UNCOVERING THE USE AND TRANSFER OF COGNITIVE AND METACOGNITIVE READING STRATEGIES ACROSS TEXT TYPES (NARRATIVE & EXPOSITORY READING TEXTS) IN ENGLISH (L3) AMONG MOROCCAN EFL UNIVERSITY LEARNERS

Authors

  • Mohammed Msaddek Associate Professor, Department of English Language & Literature, Faculty of Letters & Human Sciences-Mohammedia, Hassan II University, Casablanca, Morocco

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejfl.v9i2.5939

Keywords:

(meta)cognitive reading strategies, metacognition, strategy transfer, reading strategy use, text genre

Abstract

Based on one of the major sections of my unpublished doctoral thesis defended in 2015, the current study investigates the extent to which Moroccan EFL first-semester university students utilize and transfer (meta) cognitive reading strategies in processing differing English (L3) written texts (i.e., narrative, expository). By addressing 113 university learners (Experimental Group: n=63; Control Group: n=50), the study seeks to find out whether EFL university learners transfer reading strategies (i.e., cognitive, metacognitive) from the narrative written text to the expository one with similar or different frequencies along the continuum of the pre- and post- intervention. To gather the relevant data, such instruments as the reading comprehension texts (i.e., narrative, expository), narrative and expository reading tests, explicit strategy intervention, and a retrospective questionnaire (RQ) were utilized. The findings show that the targeted learners did transfer a host of cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies (CMRSs) across text types with varying frequencies of use at both pre- and post-testing levels. Thus, it is deducible that text genre is an influencing variable on the learners’ frequent usage and flexible transfer of CMRSs in the achievement of L3 reading comprehension. Further, some implications and limitations related to this undertaken study are stated.

 

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Author Biography

  • Mohammed Msaddek, Associate Professor, Department of English Language & Literature, Faculty of Letters & Human Sciences-Mohammedia, Hassan II University, Casablanca, Morocco
    Mohammed Msaddek is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences- Mohammedia, Hassan II University, Casablanca, Morocco. He earned his PhD on the effect of explicit cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies instruction on Moroccan EFL university learners’ strategy use and reading comprehension scores from Mohamed V University, Rabat, in 2015. His research interests include Cognitive and Educational Psychology, Applied Linguistics, Neurolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, and Metalinguistics.

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Published

2025-04-03

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Vol. 9 No. 2 (2025)

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