Investigating the Effect of Natural Cognitive Intelligence and Awareness-increasing Metacognitive Intelligence on the Learning of Listening Skills of Second Language Learners (Case Study: Arabic Language Educational Collection Book: Shahed and Taallom)

Many studies show that the long-standing perception of listening as a passive skill in language learning has led to traditional auditory teaching methods leading learners to passive input receivers, while learners should be taught in a way that is passive. They should be able to control and strengthen their auditory function. Metacognitive intelligence strategies enable learners to plan, monitor, problem-solve, and evaluate, making them more active listeners. For this purpose, a class (26 students) of auditory secondary learners of the Shahed and Taallom Educational Collection in an educational center was selected as a sample and after removing outliers, using a quasi-experimental pre-test method - Intervention-post-test, the performance of the learners in the auditory parallel tests, before and after the educational intervention, was examined by SPSS software and paired t-test. The results indicate that the learners have increased their learning skills in the post-exam stage with the awareness of metacognitive intelligence, and self-regulation has increased their motivation and also their learning success. In the light of these findings, concepts and suggestions for further studies were presented.



1. Introduction

Metacognition has been accepted as the main factor in educational progress, especially in language learning. Considering the positive relationship between metacognitive intelligence and improving listening skills, so far no research has been done on the effect of metacognitive intelligence on the listening skills of Iranian learners of Arabic as a second language. Therefore, an independent research based on the effect of metacognitive listening strategy training on improving listening comprehension and metacognitive awareness of Arabic language learners seems necessary. The purpose of the current research is to investigate the effect of metacognitive intelligence awareness-raising on listening skills among secondary level students of the "Shahed and Taallom" educational collection.



Research Questions

By considering the problems stated above, the following questions are raised:

1. What is the relationship between intrinsic cognitive intelligence and Arabic listening skills?

2. Does metacognitive intelligence awareness have an impact on improving listening skills of Arabic language learners?



2. Literature Review

Listening is a complex skill and since it plays an important role in people's daily life, it needs attention and precision. Bervan (2001) believes that learners in the classroom should focus more on listening than speaking. Emphasizing listening skills, he admits that his listening ability is usually more than his verbal ability, and this is the reason why in recent years of language education, he has paid more attention to listening comprehension(Sotudeh & Taqipoor, 2010)

By metacognition theory, we mean the theory of metacognition, the theory of cognition. Metacognitive theories are a subset of theories of mind. Theories of mind include, but are not limited to, theories of cognition. Theories of mind deal with mental phenomena such as emotions, personality, etc. (Astington, 1993). Seif (2012) believes that metacognition is the awareness of a person in relation to how he learns; Therefore, metacognitive theories are those theories of the mind that focus on the cognitive aspects of the mind. In fact, metacognitive theories harmonize the beliefs or hypotheses that allow people to predict, control and explain their own knowledge, the knowledge of others, or knowledge in general (Montgomery, 1992). Bailer and Snowman (1993) believe that metacognition is a person's knowledge about his own cognitive processes and the quality of their useful and constructive use to achieve learning goals.



3. Methodology

The research method used in this article is quantitative. In the first step, the research is conducted in a quasi-experimental manner, In order to find out the correlation between subjective intelligence questionnaire and listening skills, the students were asked to answer the questionnaire and participated in a listening test which was designed from the content of the intermediate level book "Shahed and Taallom". In the self-intelligence questionnaire, we considered a score between 0-60 , which were tested in two indicators (do: 2 points and do not: 0). The results of the questionnaire and the listening test were analyzed in the paired t-test, which proved the positive correlation between subjective intelligence and listening skill.



4. Results

The present study first discovered the degree of correlation between inherent cognitive intelligence and listening skills and subjected them to educational intervention. The second step also measured the effectiveness of metacognitive intelligence educational interventions in strengthening learners' listening skills compared to before the intervention. The results showed that targeted training of metacognitive intelligence had a significant effect on increasing learning and improving learners' performance in listening tests. The results of the present research showed that the strategy of comprehensive interaction with peers as one of the strategies to raise awareness of metacognitive intelligence can greatly help improve the listening skills of learners.

The present research showed that teachers make different aspects of learning visible to learners by raising awareness of metacognitive intelligence, thus turning them from passive recipients into active listeners. The results of Hughes and Schumacher's (1991) study are also consistent with this finding, as they found that students who used the "self-test" strategy increased their scores on class tests from of 57 to 71 percent.