The Effect of Explicit Instruction of Metacognitive Reading Strategies on ESP Reading Comprehension in Academic Settings

Parviz Ajideh,Mohammad Zohrabi,Kazem Pouralvar

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.7n.4p.77

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of explicit instruction of metacognitive reading strategies on ESP reading comprehension among university students in Iran. Strategy instruction has recently been integrated into language teaching methodologies, stressing that successful language learners take advantage of appropriate strategy selection and application in order to develop better language skills. Poor learners, on the other hand, fail to know how to use strategies and for what purposes. There has been ample research on the impact of explicit strategy instruction on the EFL learners’ language skills. These studies indicate the effectiveness of strategy instruction on the various aspects of language learning such as skill development among EFL learners but the notion of the effectiveness of strategy instruction on ESP reading comprehension in university level has not been much scrutinized in Iranian context. The participants in this study included undergraduate first and second year students studying Islamic Art and Architecture Engineering at Tabriz Islamic Art University. A randomized subjects and posttest-only control group design was employed in this study. The number of students in Art control and experimental groups was 28 and the one for Architecture control and experimental group was 26 students. The participants in the experimental groups received explicit instruction of metacognitive reading strategies through the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) for strategy instruction. The results of independent t-test revealed that the students in the experimental groups outperformed those in the control groups and showed greater achievement in their ESP reading comprehension ability.

Highlights

Perspective second/foreign language learners are those who consciously use appropriate strategies for learning and communicating in a second language
In order to scientifically claim that the higher mean of the scores in the experimental groups was statistically significant, an independent t-test was run on the scores and the results are presented in Tables 4.2.and 4.3
The data obtained from the experimentation of the explicit instruction of metacognitive reading strategies showed a better performance of the experimental Art group compared with the control one

Summary

Introduction

Perspective second/foreign language learners are those who consciously use appropriate strategies for learning and communicating in a second language. Learners use strategies with the purpose of improving performance in the learning and second language use. Less successful learners usually go the same way, that is, they use the same strategy again and again and do not make significant advance in their tasks. They fail to recognize that the strategies they are applying are not helpful and are unaware of other strategies that may help them make better progress and accomplish their goals. Successful learners, on the other hand, capitalize on a handful of useful and appropriate strategies when accomplishing tasks (Naiman, Frohlich &Todesco, 1975).A single strategy use can lead to dissatisfaction in learning so, rather than being isolated actions, strategies are used together in learning to achieve desirable results. All strategies are useful but the point is about the bad or good application of strategies

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion