct 2015.

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EDUCATION 3-13, 2017
VOL. 45, NO. 4, 419–436
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2015.1103768

English language education in formal and cram school contexts:

an analysis of listening strategy and learning style
Mu-hsuan Chou
Department of Foreign Language Instruction, Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Formal English language education in Taiwan now starts at Year 3 in Received 13 June 2015
primary school, with an emphasis on communicative proficiency. In Accepted 1 October 2015
addition to formal education, attending English cram schools after
KEYWORDS
regular school has become a common phenomenon for Taiwanese Listening strategy; learning
students. The main purpose of gaining additional reinforcement in style; primary school; cram
English cram schools is to help pupils enhance their academic school; EFL
performance. However, how pupils use strategies to approach their
learning, how they prefer to develop their listening skills, and their
relation to different learning environments, say, formal and cram
schools, are still unclear. The aim of the present study is to investigate
how far formal and cram school English education and the degree
of English listening comprehension influences different aspects of
listening strategy use and learning styles. The research involved a
questionnaire survey of 526 Year 6 primary school pupils. The analysis of
the questionnaire was conducted through multivariate analysis of
variance and chi-square tests of independence. Results showed that
there was a close link between English listening comprehension,
learning in English cram schools, certain types of strategy use, and
learning styles. Pupils who preferred to learn English in cram schools
reported better English listening comprehension and developed better
cognitive strategies.

Background
English language education was officially introduced to primary schools in Taiwan in 2001, having
been taught to just fifth and sixth grade pupils in schools before 2005. Since 2005, because of the
development of English education in this globalised world, the English curriculum has been extended
to the third grade, with two class periods per week (Chen and Tsai 2012; Chien 2014; Chou 2014). The
goals of the English curriculum are to (1) develop basic communicative skills with an emphasis on oral
proficiency, (2) foster learning interest and positive attitudes, and (3) promote the understanding of
foreign cultures (Ministry of Education 2003; Chen and Tsai 2012). Nonetheless, formal schools are
free to decide their own teaching resources and materials owing to the decentralised policy in
primary English education. Even though communicative competence is indeed emphasised in
primary and secondary school English classrooms, English listening skills tend to be marginalised
and not to be taught via formal instruction (Chen and Tsai 2012; Chou 2013, 2015a). This is unsurpris-
ing at the primary level, since the English test content of the national entrance examination for junior
high school students1 (basic competence test [BCT]) at the secondary level from 2001 to 2013 con-
sisted purely of discrete-point grammar and vocabulary tests, reading cloze tests, and reading

CONTACT Mu-hsuan Chou mhchou@gmail.com

© 2015 ASPE
420 M.-H. CHOU

comprehension tests. Chen and Tsai (2012) argued that the reason listening comprehension is over-
looked in regular English courses was because it was not tested in national entrance examinations for
secondary education before 2014. In 2014, the BCT was replaced by the large-scale, criterion-refer-
enced Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students (CAP), but the language
skill and test format remain unchanged, except for the additional inclusion of an English listening test
(National Taiwan Normal University 2015). In addition to junior high school education, a national
English listening test, the Test of English Listening Comprehension, has been implemented alongside
the existing College Entrance Examination for senior high school students (Chou 2015a; CEEC 2012).
Since English listening has begun to gain prominence in secondary education and to be included as a
high-stakes test for the first time in the past few decades, the teaching and learning of listening skills
have become essential not only at the secondary school stage, but also at an earlier stage, say, at the
primary level. As a result, it is important to investigate how young adolescents (12 years old), who are
about to enter junior high school, learn and comprehend spoken English in the classroom.
In addition to the formal education system, cram schools (or buxibans) play an indispensable role
in supplementary education in Taiwan (Chou and Yuan 2011; Liu 2012). According to Chou and Yuan
(2011), cram schools are for-profit institutes that provide supplemental drilling of and practice in aca-
demic core subjects, such as English, mathematics, and/or sciences, for primary and secondary school
students after their regular school. The existence of cram schools has long been prevalent in many
East Asian countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan (Ross 2008; Hu and McKay
2012). The main function of a cram school is to enhance students’ academic learning and improve
test scores, increasing the possibility of entering a higher ranked high school or university. One of
the reasons why they have become popular is that formal schools, particularly the quality of their tea-
chers, teacher attitudes, and teaching skills, can barely satisfy students’ academic needs and/or, at
least in Taiwan, meet parents’ expectations (Chang et al. 2007; Chang 2008; Chou and Yuan 2011).
In fact, the notion of academic enrichment in afterschool programmes is not new in Western
societies. While cram schools in East Asia offer additional academic enrichment to all kinds of
students, afterschool programmes in the USA, for example, mainly offer homework assistance for
students who lag behind in class (Zimmerson and Kitsantas 2005; Huang and Cho 2009). In
Taiwan, studies have shown that attending cram schools tends to have a positive impact on improv-
ing students’ test performance and training their analytical ability for the preparation of the CAP and
the College Entrance Examination (Lin and Chen 2006; Liu 2012). In order to improve students’ test
scores and maintain their learning motivation, cram school teachers need to develop systematic and
effective teaching styles. Studies have examined the relationship between cram schooling and
secondary school students’ test performance in general (Lin and Chen 2006; Liu 2012); however,
little research has been done on primary English education in a combination of formal and cram
schools.

