The importance of decoding skills has long been neglected in L2 listening classes, especially in a Chinese EFL context. To help foreign language teachers and learners see the value of decoding skill instruction, a quasi-experimental study was designed to test the effectiveness of certain decoding skills in improving learners＇ general listening comprehension performance. Sixty non-English major freshmen were made the experimental group, and another 57 such students were made the control group. The intervention was 6-week-long explicit instruction of basic decoding skills, mainly based on the training framework proposed by Goh （2000）. Data was collected in pre-test, post-test and delayed post-test. The results of data analysis show that the performance of both groups improved in post-test and delayed post-test. However, the experimental group made significantly greater progress in both tests. This study shows that explicit instruction of decoding skills, together with well-designed skill training, contributes to learners＇ better understanding and control of the L2 listening processes and thus helps them improve their general comprehension performance. A series of recommendations for both L2 listening pedagogy and future research are also offered.
