Metacognition in Reading: EFL Learners Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategy Use

The study investigated English as a foreign language learners’ metacognitive awareness of reading strategy use. The participants were 12 Taiwanese college students who were required to read aloud and think aloud the eight designated texts. The collected data came from the pre-and post-questionnaires and an interview on metacognition in EFL reading as well as participants’ think-aloud protocols. The findings showed that more perceived strategies were reported in the post-questionnaire, specific ways about how the think-aloud procedure enhanced metacognition were stated in the interview, and more reading strategies were actually used in the think-aloud tasks, suggesting that the participants benefited from the process of thinking aloud while reading in English specifically in terms of an increase in their metacognitive ability about reading. Pedagogical implications for developing metacognitive ability necessary for strategic reading were also discussed.