Listening strategies and learning styles

It is generally agreed that mastering learning strategies is beneficial to learners in terms of the
enhancement of learning, performance on specified tasks, and compensation for deficits in learning
(Cohen 2007; Oxford 2011). According to Cohen (2010), learning strategies are typically classified in
three main groups: cognitive, metacognitive, and socioaffective strategies. Metacognitive listening
strategies, according to Oxford (2011), include planning (e.g. directed attention for main ideas, selec-
tive attention for details), organising, monitoring, and evaluation. Cognitive listening strategies
encompass inferencing (from language and voice), elaboration (e.g. applying knowledge of the
world or personal experience), translation, summarisation, resourcing, and using paralinguistic
cues (e.g. stress and intonation) (Flowerdew and Miller 2005; Oxford 2011). In particular, paralinguistic
cues help language learners make inferences as part of the cognitive processing of listening input.
Failure to recognise paralinguistic cues, such as those given by stress and intonation, may cause mis-
understanding or, at worst, complete incomprehension. For example, as English is a stress-timed
 EDUCATION 3-13 421

language, unstressed words tend to be spoken more quickly between stressed words. By contrast,
Mandarin Chinese, which is the native language of the participants in the present study, is sylla-
ble-timed. Flowerdew and Miller (2005) noted that learners whose L1 is syllable-timed are likely to
be challenged by the stress-timed tendency of English. Socioaffective strategies for listening refer
to questioning and seeking clarification, interaction, and cooperation (Flowerdew and Miller 2005;
Cohen 2010).
Over the past few decades, research on FL listening strategies has been primarily concerned with
the relationship between strategy use and successful listening comprehension (O’Malley, Chamot,
and Küpper 1989; Goh 1998; Vandergrift 1998; Osada 2001). Although these studies were conducted
with learners of different language backgrounds and widely varying control over their linguistic
ability levels, successful listeners have repeatedly been found to use more metacognitive strategies
and to activate top-down processing to overcome cognitive constraints during the process of encod-
ing semantic cues in working memory. Another important topic in the research on listening strategy
use involved using prior knowledge in listening comprehension (e.g. Bonk 2000) and its relation to
task type (e.g. Chiang and Dunkel 1992; Field 2004). In these studies, prior knowledge was found
to be an effective strategy when learners’ lexical ability is sufficient to understand information in a
text and connect it with their knowledge of the text. To enhance listening comprehension, research
on strategy-based instruction (SBI) in the listening classroom has increased in recent years (e.g.
Graham and Macaro 2007; Rahimirad and Shams 2014). The results have shown that SBI can serve
as positive reinforcement for developing listening strategy use. Despite the extensive research on lis-
tening strategies conducted on university and high school students, comparatively little research has
focused on the listening strategy use of Year 6 primary school pupils. It is worth investigating which
listening strategies are employed by Taiwanese young adolescent students to comprehend English
listening input.
Learning styles are defined as the ways in which an individual characteristically acquires, absorbs,
processes, retains, and retrieves information and skills (Felder and Henriques 1995; Kinsella 1995).
Learning styles have been classified in numerous ways, but in general, three categories considered
particularly relevant to the process of language learning are as follows: sensory/perceptual (e.g.
visual, auditory, or kinaesthetic), cognitive (e.g. global or particular/detail-oriented), and personal-
ity-related (e.g. extroverted or introverted) preferences (Cohen and Weaver 2006; Cohen 2010).
The 1970s and 1980s saw a wealth of research into the characteristics of individual differences
and how these are related to learning styles in diverse L1, L2, and FL contexts (e.g. Witkin et al.
1977; Dunn 1983; Reid 1987). In the 1990s, research on the influence of cultural background and
ethnic group membership on the choice of language learning style increased noticeably (e.g.
Felder and Henriques 1995; Nelson 1995). These early studies found that Chinese speakers tended
to be visual learners, while English speakers were more auditory-oriented. While processing infor-
mation, Chinese speakers were also more inclined to think globally than analytically. Part of this
problem may well be attributable to differences between the English and Chinese grammar
systems. For example, Mandarin Chinese is based round the topic-comment construction, and
according to Shi (2000, 387), ‘Chinese speakers tend to first present the main thing they want to
talk about and then organize their thoughts into a sentence to elaborate on the issue’. In subsequent
years, numerous studies were carried out on style preferences of university students (e.g. Psaltou-
Joycey and Kantaridou 2011; Chen and Hung 2015), style-based instruction in language classrooms
(e.g. Cohen and Weaver 2006; Gilakjani 2012), and the effectiveness of learners’ using styles on their
academic performance (e.g. Flowerdew et al. 2008; Wong and Nunan 2011; Griffiths and İnceçay
2015). In these studies, developing a stylistic flexibility in language learning was found to have a
close relationship with successful academic performance. It has been found that learning styles
develop through the use of learning strategies (Flowerdew and Miller 2005) in that one’s mental pro-
cedure for gathering, processing, and retrieving information and the ability to choose an appropriate
strategy to complete a task represents (or reflects) one’s learning preferences. Although much work
on learning strategies and styles has been done to date, the relationship between EFL pupils’
422 M.-H. CHOU

individual learning environment, style preference and strategy use for specific language skills, like
English listening, remains a neglected area. This study may lead to a better understanding of
which listening strategies are adopted by young adolescent EFL learners and extent to which their
English learning environments and styles shape the selection of strategy use. To this end, the
present study addressed the following four research questions:

(1) How far did the degree of English listening comprehension influence listening strategy use?
(2) How far did the primary school pupils’ preferred English learning environments (i.e. formal and
cram school) influence their listening strategy use?
(3) Was there an association between the degree of English listening comprehension and the pre-
ferred English learning environment?
(4) How far did Year 6 primary school EFL pupils’ English learning styles influence their listening strat-
egy use?

