Self-regulated learners are students who are actively participate in their own learning, rather than rely solely on teachers, parents, or other external change agent to impart knowledge (Alexander, 1997). Teachers describe students who exhibit self-regulated behavior as self-starters who persist on instructional task, prevail over problems, and react appropriately to task performance outcomes (Zimmerman, 1997). In contrast, students who lack self-regulation are more likely to exhibit impulsive behavior, set lower academic goals, inaccurately assess their abilities, engage in self-criticism, experience limited academic success, and give up easily.
Research on academic self-regulation learning began as an outgrowth of psychological investigation into self-control among adults and its development in children (Zimmerman, 2001). Much early self-regulation research was therapeutic in nature; researchers taught participants to alter dysfunctional behavior such as aggression, addiction, and behavioral problems. Researchers now apply self-regulatory principles to academic studying and other forms of learning such as social and motor skills (Schunk, 2005).The context of Educational Psychology has seen profound changes over the last 30 years, due to these self-regulated learning has become a current focus for research, and one of the essential axes of educational practice (Pintrich, 2000a; Reynolds & Mirler, 2003).
In terms of academic achievement, self-regulation is the fusion of skill and will. Students with effective self-regulation have learned to plan, control, and evaluate their cognitive, motivation, affective, behavioral, and contextual processes. They understand how to learn, self-motivate, and recognize their possibilities and limitations. As a function of this knowledge, they can control and regulate their learning processes in order to adjust to task objectives and context, to optimize their performance and improve skills through practice (Artino, 2008; Miller & Bricman, 2004; Montalvo & Torres, 2004; Paris; 2004). Murcia (2001) claims that within the communicative framework of language teaching the skill of writing enjoys special status. It is via writing that a person can communicate a variety of massages to close or distance known or unknown reader or readers. Such communication is extremely important in the modern world, whether the interaction takes the form of traditional paper and pencil writing or the most technologically advanced electronic mail. Writing as a communicative activity needs to be encouraged and nurtured during the language learning course of study. Viewing writing as an act of communication suggests an interactive process which takes place between the writer and the reader via the text. Such an approach place value on the goal of writing as well as on the perceived reader audience.
Chastein (1976) defines writing as a basic communication skill and unique asset in the process of learning a second language. Both aspects of writing are important in the typical language class and both can serve to reinforce the other. He or she adds writing goals like those in the other three language skills vary with the teacher. Some teacher focuses almost entirely on the language itself, some on communication, and other on both the forms and massage.
In fact, writing good essays are to be signs for EFL learner's language command. However, students are found to have some difficulties in writing good essays. In the process of pursuing learners' development it is observed that students have problems with writing narrative essays and stories. This can be attributed to different learning factors or teaching environments. To overcome these difficulties it is essential to search for other tools that can enhance students' narrative writing. This obligates to reconsider the methods of teaching and the curriculum of teaching students' meta discourse writing.
Metadiscourse is an area, which has got attention in the last few decades. Having the ability to recognize metadiscourse markers in a text will help readers to have a better understanding of the text and make the text easier to read. There are hundreds of standard articles that have been written in this area and across different registers. Metadiscourse markers are closely related to registers. They can guide readers through the text easily. There are also lots of articles that have focused on the use of metadiscourse markers in specific registers and sub registers, but a few study on register variation of metadiscourse markers in general (Zhang, 2017) has done multidimensional analyses of written and spoken registers.
Therefore, finding the appropriate methods to teach metadiscourse writing in EFL context is of paramount importance. One of these methods is developing the self-regulatory strategy among the learners. To this end, the current study was an attempt to investigate the effect of self-regulatory strategy instruction on Iranian EFL learners’ metadiscourse writing skill.
Significance of the Study
In domain of language teaching the importance of understanding dynamic interaction between personal and contextual factors which are involved in the process of learning English as a foreign language is undeniable (Albert, 2006; Dorneyei & Skehan, 2003). Therefore, SR plays an important role in psychological trends. Moreover, it is largely believed that learners' psychological factors play an important role in the process of learning a language (Lightbown & Spada, 2013). It is also assumed that establishing a self-regulated learning environment in the classroom may optimize language learning and teaching.
The growing need for promoting Self-Regulation though has led to what some educators such as Dam (1995), and Ku (2009) attached great importance to the necessity of SR in learning. According to their findings, self-regulated students are more able to succeed academically and motivated. Thereof being aware of the ways to increase understanding of this notion and the ways to improve it will accelerate leaning process. Based on previous researches in this field, awareness of learning styles of every individual is a useful solution to ease learning and achieve the ultimate goal of language learning which is being able to communicate, so it is highly recommended that every learner learns about his learning styles before starting learning process.
The findings of the current study might be fruitful for EFL teachers, learners, as well as curriculum and syllabus designers. In addition, policy makers in the realm of the ELT may benefit from the results of the present research.
Review of Literature
For long, the researchers have studied the self-regulation and language skills (e.g. Tseng, Dörnyei & Schmitt, 2006). In a study by Sentürk (2016), she found that the relationship between Turkish EFL learners’ self-regulated learning components and vocabulary knowledge in terms of their proficiency level and vocabulary depth and breath. The findings showed that the presence of a strong positive relationship between self-regulation, vocabulary depth and breath.
In addition, Zarei and Hatami (2012) did a study to explore the relationship between Iranian EFL college students’ self-regulated learning and their vocabulary knowledge and reading skill. Conducting the intended tests and questionnaire, they found different findings in the relationship among the various self-regulated learning elements. Moreover, it was concluded that no significant relationship was found between self-regulated components and the vocabulary knowledge.
Hardi (2014) sought to examine Hungarian primary school learners’ vocabulary learning strategies in the framework of self-regulation. He used interviews and questionnaires, as well as classroom observations. Actually, the researcher wanted to tap into the learners’ own perceptions of their learning processes. The results of the study indicated that young learners utilized various vocabulary leaning strategies.
In another study, Nabavi Ekhlas and Shangarffam (2012) investigated the relationship between the sub-factors of self-regulated strategies and four language skills and overall proficiency among Iranian IELTS candidates. The results indicated that behavioral self-regulated strategies positively had a direct relationship with the language skills.
Reviewing the literature also shows that a number of research have demonstrated across gender differences in use of self-regulated learning strategies in their learning. For instance, Lee (2002) proposed that three main gender difference issues in self-regulated learning strategies from literature. Likewise, in another study, Young and McSporran (2001) found other gender differences regarding the self-regulation, motivation, strategies learning, and skill learning.
Recently, Fatemipour and Najafgholikhan (2015) investigated the effect of self-regulated strategy on vocabulary learning of Iranian EFL students as well as the role of gender. 60 Iranian intermediate EFL learners participated in the study. The experimental was taught additional training in use of self-regulated strategy on vocabulary. The results showed that self-regulated strategies had significant positive effect on the learners’ vocabulary learning, while no difference was found among genders.