Poor EFL Learners’ Metacognitive Reading Strategies: A Case Study

This study was designed to investigate the reading difficulty of some foreign language (FL) learners who were unsuccessful at English reading comprehension. It was hoped that a case study would yield a more comprehensive picture of the group of learners’ nature of problem. Through a purposive sampling, twenty five English as Foreign language (EFL) poor readers whose progress in reading comprehension courses was a matter of concern were selected. In the light of Li and Munby’s (1996) study, the learners’ awareness of metacognitive strategies and the type of metacognitive strategies employed by the participants were investigated. Interview and questionnaire were the principal sources of data gathering in the study. The analysis of data showed that the majority of the participants lacked or were not aware of the metacognitive awareness necessary for efficient reading. Only a few had a shallow awareness of these types of strategies. The data also provided evidence that since the participants were too much concerned with the language itself, they ignored or were not aware of metacognitive knowledge and strategies. It was also assumed that the social environment where the participants grow up may have had a great influence on their being detail-oriented.