The Effects of Metacognitive Reading Strategies: Pedagogical Implications for EFL/ESL Teachers

Research regarding the teaching of reading for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) is still ongoing. This study focused on metacognitive reading strategies for these learners, first revisiting the concept of metacognition as proposed by Flavell, and then going on to explain reading strategies that require metacognitive skills within three knowledge dimensions: declarative, procedural, and conditional. Existing literature on metacognitive reading strategies for EFL/ESL learners is discussed, and pedagogical implications for teachers are offered, which include providing learners with explicit instruction as well as a variety of metacognitive reading strategies to help students to become independent learners.