Research method
Research methods for investigating learning strategies for listening include questionnaires, inter-
views, think-aloud protocols, retrospective verbal reports, diaries, journals, and observation
(Macaro, Graham, and Vanderplank 2007; White, Schramm, and Chamot 2007). Of these, question-
naires are perhaps the most widely adopted instrument in studies of learning strategies (and also
in studies of language learning styles) (Reid 1987; Oxford 1993; Wong and Nunan 2011; Gilakjani
2012). It was accordingly decided that a questionnaire survey would be adopted for the present
study. The questionnaire consisted of the following three sections (Appendix 1): (1) basic information
with reference to gender, the experience of cram school, the degree of English listening comprehen-
sion in class, and the pupils’ preference of English learning environment, (2) reported learning strat-
egies for English listening, and (3) reported English learning styles. The learning strategies for English
listening in Section 2 were adopted from the Young Learners Language Strategy Use Survey designed
by Cohen and Oxford (2002). The English learning styles in Section 3 were adopted from the Learning
Style Survey for Young Learners by Cohen and Oxford (2001). The questionnaire was originally
designed in English and later translated into Chinese; the translation was checked. The Chinese
version was piloted on a group of 35 Year 6 primary school students to examine the reliability and
to uncover any potential problems that might cause confusion or difficulties of understanding.
The reliability of the questionnaire was 0.83, as assessed with Cronbach’s alpha (α), which was con-
sidered adequate for the purposes of the present study. The pilot data suggested a few changes to
the wording of two questionnaire items.

Research participants
The present study was performed with 526 12-year old (Year 6) primary school students from 8 urban
primary schools in Taiwan. Randomised cluster sampling was used to select the schools, and each
school randomly provided two intact classes of students. Before distributing the questionnaire to
the pupils, a research consent form was given to the parents requesting permission for their children
to participate in the study. The questionnaires were anonymised. All the participants had started
learning English formally in school at Year 3.

Data analyses
Factor analysis (FA) was used to refine and reduce the large number of individual questionnaire
items to form a smaller number of coherent and interrelated variables that, according to Pallant
(2013), are suitable for multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). After refining the data,
MANOVA was used to identify the significant differences between the groups in terms of
 EDUCATION 3-13 423

composite (overall) dependent variables and separate dependent variables based on the univari-
ate results. In the present study, the independent groups were the experience of cram school, the
degree of English listening comprehension in class, and the pupils’ preference of English learning
environment. In addition, a chi-square (χ²) test for independence was used to explore the associ-
ation between the participants’ degree of listening comprehension and their preferred English
learning environment.

Results
Factor analysis
The 15 items of the listening strategy questionnaire were subjected to an initial principal
component analysis (PCA) using IBM SPSS version 22. To refine the scale and increase the
total variance explained (Pallant 2013), items with communality values that were below .4
were deleted. In this study, this resulted in the deletion of Item 7, which left 14 items for the
second round of the PCA with the Varimax rotation. Inspection of the correlation matrix of
the 14 items revealed the presence of many coefficients of .3 and above. The Kaiser–Meyer–
Olkin value was .85, which exceeds the recommended value of .6 (Kaiser 1974). Furthermore,
Bartlett’s test of sphericity (Bartlett 1954) reached statistical significance, which supports the
factorability of the correlation matrix. The second round of PCA revealed the presence of five
components with eigenvalues that exceeded 1 and that explain 33.05%, 11.43%, 8.87%, and
7.19% of the variance for a total of 60.54% (Table 1). The factor loadings below .4 were
discarded.
A summary of the four-factor structure of the listening strategy questionnaire (with Cronbach’s α
value (to assess factor reliability) and the number of items) follows (see Appendix 1 for the question-
naire items, factor loadings, and descriptive statistics).

(1) Factor 1 – Cognitive strategies (α = .83; n = 8),

(2) Factor 2 – Inferencing strategies (part of cognitive strategies) (α = .76; n = 2),
(3) Factor 3 – Socioaffective strategies (α = .79; n = 2),
(4) Factor 4 – Metacognitive strategies (α = .35; n = 2).

Table 1. Four-factor rotated component matrix for questionnaire on listening strategies.

Factor
Item 1 2 3 4 Communality
Q10 .72 .66
Q8 .70 .56
Q11 .68 .50
Q12 .65 .47
Q9 .65 .55
Q16 .65 .42
Q14 .64 .52
Q13 .57 .43
Q21 .86 .78
Q20 .84 .76
Q19 .89 .83
Q18 .86 .81
Q15 .81 .67
Q17 .61 .51
Eigenvalue 4.63 1.61 1.24 1.01
Variance explained (%) 33.05 11.43 8.87 7.19
Accumulated variance explained (%) 33.05 44.49 53.35 60.54
424 M.-H. CHOU

