The correlation of metalinguistic awareness of bilingual students with learning English as a foreign language

It has been aimed to investigate the correlation of metalinguistic awareness of heritage bilingual students who have different linguistic backgrounds with learning English as a foreign language. There have been several numbers of studies which have emphasized the role of metalinguistic awareness in some research areas such as comprehension, creative thinking, and some linguistic skills; stating that metalinguistic awareness and skills have been found as developing in early childhood ages. Especially, first language acquisition and learning more than two languages have been lately investigated in certain studies (Bialystok, 2001; Cenoz &Valencia 1994; Lasagabaster, 1998). As one of the distinctive studies, Cenoz (2003) have claimed that metalinguistic awareness has been noted as having the role of mediating factor while learning additional languages. Furthermore, Cummins (1976) has explained the Threshold Level Hypothesis as having linguistic awareness and skills can be accepted as a threshold which is needed to be gained while learning additional languages. In this present study, the difference between heritage bilingual students and monolingual students in terms of metalinguistic awareness in both Turkish and English and learning English as a foreign language have been evaluated. It has been found that there has been a statistically significant difference between the results of both groups and a high correlation of metalinguistic awareness with learning a foreign language. Finally, the opinions of heritage bilingual students on the extreme have been discussed in terms of linguistic knowledge and awareness with semi-structured interviews. According to analyses higher metalinguistic awareness has been found related to higher results and scores in tests.