Metalinguistic awareness in the multilingual EFL classroom: a study of grade 5–7 students in Norway

Abstract

This article compares metalinguistic awareness among emerging bilingual and multilingual learners of English in Norwegian primary school. Participants were 120 students in grades 5–7 (aged 10–13) attending mainstream English classes in Norway and were divided into three groups based on a linguistic background questionnaire: an L1 Norwegian group, a Multilingual group without English at home, and an English group with English at home. All participants completed a test of metalinguistic awareness (using sentences in English, with questions presented in both English and Norwegian), and a statistical analysis was then conducted to compare the performance of the different linguistic groups. While a simple comparison of means showed no significant differences between groups, a multiple regression controlling for grade level and academic achievement showed that linguistic group did significantly predict performance once these variables were accounted for, with the Multilingual group scoring higher than the L1 Norwegian group, and the English group scoring highest.