Enhancing Young EFL Learners' Metacognitive Awareness of Speaking Skill and Developing Their Speaking Fluency After the COVID-19 Pandemic

Muhammadpour, Meysam; Tahriri, Abdorreza

doi:10.22080/iselt.2025.28877.1090

Enhancing Young EFL Learners' Metacognitive Awareness of Speaking Skill and Developing Their Speaking Fluency After the COVID-19 Pandemic

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ PhD Candidate in TEFL, Department of English Language, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran

² Associate Professor, Department of English Language, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran

10.22080/iselt.2025.28877.1090

Abstract

The present mixed methods study examined how enhancing young EFL learners’ metacognitive awareness through a teaching-speaking framework developed their L2 speaking fluency after the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve this, 60 Iranian intermediate EFL learners aged 12 to 15 were selected and randomly divided into two groups: experimental (n = 30) and control (n = 30). An EFL teacher instructed the participants in the experimental group to engage in a 7-stage teaching-speaking cycle online for 10 sessions, while the control group followed the conventional method for teaching L2 speaking. Participants in the experimental group were requested to document their perceptions of the metacognitive training in diaries and submit them to the designated teacher online. Their oral performances and perceptions were recorded, transcribed, coded, and analyzed before, during, and after the intervention. Results indicated a statistically significant improvement in the experimental group’s metacognitive awareness of L2 speaking, along with a notable enhancement in their L2 fluency by the end of the intervention. Additionally, participants expressed an overall positive attitude toward the teaching-speaking cycle. These findings hold pedagogical significance as they advocate for implementing more metacognitive awareness-raising frameworks on online platforms.

Keywords