Metacognitive Awareness and Attitudes toward Foreign Language Learning in the EFL Context of Turkey

Abstract

Abstract The present study sought to investigate the impact of metacognitive awareness on prospective English teachers⿿ attitudes toward learning English in a Turkish context. The participants were 104 prospective English teachers from a state university in Ankara/Turkey. Data were collected using the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory ( Schraw & Dennison, 1994 ) and Attitudes toward Foreign Language Learning (A-FLL) developed by Vandewaetere and Desmet (2009) . The findings indicated a statistically significant relationship between the participants⿿ perceptions of metacognitive awareness and their attitudes toward foreign language learning. The analysis of moment structures (AMOS) demonstrated that metacognitive awareness was the strong predictor of attitudes toward learning an L2. Moreover, the analysis of squared multiple correlations revealed that Knowledge of cognition (KOC) and regulation of cognition (ROC) as the two major components of metacognitive awareness accounted for 35% of variance in the attitudes of prospective English teachers toward learning a second language. These findings suggest that metacognitive awareness and taking conscious steps to understand what is learned can influence L2 learners⿿ attitudes and result in successful language learning.