Metalinguistic Awareness on the Reading Comprehension Skills of EFL Learners

Abstract

This study was conducted to portray the academic accomplishment of EFL learners in an Iraqi setting, depict the metalinguistic awareness of EFL learners, and discover out the coordinate and roundabout relationship between the academic accomplishment and metalinguistic awareness of EFL Iraqi learners. To fulfill these goals, a correlational design was adopted. Accordingly, a series of correlational analysis was used to determine whether the metalinguistic awareness of the learners yielded a significant contribution to reading comprehension in English. To trace the contribution of the aspects of metalinguistic awareness to reading comprehension a regression analysis was also conducted on the reading comprehension scores and metalinguistic awareness data collected from 60 Iraqi EFL learners who were homogenized in terms of their proficiency level based on their Quick Placement Test scores.

The results indicated that there was a significant correlation between metalinguistic awareness and reading comprehension. That is, the researcher found both direct and indirect relationship between metalinguistic awareness and reading comprehension mediated through academic achievement. Notably metalinguistic awareness was a stronger mediator than academic achievement. With respect to cross-language results, this research confirmed the direct contribution of English metalinguistic awareness to English reading comprehension and its indirect contribution through academic achievement. The implications of the results of the study for language learners and teachers were also elaborated.