Grammar Instruction to Young Adolescents at Lower Proficiency Levels Through Metacognitive Intervention

Knowing how to think about the language learning process is conducive to effective learning especially in the case of grammar structures. Metacognition, a concept derived from cognitive psychology, can assist learners in this case. With regard to young adolescents at lower proficiency levels, there is a long-standing debate on whether to use L۱ for teaching metacognitive strategies since learners might not be efficient enough in terms of understanding the concept of metacognition. Therefore, this small-scale experimental study focused on the effect of grammar instruction through the metacognitive intervention delivered in L۱ on the EFL pre-intermediate learners' grammatical performance in English and investigated their attitudes towards grammar instruction delivered in L۱. To fulfill these purposes, a homogenous group of ۲۰ language learners was randomly divided into an experimental group (n =۱۰), which received grammar instruction through the metacognitive intervention delivered in L۱, and a control group (n =۱۰), which received the instruction only in English without grammar instruction through the metacognitive intervention delivered in L۱. The results of the independent samples t-test indicated that the experimental group did not outperform the control group in terms of all four English grammar points, namely present perfect, simple past tense, comparative and superlative adjectives, and past progressive. In addition, the findings obtained from the five-point Likert scale questionnaire which was distributed among the learners suggested that they had positive attitudes towards the use of L۱ (Persian) in teaching English grammar. We argue that low working memory capacity, overreliance on translation, and less-cognitively activated L۲ processes may account for the low performance of the experimental group learners in the grammar tests. The implication is that the L۱ use in an L۲ classroom can be helpful in teaching L۲ grammar through the metacognitive intervention, but future studies need to examine how and to what extent L۱ should be used to yield more effective results in the case of lower-proficiency learners in an EFL context.  

کلیدواژه ها:

English as a foreign language (EFL) ، first language (L۱) ، grammatical performance ، metacognitive intervention ، young adolescents ، English as a foreign language (EFL) ، first language (L۱) ، grammatical performance ، metacognitive intervention ، young adolescents