Exploring FL Readers’ Metacognitive Beliefs: Narrations from Learner Diaries

Metacognition is a complex construct widely investigated in SLA studies, also those that focus on reading skills and reading comprehension. Ample research points to metacognition as a strong predictor in developing foreign language reading skills, thus promoting metacognitive strategies in FL education is highly recommended. This paper presents a report on a study in which Polish FL learners kept a diary for a period of one month and wrote comments in reference to the reading classes in which they participated. The data obtained from the students’ narrations allowed to examine the learners’ metacognitive beliefs defined in the study as knowledge about cognition, consisting of three components: person knowledge, task knowledge, and strategy knowledge (Flavell, 1981). The diary data were analyzed in a global narrative way, which enabled the researcher to examine a complex character and a dynamic nature of metacognition in relation to the reading lessons. The findings underline a double role that learner diaries played in this study: as a research tool useful in investigating learners’ metacognition and an effective task that seemed to facilitate the learners’ reflection skills.