The Effect of Task Complexity on Young EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension and Metacognitive Awareness

The present study aims to explore the effect of task complexity on young L2 learners’ listening comprehension and metacognitive awareness. Eighty-eight Korean elementary school students participated in the study, taking a listening comprehension test under two different complexity conditions and completing the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ). Correlation analyses indicated moderate positive relationships between MALQ subscales and learners’ listening abilities. Additionally, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed superior performance on complex tasks compared to simpler ones, suggesting that increased cognitive demand may enhance learners’ listening comprehension. Notably, it was found that two subscales of metacognitive awareness, planning/evaluation and person knowledge, were more utilized when participants were engaged in the complex task. The findings suggest that metacognition may exhibit task-specific characteristics, where subdomains of metacognition appear differently depending on the characteristics of a task. An in-depth understanding of the effect of task complexity can provide valuable insights for designing and implementing effective listening instruction in language classrooms.