Listening More, Interacting Less: Learner Agency in Indonesian Pre-Service Teachers’ Digital Listening

Abstract

EFL learners now do much of their listening outside class, on streaming sites, music platforms and phone apps. Research on listening strategies, however, still tends to ask which strategies learners prefer rather than how they combine them in everyday media use. Drawing on the notion of learner agency, this convergent mixed-methods study examined how 105 pre-service English teachers at Universitas Tidar, Indonesia, put together their out-of-class listening strategies. A questionnaire identified each student’s main strategy, and short individual interviews recorded every strategy students described. The interview codes were analysed for repertoire size, strategy co-occurrence and learner profiles, and the two datasets were integrated in a joint display. In the questionnaire, two thirds of the students (65.7%) chose a cognitive strategy, most often watching films with Indonesian subtitles or listening to English songs. In the interviews, most students (67.6%) combined two or more strategies, and nearly half (45.7%) paired songs with subtitled films. Four profiles emerged: single receptive listeners (26.7%), receptive combiners (45.7%), extenders who added interaction to receptive practice (21.9%), and a small interactive-only group (4.8%). Students who used conversation or language apps were less likely to rely on Indonesian subtitles (51.9% vs. 76.9%) and more likely to watch without them (29.6% vs. 11.5%). Interaction with other speakers was chosen as a main strategy more often than it was described in practice. We argue that digital media have expanded students’ access to English far more than their agency in using it, and that listening instruction should help students regulate the support they use and move from listening to interaction.