Iranian EFL and Indian ESL College Students’ Beliefs about Reading Strategies in L2

Abstract

The notion of "learner beliefs" has garnered much attention in the field of second language acquisition. Although different studies have been conducted to study learners' beliefs about language learning, little research has looked into the issue of L2 readers' beliefs and their relations to reading strategies. This study investigated whether there are any significant differences between efl and ESL readers in reading awareness of metacognitive strategies use when they are reading in English. 190 undergraduate college students completed the Survey of Reading Strategies questionnaire. The results indicated that the subjects in both groups reported almost similar patterns of strategy awareness while reading; however, Indians reported more awareness of global, support and total metacognitive reading strategies than Iranians while no significant difference was reported when using problem-solving strategies. These results can contribute to the necessity of reading strategies training in both contexts.

Keywords

• Metacognitive reading strategies
• metacognition
• EFL and ESL readers
• cognitive processes