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metacognitive
awareness
the missing
dimension by Gail Ellis What is metacognitive awareness? this kind of reflection and therefore do
not contribute to the development of
Metacognition is a term that was metacognitive awareness, despite the
coined by Flavell in 1970 and there has fact that it is generally agreed that the
been much debate over a suitable learning purposes, strategies and the
definition. In a language learning possibility of strategy transfer to other
context this means knowing about tasks must, at some point in the
oneself as a learner, in other words, the learning process, be made explicit to
knowledge and self-awareness a learner the learner. Learners should not be left
has of their own language learning to uncover the implicit without some
process, and is regarded as the key to kind of prompt or help. It is, therefore,
successful language learning. the responsibility of the concerned,
individual teacher to add this missing
Metacognition and secondary school dimension.
learners
My own classroom practice has shown
What about metacognition that students are capable of
and school learners? understanding and benefit from being
Research has shown given information about classroom
that even quite procedures. Furthermore, asked the
young children right questions, they are capable of
possess a expressing an awareness about their
considerable own learning that they are rarely given
degree of credit for and this awareness can be
metacognitive developed. The kind of awareness or
knowledge. By knowledge that learners do have about
the time they their learning concerns the comparative
reach secondary difficulty of different types of tasks,
school, basic- knowledge about themselves as
skills have been learners and an awareness of the ways
mastered, they are in which they generally operate
in the early years of strategically. What does not develop
adolescence and, for either as fast or as inevitably is the
most young people, there is ability to use that knowledge
a marked development of spontaneously in pursuance of a
mental functioning, an increased self- cognitive goal.
awareness and a change from Piaget's
concrete operations to formal Metacognitive awareness in a
reasoning. Translated into classroom language learning context
)is Manager of the Young Learners terms this means that our pupils are at a
Centre, The British Council, Paris and Special stage where we can encourage them to
Lecturer in TESOL, School of Education,
In a language learning context 1 see
reflect critically on what they are doing metacognitive awareness as an
University of Nottingham. Her main publications
include Learning to Learn English, CUP, The and why, in order to plan and direct umbrella term (Fig. 1) which
Primary English Teacher's Guide and The their own learning. incorporates the following areas. These
Storytelling Handbook, Penguin, The Snowman:
overlap to some extent and all involve
the original storybook with activities for young
learners of English, OUP and We're Kids in However, many teaching situations and the development of positive attitudes,
Britain, Addison Wesley, Longman teaching materials do not encourage self-confidence and self-awareness.
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a Language awareness d Cultural awareness teacher on how to develop this
important aspect of learning.
The aim here is to stimulate students' Girard's (1991) definition of this Research has shown (O'Malley et al.,
interest and curiosity about language important area "to develop 1985. Ellis and Sinclair, 1989) that
"to challenge pupils to ask questions understanding and openess towards without the combination of
about language" (Hawkins 1984) in others" would involve pupils in metacognitive and cognitive strategy
order to develop understanding of and activities which would enable them to development learners are unlikely to be
knowledge about language in general, discover similarities and differences able to transfer strategies to other tasks.
including the foreign language, the between themselves and other people As O'Malley et al. state, "Students
mother tongue and, if appropriate and and to see these in a positive light. without metacognitive approaches are
depending on the context, other The development of tolerance and essentially learners without direction
languages. This would involve using positive attitudes to the foreign and ability to review their progress,
metalanguage (the mother tongue or language culture and people will draw accomplishments and future learning
target language) for stating the aims of pupils away from a mono-cultural directions."
a lesson, for explaining the use of perspective and into a broader view of
In other words, students need activities
different classroom activities, for the world.
which incorporate reflection, thinking
signposting the stages of a lesson, for
about what they are going to do and
giving classroom instructions, for Why is the development of why, experimentation, doing a task and
describing language, for analysing
metacognitive awareness important? manipulating the language to achieve a
language, for making comparisons to
goal, such as listen and colour, listen
find similarities and differences
As already stated, the development of and draw, listen and sequence, etc., and
between the LI and L2 and for
metacognitive awareness is considered further reflection, by asking such
discovering rules.
to be the key to successful learning. questions as What did I do? Why did I
do it? How did I do it? How well did
b Cognitive awareness Our students get lots of implicit I do? What do I need to do next? In
practice in the classroom in this way, the implicit becomes explicit -
The main aim here is to help students
experimenting with different cognitive pupils become aware of what they are
understand why they are learning a
strategies, for example tasks that get doing and why. We can assume that
foreign language at school and that
them to sort or classify, to compare, to "the more informed (and aware)
in addition to linguistic outcomes,
match, to select, to predict, to guess, to learners are about language and
it also offers important personal,
sequence, etc.. but most classroom language learning the more effective
cognitive, cultural, affective and social
situations and materials rarely inform they will be at managing their own
gains. It involves explaining how they
students explicitly about why they are learning and at language learning"
are going to learn a foreign language in
using certain strategies or get them to (Ellis and Sinclair, op. cit).
class, the type of materials they are
reflect on how they are learning. In
going to use and the activities they are
other words, the metacognitive A methodology for developing
going to do; getting them to think
dimension is missing, so students are metacognitive awareness
about how they learn, which strategies
not helped to understand the
they use to help them to remember,
significance of what they are doing. 1 would like to propose a methodology
to concentrate, to pay attention;
Although some published materials for developing metacognitive
how and when to review, how to
now include activities which get awareness which could be applied to
evaluate and monitor their learning
students to review what they have existing classroom contexts with little
and to decide what they need to do
learnt, (see Sinclair and Ellis 1992) disruption. Most lessons consist, more
next.
