Metacognitions About Language Skill and Working Memory Among Monolingual and Bilingual College Students: When Does Multilingualism Matter?

Authors

Sarah Ellen Ransdell, Nova Southeastern UniversityFollow
Marie-Laure Barbier
Toomas Niit

Document Type

Article

ISSN

1367-0050

Publication Date

2006

Keywords

Metacognition, Language Skills, Memory, Monolingualism, Bilingual Students, College Students, Multilingualism, Individual Differences, Language Enrichment, Cultural Context, Reading Comprehension, Metalinguistics, Task Analysis

Abstract

Previous research has shown that individual differences in working memory (WM) are highly predictive of a wide range of cognitive behaviours. Until recently, research has focused on monolingual, or undifferentiated, populations. The present research compares metacognitive awareness, as measured by self-ratings of reading, writing, speaking and listening skills in college students of varying language experience backgrounds. Monolingual, bilingual and multilingual university students within three cultural contexts, America, Estonia and France, read for comprehension and remembered sentence final words of comprehended sentences in a reading span task in their native languages. The results show that bilingual and multilingual students have better metalinguistic awareness of their language skills in reading and WM than do students who are monolingual, but who have comparable native language skills.

DOI

10.2167/beb390.0

Volume

9

Issue

6

First Page

728

Last Page

741

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

NSUWorks Citation

Ransdell, Sarah Ellen; Barbier, Marie-Laure; and Niit, Toomas, "Metacognitions About Language Skill and Working Memory Among Monolingual and Bilingual College Students: When Does Multilingualism Matter?" (2006). Department of Health Sciences Faculty Articles. 266.
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/hpd_hs_facarticles/266