Metacognitive Strategies and Reading Comprehension Enhancement in Iranian Intermediate EFL Setting

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between metacognitive strategy instruction and reading comprehension enhancement. Metacognitive strategies are something potentially important in learning a foreign language (Larsen Freeman 1991). In this study, an attempt is made to investigate the effects of metacognitive strategies on enhancing reading comprehension in Iranian intermediate learners of English. For this purpose, 70 English major students studying at Isfahan Payam-Noor University were invited to take part in a reading comprehension TOEFL test (2007 version) to homogenize them then a total number of 40 participants whose scores were within the range of one standard deviation below and above the mean were divided into two groups of experimental and control. Participants in experimental group received twelve sessions of two hour classes, every other week, on reading comprehension instruction as well as metacognitive strategies while the control group remained intact and the regular process of reading instructions went on. In order to see if there was a significant difference between the participants' attitudes toward metacognitive strategies before and after the treatment an attitude questionnaire was administered to the experimental group and the subjects were asked to fill it. Then after the treatment both groups received an immediate test as post-test and the experimental group took the second post-test as the delayed recall test with the same design as the pre-test. The result indicates that there was a significant difference between the two groups and the participants in experimental group outperformed those in control group.