Exploring Metalinguistic Knowledge of Low to Intermediate Proficiency EFL Students in Japan

In line with recent studies recognizing positive correlationbetween metalinguistic knowledge and language proficiency, this study aimed to find outhow much metalanguage is understood by low to intermediate proficiency English as aForeign Language (EFL) learners in Japan. A very simple metalanguage test was designedand administered to 1,180 non-English majors at two Japanese private universities. Someof the participants’ metalinguistic ability was compared with their standardized testscores. For 639 participants who took the Test of English for InternationalCommunication (TOEIC) Bridge® test, their reading scores and their metalinguisticability showed the strongest correlations (r = .66), and for 87 participants whosescores from the Visualizing English Language Competency (VELC) test were available, thestrongest correlation between the two tests was also with the reading section (r = .80).The results revealed that even very simple metalanguage, such as noun, adverb, andarticle, was not recognized by many of the participants