Essence of Metacognitive Awareness Strategies in Acquiring/ Developing Proficiency in Different Foreign Language Skills: An Effective Language Learning Experience

Abstract

With metacognitive awareness strategies, learners are equipped with the responsibility of understanding their learning process, including their strengths and weaknesses. This allows them to employ necessary learning strategies to ensure an effective language learning experience, which ultimately leads to the development and improvement of different language skills. The present study explores the concept of metacognitive awareness strategies to unveil its relationship with the development of proficiency in different foreign language skills. The study further looks into the perceptions of randomly selected foreign language learners from different locations to ascertain their take on the subject matter. However, a total of 107 research participants which include foreign language students and university lecturers participated in this research. Data was collected using a digitally designed questionnaire. The research further made use of Jamovi statistical software to compute the research data. On the other hand, the T-test was used to validate the hypotheses developed for the research. The findings provided a clear understanding of the metacognitive practices that foreign language students can adopt to develop and improve proficiency in various language skills of the target language. The findings further highlighted the use of feedback in the form of individualized instruction, introducing this learning method to learners’ curriculum, and training language learners on the development and understanding of the effectiveness of metacognitive strategies as a means of tackling challenges that are associated with the use of this learning method.