DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2018.1382
title: Effects of metacognitive strategy instruction on the reading ability of eleventh graders at Saint Gabriel’s College

description: Learning to read in EFL contexts is challenging among learners. A number of factors, including metacognitive knowledge, affect the approach to which each student subscribes, in order to achieve learning goals. Referring to one’s deliberate, goal-directed control over cognitive enterprises, metacognitive strategies are crucial for assisting EFL learners to be able to accomplish comprehension while reading. Previous research studies have enriched the knowledge of metacogntive reading strategies in EFL settings. Only few investigations yielded significant effects on learners’ reading ability, due to a variety of issues regarding research methodology. In order to shed new light on the effects of the metacognitive strategy instruction on the reading ability of EFL students, this present study hence introduces a modified methodology, in terms of the duration of the metacognitive strategy instruction and the integrated strategy instructional model.The purposes of this mixed methods research are threefold: to explore the metacognitive reading strategies used among the 43 EFL eleventh graders enrolling at a private school in Bangkok, Thailand, to investigate the effects of the instruction on the reading ability as both examined and perceived by the participants, and to disclose the difficulties encountered by the students. Several sources of data are the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS), pre- and post-instruction IELTS reading tests, and semi-structured interviews.The data collection process was divided into three phases. The first phase includes the pre-instruction administration of SORS and IELTS reading test. The 10-week instruction program on metacognitive reading strategies was exercised on the second stage. Similar to the first phase, SORS and IELTS reading test were administered in the final session, including semi-structured interviews to yield in-depth data on the effects of the instruction. Eight students were selected to the interview process, based on their post-instruction reading scores. These interviewees were categorized into two groups: proficient and less proficient reader groups. The findings reveal the frequency of reading strategies employed after the instruction was significantly higher than that reported in the pre-instruction SORS. Pertaining to the reading strategy sub-categories, the students exercised strategies in the identical order when both SORS administrations were compared. Problem-solving strategy group was reported with highest frequency use, followed by global and support strategy cluster, respectively. Furthermore, the average score of IELTS reading test increased with statistical significance. Regarding the perceived instruction effects, manageable anxiety and confidence while reading were reported. As concerns arose while reading, interviewees from both groups also echoed the vocabulary difficulties, concerns on the text length, and the problems regarding grammatical structures. The differences among these two groups were in how reading strategies were employed to address the issues. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed based on these findings.