Reading strategy awareness of Arabic-speaking medical students studying in English

Skilled readers are often characterized as more metacognitively aware than less skilled readers. This questionnaire study of 160 students at a medical university in Bahrain compared reported academic reading strategy use of readers at varying initial English proficiency level and year of study. While all students reported high use of strategies overall, significant differences were found in reported use of metacognitive strategies in general and specific strategies related to translating from English to Arabic. Students of low initial English proficiency and those in their first year reported translating more, while upper year students translated less and used more metacognitive strategies. Compared to findings in previous studies using the same self-report questionnaire, reported reading strategy use was generally higher and more similar to other academic readers in an EFL setting than L1 and L2 readers in a US college. Differences in strategies related to translating suggest an area for further investigation.