Metacognitive Processess of Learning English

Metacognition is “thinking about thinking.” It refers to being aware of your language-learning behaviors and progress, self-monitoring, and planning. Metacognition plays a very important role in language learning. Not only is it important for the long-term planning of learning activities, perhaps even throughout your career and/or life, but it is also important for ensuring the most successful use of your time during courses of study. Planning, or forethought, is just the first metacognitive step. In addition to planning, you will need to monitor and set priorities, two more important metacognitive strategies. Monitoring refers to paying attention to what you are doing while you are learning. Tracking what you are doing permits you to remember it when itcomes time to evaluate it.

For example, when you are sitting in the classroom, are you paying attention to what the teacher is saying? What do you think the teacher will do next? How are you doing? Are you keeping up? Are you having problems? If you are having problems, what are you having problems with? If you can identify your problems, you can plan to work on them as part of your homework or you can ask the teacher for some  additional help. Monitoring your progress can provide tremendous insights into what you can and should do to improve your own success in language acquisition. Done well, it usually provides wonderful insights that you can use in any planning that you undertake. What should you monitor? Everything, including, but not limited to, the following:

1. Your overall progress;
2. Your specific successes (and any lack of success);
3. Your learning-strategy use;
4. Your materials;
5. Your use of time;
6. Your feelings;

There are expected rates of progress in acquisition for individual languages. How does your progress stack up? If you do not know, arrange to take a proficiency test. Slower than the average? See if you can find out why. What aspects of language learning are troublesome for you? Talk to your teacher. Determine whether your progress really is slow or not when you compare it to that of your classmates. It could be that the class is moving more slowly as a whole. On the other hand, if you are moving faster than others in your class and/or than the average expected, do not just pat yourself on the back. Find out what has helped you be successful and become even more successful.

It is important to know in what aspects of language learning you are succeeding well and where you are not succeeding as well. Evaluate the success of the language items you are working on. If you are focusing for now on the past tense, evaluate in general terms how fluently and how accurately you are using it. At a higher level, you might assess how well you are using the right register (social style level) for the people you are talking to. An advanced language user should not be using a register implying familiarity with high-status strangers, for instance.

Every so often, you should evaluate the learning strategies you are using. Some of them may be no longer useful because you have learned new ones or because you have reached a level of proficiency where they no longer help and you need to develop new ones. For example, at lower levels, you may need to look up some words in a dictionary or guess their meaning from context. At higher levels, however, you might be able to figure out their meaning based on the meaning of their roots, your knowledge of word formation, and/or comparison with vocabulary that you already know. Evaluate the materials you are using. Can you find better ones? Are you playing it too safe and using things that are too easy for you? Or are they too hard, so that you use too much energy for figuring things out or looking information up in the dictionary when, with different materials, you would need less time for these activities and could spend more time on the information itself, remembering the vocabulary, and exploring the grammar through application of what you already know? Take a look at how much time you are spending on your language learning activities. In fact, you might want to keep a diary for a week in order to track your time use better. Total time is important, of course. If you are spending four hours in order to learn ten words, you may need a different learning strategy. Specific use of time is important, too. Where does the greatest amount of time get spent? On vocabulary? On grammar? On application? If you are spending more time on knowledge (grammar and vocabulary learning) than on use (application), you might want to reassess and see if you can find more opportunities for application. If all your time is spent on knowledge activities not by choice but by necessity, then your overall progress in learning the language may be affected, and you should examine what is holding you back. Take a look at the four skills, too. Do you spend more time speaking, reading, writing, or listening? Is the relative balance one that works for you? Would a different mix work better for you? Sometimes it is not how much time you spend studying that matters but rather how you spend time studying.

Assess your feelings. Are you feeling discouraged? If so, take a look at why and think about how you can get yourself out of the doldrums. Are you feeling pleased and successful? If so, find ways to give yourself more of the same. Rewarding yourself for your successes – even when the successes are small – can be highly motivational.

Bibliography:

1. Brown, H.D. (2000): Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. Gass,
2. S.M. I L. Selinker. (2008): Second Language Acquisition. An Introductory Course. New York: Routledge. VanPatten,
3. Leaver, B.L; Ehrman, M; Shekhtman, B. (2005): Achieving Success in Second Language Acquisition. CUP
4. B. i J. Williams. (red.) 2007: Theories in Second Language Acquisition. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.    ©