Increasing ESL Matriculation Students’ Metacognitive Awareness through Metacognitive Strategy Training

Abstract

This study examines the effect of metacognitive strategy training on matriculation ESL students‟ metacognitive awareness and their listening competency. 31 ESL matriculation students took part in this study. Strategy training which was focused on planning and evaluation, directed attention, person knowledge, mental translation and problem solving components and was conducted for 9 weeks. Then, students went through another 4 weeks of online listening practices without any guidance. Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) was utilised to identify the changes in students‟ metacognitive awareness. MALQ was given three times which were first before (Pre) and second (Post) after the strategy training. While the third (Post 2) time was given immediately after online listening practices to re-examine participants‟ metacognitive awareness. A comparison of before and after MALQ results revealed that planning-evaluation and directed-attention components had statistical significant difference in the Paired Sample t-test. However, mean scores for planningevaluation and directed-attention, problem solving components have increased. Meanwhile, comparison between MALQ results after the training and online listening practices showed that only directed-attention component had statistical significant difference. Thus, metacognitive strategy training has some positive effects on learners‟ metacognitive awareness.

Keywords

• Metacognitive Awareness
• Metacognitive Strategy Training
• Matriculation
• Malaysian
• ESL