Summarization instruction: Effects on foreign language comprehension and summarization of expository texts

This study reports the effects of metacognitive strategy training in summar ization on the ability of foreign language learners to comprehend and summa rize expository texts. Results indicated that students made substantial pro gress after the training: they included significantly more ideas units in t heir recall protocols, improved their ability to use the summarization rule s, included significantly more important information in their summaries and expressed it in a more succinct manner. The improved summary performance w as maintained three weeks after instruction ended. These results suggest th at explicit instruction in the rules of summarization is an effective tool for improving comprehension and summarization of foreign language texts.