Abstract
The present quasi-experimental research aimed to examine the differential effect of metacognitive strategy training and critical thinking awareness-raising on EFL learners’ reading comprehension of general reading (GR), cause and effect (CE), and argumentative (ARG) texts. The study set to investigate the extent to which raising Iranian EFL learners’ awareness of critical thinking skills and three sets of metacognitive reading strategies including global, problem-solving, and support may influence the three groups of participants’ reading comprehension. To this end, a purposeful sample of 54 intermediate male Iranian EFL learners attending three classes was recruited from a pool of 85 English learners and was randomly assigned as two experimental groups receiving metacognitive training (MCG) and critical thinking awareness-raising (CTG) and a control group (CG). The research data were gleaned using a researcher-made piloted 54-itme reading comprehension test. The results of the paired sample t-test analyses demonstrated that both MCG and CTG made significant improvements in comprehending GR and ARG texts from the pre-test to the post-test and that both outperformed the CG in comprehending GR and ARG post-tests. With regard to CE comprehension, the only significant difference was observed between the MCG and the CG. The findings offer a number of pedagogical implications.
Highlights
Reading comprehension has long been emphasized as an important skill in foreign language learning
Research is replete with studies addressing the impact of various metacognitive training programs on listening comprehension (Coskun, 2010), and reading comprehension (Hong-Nam & Leavel, 2011), EFL and ESL reading comprehension (Aghaie & Zhang, 2012; Estacio, 2013; Iwai, 2011; Jafari & Ketabi, 2012; Karbalaei, 2011; Seifoori, 2018).The findings suggest that explicit strategy training can improve the participants’ reading and listening comprehension as well as their autonomous reading behaviors (Aghaie & Zhang, 2012)
The three groups, each including 18 participants, were randomly assigned as two experimental groups, receiving metacognitive training (MCG) and critical thinking (CT) awareness-raising (CTG), and one control group(CG) that was instructed based on the conventional pre-view, view, post-view model of teaching reading with no reference to metacognitive strategies nor CT skills
Summary
Reading comprehension has long been emphasized as an important skill in foreign language learning. Regardless of the theoretical position taken, there is consensus among teachers and educators that academic and professional success entails a developed reading comprehension skill since attaining expertise in any field relies on the individuals’ ability to digest a large body of written input that is mostly presented in English textbooks and journals (Zare, 2007). An intrinsic property of reading comprehension is that it is not an acquired skill and entails instruction. Based on this conviction, teachers and researchers have long been seeking to cultivate the most effective instructional approach in teaching reading. Based on the common experience of English teachers, most of the difficulties that plethora of EFL learners, including Iranian learners, face in comprehending written texts seem to derive from this widespread illusion the product of which is a highly restricted skill that hardly enables the learners to read between the lines
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