RQs 1 and 2: Influence of the degree of listening comprehension and English learning
environment on listening strategy use
A one-way between-groups MANOVA was performed to investigate the degree of the pupils’ listen-
ing comprehension in English classes and their strategy use (Q2). The independent variable was the
degree of the pupils’ listening comprehension in English classes (‘comprehensible’, ‘partially compre-
hensible’, and ‘incomprehensible’) and the four dependent variables were the four factors that were
extracted from the FA (above). Preliminary assumption testing was conducted to check for normality,
linearity, univariate and multivariate outliers, and the homogeneity of the variance–covariance
matrices; no violations were noted. Specifically, Box’s M value was 29.44 (p = .086) and, thus, is inter-
preted as non-significant (Pallant 2013). The MANOVA results showed a statistically significant differ-
ence in the degree of listening comprehension and strategy adoption in the combined dependent
variables (F (8, 1042) = 42.58, p < .0005; Wilks’ Lambda = .57; partial eta squared = .25). When the
dependent variable results were considered separately for the purpose of reducing type 1 error,
the cut-off points for the significant levels were as follows: factor 1, p = .006 (.05/8), and factors 2,
3, and 4, p = .03 (.05/2), and these were adopted in all MANOVA tests in the present study. The
results revealed statistically significant differences in (1) cognitive strategy use (F (2, 523) = 165.01,
p < .0005) with a large effect size, and (2) socioaffective (F (2, 523) = 6.25, p = .002), and (3) metacog-
nitive strategy use (F (2, 523) = 9.10, p < .0005) with small effect sizes (Table 2). No significant differ-
ences were detected between groups in the inferencing strategies. Post-hoc comparisons using the
Scheffé test indicated that the mean score of the ‘comprehensible’ group (M = .55; SD = .82) in cog-
nitive strategies was significantly different from the means of the ‘partially comprehensible’ (M = –.03;
SD = .76) and ‘incomprehensible’ groups (M = –1.07; SD = .76) (Table 3). In the case of socioaffective
strategies, the mean score of the ‘comprehensible’ group (M = .14; SD = .95) in cognitive strategies
was only significantly different from the mean of the ‘incomprehensible’ groups (M = –.25; SD =
1.03), showing that the ‘comprehensible’ group asked teachers to slow down and repeat words or
sentences when they were unable to understand. On the other hand, the mean score of the ‘partially
comprehensible’ group (M = .26; SD = .95) in metacognitive strategies was significantly different from
the means of the ‘comprehensible’ (M = –.12; SD = 1.04) and ‘incomprehensible’ groups (M = –.15; SD
= .92). The ‘partially comprehensible’ group tended to listen for the important words and focused on
the context of what people were saying while listening. This is in line with previous research, which
found when cognitive and inferencing strategies were unable to be deployed and facilitate correct
interpretations of lexical and text comprehension, language learners relied more on selective atten-
tion to mobilise metacognitive strategies to search for main ideas and overall context of listening
(Oxford 2011; Chou 2015b).
Of all the 526 participants, more than two-thirds (N = 358; 68.1%) said they attended English cram
schools (Q3) and reported that they were exposed to an English listening environment more

Table 2. MANOVA results of English listening comprehension in class.

Levene’s MANOVA
Variables F (2, 523) P Group N Mean SD F-value p-Value η2
F1: Cognitive 0.33 .72 C 236 0.55 0.82 165.01 .000 .39
PC 174 –0.03 0.76
I 116 –1.07 0.76
F2: Inferencing 0.07 .93 C 236 0.02 0.99 0.79 .454 .00
PC 174 0.04 1.00
I 116 –0.10 1.01
F3: Socioaffective 1.11 .33 C 236 0.14 0.95 6.25 .002 .02
PC 174 –0.02 1.01
I 116 –0.25 1.03
F4: Metacognitive 2.03 .13 C 236 –0.12 1.04 9.10 .000 .04
PC 174 0.26 0.95
I 116 –0.15 0.92
Note: C, comprehensible; PC, partially comprehensible; I, incomprehensible.
 EDUCATION 3-13 425

Table 3. Post-hoc test using the Scheffe test.

(I ) Listening comprehension (J ) Listening comprehension Mean difference (I − J ) Std. error Sig.
F1 Comprehensible P. comprehensible 0.579* .078 .000
Incomprehensible 1.615* .089 .000
P. comprehensible Comprehensible –0.579* .078 .000
Incomprehensible 1.036* .094 .000
Incomprehensible Comprehensible –1.615* .089 .000
P. comprehensible –1.036* .094 .000
F2 Comprehensible P. comprehensible –0.024 .100 .972
Incomprehensible 0.120 .113 .573
P. comprehensible Comprehensible 0.024 .100 .972
Incomprehensible 0.143 .120 .488
Incomprehensible Comprehensible –0.120 .113 .573
P. comprehensible –0.143 .120 .488
F3 Comprehensible P. comprehensible 0.164 .099 .254
Incomprehensible 0.395* .112 .002
P. comprehensible Comprehensible –0.164 .099 .254
Incomprehensible 0.231 .112 .152
Incomprehensible Comprehensible –0.395* .112 .002
P. comprehensible –0.231 .119 .152
F4 Comprehensible P. comprehensible –0.381* .098 .001
Incomprehensible 0.025 .111 .975
P. comprehensible Comprehensible 0.381* 098 .001
Incomprehensible 0.406* .118 .003
Incomprehensible Comprehensible –0.025 .111 .975
P. comprehensible –0.406* .118 .003
*The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.

frequently in English cram school than in English classes in formal school (Q4).2 With respect to the
pupils’ preferred English learning environment (i.e. formal or cram school) and its relationship to their
listening strategy use for English learning (Q5), a similar one-way between-groups MANOVA with the
four dependent variables was again performed (Box’s M = 11.21; p = .348); no violation was found.
The MANOVA results revealed a statistically significant difference in pupils’ preference of learning
environment between formal and cram schools in the combined dependent variables (F (4, 521) =
10.47, p < .0005; Wilks’ Lambda = .93; partial eta squared = .07). The results also revealed a statistically
significant difference in cognitive strategy use (F (4, 521) = 36.66, p < .0005) with a medium effect size
(Table 4). The pupils who preferred to attend cram schools (M = .28; SD = .93) used cognitive strat-
egies more than those who preferred formal school English courses (M = –.24; SD = 1.00). Nonethe-
less, no significant differences were detected between groups in the other three factors.
To summarise, the degree of listening comprehension was closely related to strategy use. Compe-
tent listeners adopted cognitive and socioaffective strategies for comprehension and help-seeking,
while pupils with partial listening comprehension utilised strategies to bridge the gap between
known and unknown information. As regards environment preferences, cognitive strategies were
found to be adopted by the pupils who preferred to study English at cram schools.

Table 4. MANOVA results of learning environment and listening strategy use.

Levene’s MANOVA
Variables F (4, 521) p Group N Mean SD F-value p-Value η2
F1: Cognitive 1.85 .18 Formal 284 –0.24 1.00 36.66 .000 .07
Cram 242 0.28 0.93
F2: Inferencing 3.76 .05 Formal 284 0.05 0.96 1.67 .197 .00
Cram 242 –0.06 1.04
F3: Socioaffective 3.31 .07 Formal 284 –0.07 1.04 2.74 .098 .01
Cram 242 0.08 0.95
F4: Metacognitive 0.15 .70 Formal 284 0.02 1.00 0.33 .564 .00
Cram 242 –0.03 1.00
Note: Formal, formal school; Cram, cram school.
426 M.-H. CHOU

RQ3: Association between the degree of English listening comprehension and the
preferred English learning environment
Even though more than two-thirds of the pupils had attended English cram schools (N = 358/526),
not all of them preferred to learn English there. In fact, only 242 out of the 358 pupils preferred to
learn English in cram schools. The reasons included more frequent interactions between teachers
and students (N = 169/242; 69.8%), more challenging learning materials to strengthen English
ability (N = 143/242; 59.1%), more opportunities to engage in activities (N = 135/242; 55.8%), and
higher English test scores in school-based scores (N = 127/242; 52.5%). On the other hand, more
than half of the pupils (N = 284/526; 54%) preferred to learn English in formal schools. The reasons
were more frequent interactions between teachers and students (N = 183/284; 64.4%), more oppor-
tunities to engage in activities (N = 158/284; 55.6%), easier learning materials (N = 141/284; 49.6%),
and better English test scores in school-based scores (N = 72/284; 25.4%) in formal schools.
Furthermore, a chi-square (χ²) test for independence indicated a significant association between pre-
ferred English learning environment and degree of English listening comprehension, χ² (2, n = 526) =
58.69, p < .0005, V = .33, with a medium effect size. Judging from the cross-tabulation table (Table 5),
the pupils who preferred to learn English in cram schools reported better English listening comprehen-
sion than those who preferred English classes in formal schools. While both formal and cram schools offer
learning activities and opportunities for the primary school pupils to interact with teachers and students,
the findings suggest that additional reinforcement of English training and use of more challenging learn-
ing materials in cram schools benefited the participants’ listening comprehension and cognitive abilities.
The positive learning outcomes from the English cram schools could perhaps be explained by Krashen’s
(1985) i + 1 input hypothesis, suggesting that providing comprehensible input slightly above the lear-
ner’s current language competence in terms of vocabulary, syntax, discourse feature, and context com-
plexity in listening instruction helps build up learners’ language capacity.
Finally, in Question 6, nearly half of the participants (N = 250/526; 47.5%) said that they had diffi-
culties in coping with the speed of spoken English when they listened to CDs of the learning materials
or textbooks. Also, 45.3% (N = 238/526) said that they failed to recognise English words they had pre-
viously learned. In particular, 26 of the 250 claimed that it was hard for them to distinguish and mem-
orise the English phonetic symbols. In addition, more than one-third (N = 212/526; 40.3%) reported
that they were unable to understand English sentences in listening. Specifically, 42 pupils said that
they had to memorise large numbers of vocabulary items and grammatical rules in cram schools,
and sometimes it was not easy for them to process new or long vocabulary and sentences at the
same time (i.e. while listening).

RQ 4: Influence of English learning styles on listening strategy use

Two types of learning style that were related to the purpose of the present study were physical senses
(i.e. visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic) and how information was received (i.e. global and detail-

Table 5. Preference of learning environment * English listening comprehension cross-tabulation.

Comprehensible Partially comprehensible Incomprehensible Total
Formal school Count 89 102 93 284
% within preference 31.3 35.9 32.7 100
% within comprehension 37.7 58.9 80.2 54.0
Cram school Count 147 72 23 242
% within preference 60.7 29.8 9.5 100
% within comprehension 62.3 41.4 19.8 46.0
Total Count 236 174 116 526
% within preference 44.9 33.1 22.1 100
% within comprehension 100 100 100 100
% of total 44.9 33.1 22.1 100
Note: 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 53.37.
 EDUCATION 3-13 427

Table 6. English listening comprehension * physical senses cross-tabulation.

Visual Auditory Kinaesthetic Total
Comprehensible Count 102 98 36 236
% within comprehension 43.2 41.5 15.3 100
% within physical senses 42.0 62.8 28.3 44.9
Partially comprehensible Count 95 29 50 174
% within comprehension 54.6 16.7 28.7 100
% within physical senses 39.1 18.6 39.4 33.1
Incomprehensible Count 46 29 41 116
% within comprehension 39.7 25.0 35.3 100
% within physical senses 18.9 18.6 32.3 22.1
Total Count 243 156 127 526
% within comprehension 46.2 29.7 22.1 100
% within physical senses 100 100 100 100
% of total 46.2 29.7 24.1 100
Note: 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 28.01.

