The metalinguistic awareness of bilingual (Persian-Baluchi) and monolingual (Persian) learners of English language

Abstract

Abstract The present study aimed to explore the metalinguistic awareness of Persian- and Persian-Baluchi-speaking students who were in the process of learning English as their second and third languages, respectively. In order to study learners’ metalinguistic awareness in error identification, correction and explanation they were asked to complete a syntactic awareness test. Findings demonstrated that Baluch respondents noted and corrected a greater proportion of grammatical errors than Persian respondents in English. Moreover, Baluch participants had a more grammar-oriented approach in correcting the errors they noted than the Persian participants, whose approaches were relatively content-oriented for some errors. As for error explanation, Baluch participants produced a greater proportion of error explanations and had a more grammar-oriented approach than did the Persian participants, however, their differences in this case were not statistically significant. These differences were observed on the dimensions that were both similar and dissimilar across the three languages (Persian, Baluchi, and English).