Cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies used by adult learners of Arabic as a foreign language

The purpose of this study was to investigate the cognitive and metacognitive strategies used by learners of Arabic as a foreign language (AFL) guided by three research questions: 1) What cognitive and metacognitive strategies do learners of Arabic as a Foreign Language (AFL) use?; 2) Do male and female learners of AFL use similar or different cognitive and metacognitive strategies?~ and 3) What is the relationship between the levels of Arabic proficiency and the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies? Six classes of students (N=82) learning AFL were selected from an institution in the metropolitan Washington. DC area. The independent variable was the strategy used and the dependent variables were gender and levels of proficiency. To account for the missing advanced female learners. the researcher has dropped the advanced male learners in order to have equal cells for questions 2 and 3. Oxford's (1989) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) was used as instrument to collect the data. SILL is a questionnaire developed to assess the frequency of various strategies used by learners of foreign languages and is an 80-item. likert-scaled, self-report instrument. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data for question 1. An analysis of variance was conducted for questions 2 and 3. It is hypothesized that learners of Arabic as a foreign language use a variety of cognitive and metacognitive strategies in learning language. It is also hypothesized that there is a difference between male and female learners of AFL in use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Finally, it is hypothesized that there is a relationship between proficiency level of the learners and their use of learning strategies. Results showed that learners of AFL use cognitive and metacognitive strategies in the medium range (M =3.2, SD= 0.65 and M = 3.3. SD= 0.90 respectively). There were no significant differences between men and women in using either cognitive or metacognitive strategies. although certain strategies were used more often by men. There were no significant differences regarding various levels of proficiency.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Curriculum and Instruction

Department dc:contributor.department

Teaching and Learning

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

1999

Author dc:creator

• Saleh, Saleh M.

Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair

• Hutson, Barbara A.
• Shrum, Judith L.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Niles, Jerome A.
• Lichtman, Marilyn V.
• Elrayah, Tagelsir H.

• strategies
• learning
• cognitive
• metacognitive

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

etd-10052007-143833

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/39680