A STUDY ON THE USE OF METACOGNITIVE READING STRATEGIES BY LEARNERS WITH PSYCHOSOMATIC CONDITION

The study examines the influence of metacognitive reading strategies in developing the reading comprehension skills among ESL (English as Second Language) learners with the psychosomatic condition. Qualitative and quantitative research was used in the present study and it was an experimental study. Reading comprehension skill is crucial to language learners for effective decoding of the information. Metacognitive reading strategies aid the learners to develop reading strategies for effective comprehension of the text. The metacognitive strategies like pragmatic and analytical strategies were used in this research to improve the intensive and evaluative reading comprehension skills. The participants of the study are a hundred and twelve (Male and Female) tertiary level ESL learners from the undergraduate engineering program. The experiment intends to improve the reading comprehension skills among the samples with psychosomatic conditions. The sampling method used in the study was purposive sampling. Data collection tools like questionnaires, pre-test, post-test, and post-feedback questionnaires were used in the study. An android-based application will be created with the activities and instructional materials and it was circulated to the learners. Metacognitive reading activities were given to the learners through the application and data was collected. Results were quantitatively analyzed using statistical tools from the data collected through the application. The results of the present study were indicative that there is a significant improvement in the learners’ reading comprehension skills due to the intervention of metacognitive reading strategies.