Metalinguistic Awareness and Bilingual vs. Monolingual EFL Learners: Evidence from a Diagonal Bilingual Context

This paper reports a study of 85 Iranian EFL learners in the English Language Department of Urmia University. It explores the possible differences between performance of 38 Persian monolingual and 47 Turkish-Persian bilingual EFL learners on metalinguistic tasks of ungrammatical structures and translation. The underlying hypothesis is that bilinguals in diagonal bilingual contexts experience a significant development in terms of their metalinguistic awareness. Results of some t-test analyses indicated consistent differences between the two groups in favour of bilinguals. The findings, thus, strengthen the proposal that bilinguals may develop a more analytical orientation to language that may help them in learning additional languages. The findings are discussed in relation to implications on EFL learning as well as EFL teaching.