The relationship between metalinguistic awareness and reading comprehension in English among Spanish-speaking junior high school students

There is no empirical research that supports the notion that the second language (L2) learner's ability to state a rule insures the ability to use that knowledge in real communication situations. The objective of the present study was to explicate the nature of metalinguistic awareness and reading comprehension of ESL learners, and to investigate relationship between metalinguistic awareness and reading comprehension in English as a Second Language.;Two dependent variables selected for this study were: the scores on a grammaticality judgment test and the scores on a reading comprehension test. Qualitative analyses of the interview data and recall protocols data investigated the subjects' ability to make grammatical judgments and reading comprehension. The analyses of the qualitative relationship between reading comprehension and subjects' ability to make judgment about the grammaticality of sentences investigated whether the subjects' ability to make grammaticality judgment was reflected in their reconstructions of recall protocols.;Results of two-way analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the groups' means scores on the grammaticality judgment test and reading comprehension test at all three levels of proficiency and instruction. Results of correlation analysis revealed a low correlation between the means scores on reading comprehension and grammaticality judgment test. Results of the qualitative analyses of the individual interviews provided insights into the L2 learners' learning processes, and suggested that data on grammaticality judgment are useful in explaining subjects' interlanguage development. Results of the qualitative analyses of the recall protocols suggested that an implicit knowledge of the structure of language is important for reading comprehension in a second language. Finally, results of the qualitative analyses of the relationship between subjects' ability to make grammaticality judgment between reading comprehension, while reflecting the quantitative results, support the view that states explicit knowledge of the rules of grammar is not important for reading comprehension.;Metalinguistic awareness and reading comprehension are not strongly correlated. Therefore, L2 teachers ought to reconsider whether it is worthwhile spending a large amount of instruction time on teaching and practicing explicit grammar rules in the classrooms. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.).