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Makale Özeti:
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Studies in L2 listening, unlike those in other language skills, mostly focus on the product of the skill instead of
defining the process itself. Recent studies are far from going beyond basic experimental research designs most
of which aim to find out the differences between the two groups in terms of the product of listening. The
listening literature is full of such product-oriented experimental studies. However, it is obvious that qualitative
research has a key role in understanding and uncovering listening as a cognitive process which is not
susceptible to direct observation. More research is needed to find out the relationship between personality
traits of effective and ineffective listeners and L2 listening success, a topic of interest for scholars since it was
first asserted by the early middle of 20th century. From this point of view, this study is devoted to reach beyond
stereotypical listening research. Aiming at investigating and exploring the characteristics of language learners
as listeners according to the strategies they use in EFL listening, this study is expected to contribute to the field
with its method, procedure, findings and concluding remarks. There are two phases in the study: a) the
application of the Oral Communication Strategies Inventory (OCSI), which was developed to measure ‘active
listening strategies’ and ‘less active listening strategies’ of EFL learners, to 123 freshman students of English
Language Teaching (ELT) Department of a state university in Turkey; b) semi-structured interviews with 10
students selected from the participants of the first phase. After the qualitative analyses of OCSI scores, the topranking
10 students were included in the second phase of the study and invited as volunteer interviewees. The
second phase, the main qualitative part of the study, was conducted with semi-structured interviews. The
questions were designed to explore the participants’ personality traits in L2 listening. Qualitative data was
transcribed verbatim and analysed with a content analysis method. The analysis revealed basic characteristics
such as ‘being text-dependent, non-interruptive, judgmental, empathic’. In total, 30 characteristics were
defined under 5 pre-determined themes and 11 categories. While most of the characteristics defined in the
study are consistent with existing literature, there are also some newly explored ones such as ‘being respectful,
being text-independent, and willingness’. Both the findings and the research design of the study have
implications and suggestions for further research as well as L2 listening practice.
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