The Dilemma of Metacognitive Intervention and EFL listening: Is L1 a Panacea in EFL Contexts?

Listening has recently attracted the attention of both researchers and practitioners worldwide (Renandya & Hu, 2018), and research into L2 listening strategy use has recently tended to focus on metacognitive strategies (Lynch & Mendelsohn, 2020), This study investigated the comparative effect of L1/L2-mediated metacognitive intervention (MI) on the IELTS listening comprehension performance and metacognitive awareness of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in Iran. The participants were 540 upper-intermediate EFL listeners in three groups, ranging from 17 to 28 years of age. The experimental groups (Ex1=180 / Ex2=180) went through a guided lesson plan in metacognition in English and Persian for twelve weeks, which focused on planning, monitoring, and evaluation. The control group (CG = 180), also instructed by the same teacher, listened to the same texts without any guided attention to the process. The MALQ and an actual IELTS test were used before and after the intervention to track the changes in metacognitive awareness and listening performance. The overall results showed that MI caused a considerable variance in the listening performance and the metacognitive awareness of learners in both experimental groups. The Post Hoc multiple comparison results of the three groups also illustrated that the medium for the delivery of the metacognitive intervention (L1) assisted the listeners in experimental group one, who went through L1-mediated metacognitive intervention, to outperform their peers in experimental group two, who were taught in L2, and the control group, who were taught conventionally.