oriented). First, the χ² test for independence indicated a significant association between the degree of
pupils’ listening comprehension and the physical senses, χ² (4, n = 526) = 41.41, p < .0005, V = .198,
with a medium effect size. Table 6 showed that those who comprehended the English they listened
to in class tended to be ‘visual’ and ‘auditory’ learners.
Second, a one-way between-groups MANOVA was conducted to explore whether the type of pre-
ferred physical sense influenced the Year 6 pupils’ strategies for listening English (Box’s M = 20.56; p
= .438); no violation was found. The MANOVA results revealed a statistically significant difference in
the relationship between pupils’ physical senses and their English listening strategies in the com-
bined dependent variables (F (8, 1042) = 8.92, p < .0005; Wilks’ Lambda = .88; partial eta squared
= .06). The results revealed statistically significant differences in (1) cognitive strategy use (F (2,
523) = 25.23, p < .0005) with a medium effect size, and (2) inferencing strategy use (F (2, 523) =
3.98, p = .019), and (3) metacognitive strategy use (F (2, 523) = 5.88, p = .003) with small effect sizes
(Table 7). No significant differences were detected between groups in the socioaffective strategies.
Post-hoc comparisons using the Scheffé test in Table 8 indicated that the mean scores of the ‘audi-
tory’ (M = .27; SD = 1.04) and ‘visual’ groups (M = .09; SD = .90) in cognitive strategies were signifi-
cantly different from (and lower than) the mean of the ‘kinaesthetic’ group (M = –.51; SD = .96).
The pupils, who preferred to use the ‘auditory’ and ‘visual’ senses, were more inclined to use cognitive
strategies than those who preferred the ‘kinaesthetic’ sense. By contrast, compared with the ‘visual’
(M = .05; SD = .95) and ‘kinaesthetic’ groups (M = .17; SD = 1.04), the ‘auditory’ group (M = –.22; SD =
1.02) did not usually use metacognitive strategies to help them listen to important words or under-
stand the contexts. Finally, the pupils liked to use the ‘visual’ sense (M = .12; SD = .99) in English
classes (to guess meanings from the teachers’ movement and tones of speech) more than the

Table 7. MANOVA results of learning styles in English – Physical senses.

Levene’s MANOVA
Variables F (2, 523) p Group N Mean SD F-value p-Value η2
F1: Cognitive 1.81 .17 Visual 243 0.09 0.90 25.23 .000 .09
Auditory 156 0.27 1.04
Kinaesthetic 127 –0.51 0.96
F2: Inferencing 0.18 .84 Visual 243 0.12 0.99 3.98 .019 .02
Auditory 156 –0.05 1.00
Kinaesthetic 127 –0.18 0.99
F3: Socioaffective 2.31 .10 Visual 243 0.04 0.99 0.29 .750 .00
Auditory 156 –0.03 0.95
Kinaesthetic 127 –0.04 1.09
F4: Metacognitive 0.32 .78 Visual 243 0.05 0.95 5.88 .003 .02
Auditory 156 –0.22 1.02
Kinaesthetic 127 0.17 1.04
428 M.-H. CHOU

Table 8. Post-hoc test using the Scheffe test – physical senses.

(I ) Physical senses (J ) Physical senses Mean difference (I – J ) Std. error Sig.
F1 Visual Auditory –0.184 .098 .174
Kinaesthetic 0.596* .105 .000
Auditory Visual 0.184 .098 .174
Kinaesthetic 0.780* .114 .000
Kinaesthetic Visual –5.96* .105 .000
Auditory –0.780* .114 .000
F2 Visual Auditory 0.166 .102 .268
Kinaesthetic 0.299* .109 .024
Auditory Visual –0.166 .102 .268
Kinaesthetic 0.133 .119 .536
Kinaesthetic Visual –0.299* .109 .024
Auditory –0.133 .119 .536
F3 Visual Auditory 0.061 .103 .840
Kinaesthetic 0.072 .110 .804
Auditory Visual –0.061 .103 .840
Kinaesthetic 0.012 .120 .995
Kinaesthetic Visual –0.072 .110 .804
Auditory –0.012 .120 .995
F4 Visual Auditory 0.271* .102 .029
Kinaesthetic –0.112 .108 .587
Auditory Visual –0.271* 102 .029
Kinaesthetic –0.383* .118 .006
Kinaesthetic Visual 0.112 .108 .587
Auditory 0.383* .118 .006
*The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.

‘kinaesthetic’ sense (M = –.18; SD = .99). Despite these differences, however, there was no overall
association between the preferred English learning environment and the physical senses.
In the case of how information was received in English classes, the χ² test for independence indi-
cated a significant association between the pupils’ listening comprehension and the ways infor-
mation was received, χ² (2, n = 526) = 80.74, p < .0005, V = .392, with a medium effect size. Table 9
showed that the ‘comprehensible’ English listeners tended to be detail-oriented learners. A further
examination using a one-way between-groups MANOVA (Box’s M = 26.68; p = .003) revealed a statisti-
cally significant difference in pupils’ preference of the way the received information between global
and detail orientations in the combined dependent variables (F (4, 521) = 54.44, p < .0005; Wilks’
Lambda = .71; partial eta squared = .30). The results also showed statistically significant differences
in (1) cognitive strategy use (F (4, 521) = 181.30, p < .0005), (2) inferencing (F (4, 521) = 10.91, p
= .001), and (3) socioaffective strategy use (F (4, 521) = 8.64, p = .003) with one large and two small
effect sizes (Table 10). No significant differences were detected between groups in metacognitive

Table 9. English listening comprehension * the ways information is received cross-tabulation.

Global Detail-oriented Total
Comprehensible Count 67 169 236
% within comprehension 28.4 71.6 100
% within information 26.9 61.0 44.9
Partially comprehensible Count 91 83 174
% within comprehension 52.3 47.7 100
% within information 36.5 30.0 33.1
Incomprehensible Count 91 25 116
% within comprehension 78.4 21.6 100
% within information 36.5 9.0 22.1
Total Count 249 277 526
% within comprehension 47.3 52.7 100
% within information 100 100 100
% of total 47.3 52.7 100
Note: 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 54.91.
 EDUCATION 3-13 429

