The Metalinguistic and Linguistic Knowledge Tests and Their Relationship between Non-native In-service and Pre-service Teachers

Saeideh Ahangari,Morteza Abdi

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.6n.6p.246

Abstract

Fairly recently, the construct of metalinguistic knowledge and its relation to L2 learners’ language proficiency have been the focus of numerous theoreticians, researchers, and the educators in the field. With respect to second language teachers assessment, however, little attempt has been made to explore the metalinguistic knowledge and its relationship between serving and non-serving teachers. The current study, accordingly, was designed to investigate whether there is a relationship between non-native in-service and pre-service teachers performing the metalinguistic and linguistic knowledge tests and if there is a difference between the two groups of teachers’ performance on these two tests. To collect the data on the two constructs of linguistic and metalinguistic knowledge, 80 non-native teachers performed on the Cloze Test and untimed Grammaticality Judgment Test from an English language institute. Following a range of statistical analyses, the findings revealed no positive correlation between the Linguistic and Metalinguistic tests both in the in-service and pre-service teachers of English language. It was also found that the two groups of teachers did not differ significantly with respect to their performance on the Linguistic test while the in-service teachers outperformed their counterpart in the Metalinguistic knowledge test.

Highlights

Quite recently, Metalinguistic Knowledge (MK) has been considered as a vital component of second language (L2) teaching and learning and has occupied the minds of quite a number of researchers (e.g., Berry, 2005, 2014; DeKeyser, 2009; Ellis, 2004; Hu, 2010; Roehr, 2008) in the field
It was found that the two groups of teachers did not differ significantly with respect to their performance on the Linguistic test while the in-service teachers outperformed their counterpart in the Metalinguistic knowledge test
40 teachers serving as English language instructors were assigned as our In-service Teachers (INSETs) group and another 40 teacher participants who were assigned as our Pre-service Teachers (PRSETs) group were planning to become English language teacher in the upcoming year

Summary

Introduction

Metalinguistic Knowledge (MK) has been considered as a vital component of second language (L2) teaching and learning and has occupied the minds of quite a number of researchers (e.g., Berry, 2005, 2014; DeKeyser, 2009; Ellis, 2004; Hu, 2010; Roehr, 2008) in the field. Recent second language acquisition (SLA) research has explored the construct of MK in relation to L2 learners’ language proficiency. It has uncovered a positive, but mostly moderate, relationship between learners’ L2 MK in the sense of correction, description, and explanation ability, and their L2 proficiency as measured by means of various written or oral tests (Roehr, 2007). To gain sufficient insight into non-native language teachers’ MK, a strong need is felt to conduct further studies with respect to assessment approaches

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Conclusion