Abstract
This mixed-methods study investigated English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners’ perceptions of task difficulty and their use of metacognitive strategies in completing integrated speaking tasks as empirical evidence for the effects of metacognitive instruction. A total of 130 university students were invited to complete four integrated speaking tasks and answer a metacognitive strategy inventory and a self-rating scale. A sub-sample of eight students participated in the subsequent interviews. One-way repeated measures MANOVA and structure coding with content analysis led to two main findings: (a) EFL learners’ use of metacognitive strategies, in particular, problem-solving, was considerably affected by their perceptions of task difficulty in completing the integrated speaking tasks; (b) EFL learners were not active users of metacognitive strategies in performing these tasks. These findings not only support the necessity of taking into account learners’ perceptions of task difficulty in designing lesson plans for metacognitive instruction, but also support a metacognitive instruction model. In addition, the findings provide empirical support for the utility of Kormos’ Bilingual Speech Production Model. As the integrated speaking tasks came from a high-stakes test, these findings also offer validity evidence for test development in language assessment to ascertain sustainable EFL learning for nurturing learner autonomy as an ultimate goal.
Highlights
As one of the pivotal metacognitive elements, metacognitive strategies play a seminal role in learning English as a foreign language (EFL), and the mastery of these strategies is crucial to EFL learners’ sustainable development for learner autonomy [1,2,3,4,5]
Some researchers [36,37,38] suggest that learners’ perceptions of task difficulty directly influence their motivation which further impacts learners’ metacognitive engagement or metacognitive strategy use in classroom instructions, which we review in some detail
Using a mixed-methods design, we investigated Chinese EFL learners’ perceptions of task difficulty and their use of metacognitive strategies in completing four TOEFL iBT
Summary
In EFL classroom instructions, how to select, grade, and sequence tasks suitable for learners with different language proficiency levels so that the tasks can stimulate assumed performance in learners for a specific pedagogic purpose is a major challenge to teachers [9,10]. To address this issue, researchers interested in task-based language teaching have proposed and produced empirical evidence that obtaining information about learners’ perceptions of task difficulty is an effective solution [11,12].
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