Table 10. MANOVA results of learning styles in English – the ways information is received.
Levene’s MANOVA
Variables F (4, 521) p Group N Mean SD F-value p-Value η2
F1:Cognitive 6.42 .12 Global 249 –0.53 0.93 181.30 .000 .26
Detail 277 0.48 0.79
F2: Inferencing .55 .46 Global 249 –0.15 1.02 10.91 .001 .02
Detail 277 0.13 0.97
F3: Socioaffective 2.14 .14 Global 249 –0.13 1.05 8.64 .003 .02
Detail 277 0.12 0.94
F4: Metacognitive .26 .61 Global 249 0.05 1.00 0.57 .450 .00
Detail 277 0.03 1.00

Table 11. Preference of learning environment * the ways information is received cross-tabulation.
Global Detail-oriented Total
Formal school Count 154 130 284
% within preference 54.2 45.8 100
% within comprehension 61.8 46.9 54.0
Cram school Count 95 147 242
% within preference 39.3 60.7 100
% within comprehension 38.2 27.9 46.0
Total Count 249 277 526
% within preference 47.3 52.7 100
% within comprehension 100 100 100
% of total 47.3 52.7 100
Note: 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 114.56.

strategy use. An inspection of the mean scores indicated that detail-oriented learners tended to
utilise cognitive strategies (M = .48; SD = .79), inferencing (M = .13; SD = .97), and socioaffective strat-
egies (M = .12; SD = .94) more than global-oriented learners. This ran counter to the findings of the
early studies, where Chinese adult English learners proven to be global learners (Nelson 1995);
more than half of the participants in the present study were detail-oriented while receiving and pro-
cessing English listening inputs.
Finally, when it came to the preferred learning environment, the χ² test for independence (with
Yates Continuity Correction) also indicated a significant association between the pupils’ preferred
learning environment and the ways information was received, χ² (1, n = 526) = 11.15, p = .001, phi
= .149, with a small effect size. The cross-tabulation table showed that the pupils who preferred
English teaching in cram schools were more detail-oriented than those who preferred to learn
English in formal schools (Table 11).
To sum up, competent English listeners tended to be visual and auditory learners, who utilised
cognitive strategies for comprehension more than less competent and kinaesthetic peers, but phys-
ical senses were not affected by the two learning environments. Pupils who preferred to learn English
at cram schools and comprehended English well in class were detail-oriented learners. The results
revealed that detail-oriented learners also used more learning strategies, particularly cognitive strat-
egies, for English listening. These corresponded to the findings connected with the previous three
research questions, in the sense that those who preferred to learn English at cram schools showed
better listening comprehension, used more cognitive strategies, and tended to be detail-oriented
learners.

Discussion
The findings suggested that there was a close relationship between higher listening comprehension,
extra English reinforcement in cram schools, visual, auditory, and detail-oriented users, and use of
cognitive strategies in the case of young EFL adolescents in Taiwan. Research has shown that
430 M.-H. CHOU

effective listeners tend to utilise paralinguistic cues, such as intonation, pauses, or stress, to assist
comprehension in cognitive processing (Flowerdew and Miller 2005). This is in line with the results
of the present study, where the pupils who reported being able to comprehend English listening
in class and preferring learning English in cram schools used cognitive strategies more than the ‘par-
tially comprehensible’, ‘incomprehensible’ groups and those who preferred learning English via
formal schooling. The listening obstacles reported by the participants mainly included failure to
cope with the speed of spoken English and to recognise lexis and sentences in listening, and
these consequently stopped them using cognitive strategies efficiently. In the present case, research-
ers have suggested a number of possible solutions that can be applied to teaching listening in formal
schools. For example, to help young EFL adolescents utilise paralinguistic cues and overcome listen-
ing obstacles, Flowerdew and Miller (2005) recommend a discrete-item teaching approach that aims
to cope with the segmental (i.e. individual vowel and consonant sounds) and suprasegmental aspects
(e.g. stress and tone) of spoken text and their contextualisation. Specifically, for the purpose of
increasing familiarity with intonation and stress, learners are encouraged to mimic sounds by repeat-
ing the words, and this can be followed by the exercise of putting individual words into sentences for
sound discrimination. Furthermore, Field (2008) notes that listening for key words can be combined
with the discrete-item approach to raise learners’ awareness of salient focal syllables in sentences.
Learners are thereby able to learn how to identify key words through exercises like key word gap-
filling, recognition, and prediction.
Kinaesthetic pupils were found to be the lowest strategy users among their visual and auditory
peers as regards cognitive, inferencing, and socioaffective strategies, but not metacognitive strat-
egies, which they used to understand the overall message in the listening conversation. In an
early study of sensory preferences and strategy use by ESL adult students in the USA, Rossi-Li
(1989) discovered that kinaesthetic learners preferred to employ strategies for authentic and commu-
nicative tasks. In the case of beginners learning English, simplified interactive listening tasks involving
basic listener responses, such as providing backchannelling or follow-up expressions, can be used to
train metacognition (Rost 2011). Moreover, Cabrera and Martinez (2001), in their study of teaching
English to Spanish primary school pupils, discovered that pupils listening to stories in English with
both linguistic (simplified sentences) and interactional adjustments (repetitions, comprehension
checks, and gestures) outperformed those who listen to English stories with only linguistic adjust-
ments in the English listening comprehension test. Since there was no association found between
physical senses and preferred learning environments, these modified listening activities can be
used pedagogically to enhance kinaesthetic learners’ English listening comprehension and metacog-
nitive strategy use at both formal and cram schools.
Finally, additional academic reinforcements in English cram schools cast impact on the develop-
ment of English listening comprehension, cognitive strategy use, and the way information was
received in English classes. The statistical data revealed that the participants who preferred to
learn in English cram schools possessed a higher degree of listening comprehension, used more cog-
nitive strategies, and paid more attention to details while receiving and processing listening inputs.
These findings are in line with previous studies regarding the general benefits of cram schooling in
secondary education, although no previous study has asked this question. Chou and Yuan (2011)
note that English teaching in cram schools progresses faster than formal schools, so competent lear-
ners tend to rely entirely on the teaching at cram schools and to show disregard for the instruction at
formal schools. Moreover, the starting age of English cram schooling differs. For example, children
from higher socio-economic backgrounds have more opportunities to enrol in bilingual or all-
English pre-school nurseries. This has resulted in a bimodal distribution of students’ English abilities
at both primary and secondary levels in Taiwan (Chang et al. 2007). However, though cram schools
are keen to improve students’ academic performance and to help them succeed in high-stakes
English exams, they also charge high tuition fees. Chou and Yuan (2011) worry that if the quality
of formal schools cannot be improved, students who are less advantaged or cannot afford cram
schooling may lag far behind in the formal education system. Researchers have suggested that a
 EDUCATION 3-13 431

