Identifying the Role of Metacognitive Strategies in Promoting English as a Second language at the Secondary level

Abstract

This study deals with the role of metacognitive strategies in promoting English as a second language at the secondary level. Metacognition is the thinking of one’s thoughts. Metacognition is one step ahead of cognition as it studies deeply while cognition studies on a surface level. In cognition, students analyze text on the surface level while in metacognition students critically analyze the text and their understanding is on a deeper level. Metacognition stimulates the thinking process of the reader. The thinking level of metacognition is higher than cognition. In metacognitive strategies three stages are important and theses Planning, Monitoring, Evaluating. In planning, students used their prior knowledge and teachers can ask probing questions. In monitoring students check their comprehension. In evaluation, students can have group discussions after reading the text. The study was conducted in girls’ secondary schools and for data collection, a questionnaire was adapted and a survey was conducted to collect the data from the required, selected population. It includes quantitative analysis techniques and data collection based on the survey of seven schools from the district of Rahim Yar Khan. The population of the study is comprised of 350 students from seven secondary school girls in the district of Rahim Yar Khan. Students who study English at the secondary level of 9th & 10th grade.