Metacognitive awareness of reading strategy use in Arabic as a second language

Abstract

This paper reports a study that investigated university students’ awareness of their reading strategy use when they read Arabic academic texts. One hundred and twenty-two undergraduate L2 Arabic students mostly from Africa and Asia completed a 30-item survey of reading strategies. Results indicated that these students perceived problem-solving reading strategies to be more useful than global and support strategies. Moreover, a statistically significant relationship was found between participants’ self- rated Arabic reading ability and their overall strategy use (r = 0.233), problem-solving strategies (r = 0.236), and global strategies (r = 0.239). Finally, it was found that African background students reported more global strategy use than Asian background students, and junior and senior students reported consistently higher strategy use in all the three strategy categories compared to the first and second year students. Findings are discussed in light of the reading strategy knowledge base as well as the theoretical and practical implications.