unified English-in-education policy that connects the goals of compulsory education should be
implemented, and qualified teachers and sufficient educational resources at formal schools should
be required (Chang et al. 2007; Chen and Tsai 2012). While cram school teachers frequently adjust
their teaching approach to meet students’ learning needs, teachers at formal schools may need to
improve their teaching.

Conclusion
While most studies of FL learning styles and strategy use have focused on adult ESL/EFL learners (e.g.
Goh 1998; Vandergrift 1998; Osada 2001; Chou 2015b), the present study aimed to explore the
relationship between young adolescents’ (12 years old) preferred learning environment, English lis-
tening comprehension, listening strategies and styles in an EFL context. The result showed that the
pupils with better English listening comprehension were found to use cognitive strategies more than
less competent listeners and their better listening comprehension was closely related to their pre-
ferred English learning environment, say, cram school. Also, certain learning styles, such as visual,
auditory, and detail orientation, influenced how target information was received, retrieved, pro-
cessed, and how certain types of listening strategies, in particular, cognitive and inferencing strat-
egies, were adopted.
Although the present study has yielded findings that have both theoretical and pedagogical impli-
cations, the generalisation of the results to other populations with different L1 and educational back-
grounds may be limited. More research work is still needed to explore learning strategy use in
different language and educational contexts. As the Taiwanese English listening test has been
extended to the secondary level and incorporated into the large-scale, national CAP for the junior
high school system, the findings of the present study not only shed light on how far English edu-
cation in both formal and cram schools has developed young EFL adolescents’ listening comprehen-
sion, style, and strategy use, but also underscores the pedagogical importance of strengthening
different aspects of listening skills and strategies in both formal and cram school language class-
rooms. Finally, English cram schools in Taiwan have offered an alternative, albeit expensive, learning
environment with higher teacher quality and efficient teaching styles, and their impact, of better
development of English listening strategies and cognitive abilities, has challenged the teaching
and learning outcomes of the regular education system. As the need for cram schooling will, in all
likelihood, never disappear, this paper is a challenge to formal schools to re-examine their teaching
quality and in particular offer more help to children who are socio-economically less advantaged.

Notes
1. Primary school pupils are aged from 7 to 12 years (Years 1–6), junior high school students are aged from 13 to 15
years (Years 6–9), and senior high schools include students aged from 16 to 18 years (Years 10–12).
2. The reason why Q3 and Q4 were not used as independent variables in the MANOVA was because of the unequal
sample size between those who reported attending cram school (N = 358) and not attending cram school (N =
168). Even though the homogeneities of the variances–covariances of the four factors were not violated, the
sample sizes in the two groups have exceeded the recommended ratio: largest/smallest = 1.5 (Howell 2012;
Pallant 2013). As a result, the MANOVA test results of these two variables were not reported.

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Appendix 1 Questionnaire
EDUCATION 3-13 435
436 M.-H. CHOU

Appendix 2. Factor structure and descriptive statistics of listening strategies

Descriptive statistics (%)

Factors Questionnaire items and item loadings (in italics) SD D A SA
Factor 1: Cognitive strategies Q10: I listen to the rise and fall of sounds (.72) 10.5 36.9 28.5 24.1
(α = .83; n = 8) Q8: I try to remember unfamiliar sounds I hear (.70) 5.3 22.8 35.0 35.0
Q11: I listen for word and sentence stress to see what native 10.3 31.9 32.3 25.5
speakers emphasise when they speak (.68)
Q12: I pay attention to when and how long people tend to pause 6.3 18.3 34.8 40.7
(.65)
Q9: I try to repeat the new sound to myself (.65) 12.0 28.7 29.1 30.2
Q16: I try to understand what I hear without translating it word- 15.6 28.7 28.5 27.2
for-word (.65)
Q14: I listen for words that are repeated (.64) 8.9 21.3 40.1 29.7
Q13: I listen for what seems interesting (.57) 17.5 31.7 29.8 20.9
Factor 2: Inferencing (α = .76; Q21: I guess the meaning from who the person moves or stands 16.5 26.8 28.1 28.5
n = 2) (.86)
Q20: I guess the meaning of unknown words from the known 16.0 24.1 29.7 30.2
words (.84)
Factor 3: Socioaffective strategies Q19: I ask the teacher to slow down (.89) 13.7 29.3 27.8 29.3
(α = .79; n = 2) Q18: I ask the teacher to repeat (.86) 8.2 26.0 29.8 35.9
Factor 4: Metacognitive strategies Q15: I listen for the main ideas (.81) 15.2 34.2 30.0 20.5
(α = .35; n = 2) Q17: I focus on the overall context of the listening (.61) 9.5 23.2 39.2 28.1
Notes: ‘SD’ means ‘strongly disagree’, ‘D’ means ‘disagree’, ‘A’ means ‘agree’, ‘SA’ means ‘strongly agree’.