An Assessment of Iraqi EFL Students’ Metacognitive Listening Skill at University Level

Abstract

This study attempts to assess the metacognitive listening skill of Iraqi EFL students at university level. It investigates the awareness of First Year students at university level of metacognitive listening strategies. The sample of the study is 120 students from Dept. of English/ College of Arts/ University of Basrah. They are mixed males and females in the day studies/ First Semester/ Academic Year 2013-2024. For this end, Vandergrift and Tafaghodtari (2006) model of questionnaire is adapted. This model presents the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ). Therefore, it is a qualitative study. The textbook under analysis is Pearson to Pearson: communicative speaking and listening skills by Jack Richards, David Bycina, and Ingrid Wisniewska (2005). It is the textbook of communication skills course of the first year students. After collecting and analyzing the data, the main results of this study show that Iraqi EFL students are not so familiar with the metacognitive listening strategies and they lack, to some extent, the awareness of such strategies. In addition, the results show that the participants of the current study use certain metacognitive strategies more than others. The pedagogical implementation of this study presents the high values of teaching these strategies for the students to be effective and positive language listeners. So EFL university professors are recommended to give direct and explicit instructions of the use of the metacognitive listening strategies in EFL context.