An investigation of metacognitive reading strategies used by EFL Taiwanese college students to comprehend familiar versus unfamiliar Chinese and English texts

This study investigated differences in the self-reported use of metacognitive reading strategies by EFL college students in Taiwan when reading Chinese and English expository texts that varied in their degree of topic familiarity. It explored whether high-English proficient students differed from low-English proficient students in the metacognitive strategies they reported using under various reading conditions.;A total of 204 students completed data sets that were examined for a background questionnaire, the reading comprehension section of the GEPT (General English Proficiency Test, 2002), and the SORS---Survey of Reading Strategies, presented both in Chinese and English. The SORS questionnaire included three categories of reading strategies: global reading strategies, support reading strategies, and problem solving reading strategies.;The results indicated that Taiwanese EFL college students reported using more overall metacognitive reading strategies in Chinese than in English. More specifically, problem solving reading strategies were reported as the most frequently used strategies; global reading strategies were the next most frequently used strategies, and support reading strategies the least often employed. Taiwanese EFL college students reported use of metacognitive reading strategies (e.g., global, problem solving and support reading strategies) did not vary across language (Chinese or English) or topic familiarity.;Participants' English language proficiency had an impact on their use of metacognitive reading strategies. More proficient readers used more overall metacognitive reading strategies than less proficient readers while reading texts in English. In addition, Taiwanese EFL college students' use of overall metacognitive reading strategies in English was significantly different depending on their years of English study. Students' gender, academic major, and the type of higher educational institution they attended had an effect on their use of metacognitive reading strategies when reading Chinese and English texts.;Finally, pedagogical implications were suggested, such as L2 reading teachers might incorporate methods to teach these metacognitive reading strategies directly and explicitly to native speakers of Chinese and also employ other instruments for assessing students' reading strategy use. Implications for further study, such as employing multiple measurements, selecting a variety of topic-familiar or topic-unfamiliar texts with varying levels of difficulty, and examining a different student population were also addressed.