these are often in the form of self-tests or less, of three principal stages:
or check lists which focus solely on the revision and presentation of language
C Social awareness
product or the linguistic content of a items, and planning and preparation for
This will involve students in learning unit and not, in any way, on an activity: doing an acitivity or a task
collaborative activities which, in some the processes involved. The emphasis to practise the language items and to
contexts, may involve a new here is "on learning something rather develop skills areas; further practice to
understanding of how to behave in than on learning to learn" (Wenden consolidate, extend and review
class, towards the teacher and towards 1987). The inclusion of simple language, perhaps in a different context
each other; to establish a working instruments for self-assessment is also and/or to produce an outcome such as a
concensus which will contribute a welcome addition to published book, a poster, a completed worksheet
towards building class, peer, teacher materials, but again these rarely and so on. Applied to the skills areas,
and individual respect; and to learn to encourage any reflection on the for example, listening, these stages are
interact and cooperate together in learning process and teacher's books usually referred to as pre-, while and
activities. offer little support or guidance to the post-listening. These stages provide
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the teacher with a framework in which Getting students to focus on the process
to incorporate reflection, of what they do may be a new
experimentation and further reflection, experience for many. At first their
as mentioned above, representing the replies to questions will be vague and
on-going cyclical nature of learning in they will need to be pushed to think
which children plan, do and review. and justify their responses. Such an
(Fig.2) This general strategy for approach needs to be built up gradually
learning is important because it can be over a period of time but, little by little,
used as a framework for learning any students will become more aware of the
subject, including language learning. foreign language learning process and
of themselves as language learners,
In order to do this, teachers will need to more efficient at thinking for
expand their role (Wenden 1985) by themselves and much more actively
taking on a guiding, questioning role and personally involved in their own
which will involve informing students learning.
about language learning and what they
are doing and how they are going to do Asking the right questions
it. He or she can do this by prompting,
modelling questions and strategies, Reference has been made to the
demonstrating, discussing learning and teacher's expanded role, which includes
helping students reflect on what they taking on a questioning role. What are
have done, how they did it and how the right questions to ask to encourage
well they did. This is an approach I active and critical reflection? My
have used regularly with students in experience has shown that the
France. Working in this way with questions we ask about learning have
beginner or low level learners naturally to be extremely clear and directly
requires the use of the mother tongue related to a learning experience. We
and a little extra time. The extra time are inviting students to think about an
can easily be found if the teacher is aspect of their learning that is abstract
prepared to take a few minutes away and, for most, will be new. Unless the
from the content of the foreign questions are well-formulated and
language lesson to concrete, in accessible
focus on the language, the
process. students
will be
A methodology for
developing metacognitive awareness
stage 1 - » s t a g e 2 stage 3
pre-listening - » while-listening -> post-listening
reflection - * experimentation - » f u r t h e r reflection
PLAN -» DO -» REVIEW
contused and unable to reply in a way based on the structure Do you like
thai helps them, or their teacher, (ketchup on your cornflakes)? Do you
become aware of their learning like (custard on your apple pie)? and so
processes. A good question, then, must on. Linguistically, it provides an ideal
be probing and an imitation to think, context for introducing and revising the
so that it makes pupils justify their question D o you like . . . ? , related
responses, it must focus their attention vocabulary and prepositions.
and encourage observation, invite Grammatically, in Michael Lewis's
enquiry and stimulate, because it is terms, pupils are provided with a
open-ended. It should be productive 'pattern' (Do you like...?) which allows
and seek a response and generate more them to generate all kinds of other
questions. Below are some examples questions. However, it goes further
of the type of questions teachers could than the basic question-form Do you
ask in order to develop cognitive like cornflakes/apple pie? as it requires
awareness: pupils to think about combinations of
things that are both grammatically and
- How do you remember words? culturally appropriate: Do you like
- What helped you understand the custard on your apple pie? as opposed
words in the story? to Do you like custard on your chips?
- What do we need to know (Fig.3)
to do the task?
- How can we find out? The 'plan' and 'do' stages involved
- What have we done today? W h y ? revision and practice of the question
- How did we do it? Do you like...?, prepositions and
- How well did you do? vocabulary, and the reading aloud of
- What do you need to revise? Why? the storybook when pupils were invited
- What are you going to do next? Why? to turn pages of their own choice to
- What did you do if you create strange and unexpected
didn't understand? combinations. Fig.3
- How did you check your work?
- How did you work out the answers?
1 DO YOU LIKE
COFFEE
IN YOUR.
Fig.5
FRurr-SALAD?
HI
develop strong motivation and positive metacognitive awareness, so that this
attitudes towards language learning. missing dimension is added to day-to
These I consider to be valuable and day classroom procedures of classroom
worthwhile outcomes. management and lesson planning.
Teachers need to reflect on the different
To conclude, I would hope that the aspects of metacognition, so they are
teaching profession will move to a integrated into lessons and developed
position where there is a recognition of as naturally and as systematically as
the benefits of and a purposeful move putting up an umbrella when it rains!
towards the development of (Fig.6)
Bibliography
Brewster, J . , Ellis, G. &
Girard, 0. (1991) The
Primary English Teacher's
Guide, Penguin