This research explores the correlation of first-year Indonesian university students' metacognitive reading awareness and their reading comprehension in academic English texts. This study was conducted in a regional university in Yogyakarta - Indonesia where students came from many parts of Indonesia and recognised English as an additional language. A mixed method explanatory design was used to answer the study's research questions administered to 373 student-participants of five humanities departments. Academic English reading tests were conducted using paraphrasing recall protocol and a survey on the students' metacognitive awareness was managed. The findings indicated that there is no significant correlation between the students' metacognitive reading awareness and their academic English reading comprehension. The students were categorised in low-cohort of reading proficiency although their metacognitive reading awareness scores were high. The students mainly used metacognitive reading awareness related to finding out the meaning of words which was confirmed in the focus group interviews with the students. This research is part of a PhD research at Charles Darwin University.