Week 8: Metacognitive Stretegy

The Main Points:

After reading “Metacognition and EFL/FSL Reading”, I make sense of the meaning of metacogniton. According to research on the process of training reading strategies for language learners, five components “what, why, how to use, where and when, how to evaluate strategy” are necessary to know. Maybe for L1 learners, it is unnecessary to use all of them. However for EFL learners in n reading, grasping the reading strategy with matacognition will beneficial for us.

In order to attain a detailed relationship between cognitive and matacognitive strategy, the author of the reading “A Closer Look at the Relationship of Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategy Use to EFL Reading Achievement Test Performance” make the validation research on language test performance. For EFL learners, their strategies include learning strategy and use strategy. However language testing (LT) focuses more on use strategy than learning strategy. All in all, language test performance and the ways learners used simultaneously have the important effects on cognitive and matacognitive strategy, which also suggests we should concentrate on strategy competence in future research.

In the reading “Constructivist Pedagogy in Strategic Reading Instruction Exploring Pathways to Learner Development in the English as a Second language (ESL) Classroom”，constructivist pedagogy refer to make students know how to study and which strategy they can use in learning. It turns out that strategy-based instruction in language teaching has a good influence on learner development.

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My Interaction Portion:

At first, we have to admit the differences between cognition and metacognition and effects of them on learners. Specifically, cognition is a term that indicates the acquisition of knowledge through the act of thinking or sensing. Metacognition is often referred to as “thinking about thinking.” It is self-awareness of your own thought processes and the ability to incorporate cognitive input to monitor and control knowledge attainment. It helps us to manage incoming information and make it more comprehensible.

Also, the cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies as key elements lead the test takers to obtaining their required scores in the reading section of the test. In order to make the candidates good strategy users, conscious instruction of strategies especially metacognitive ones is strongly recommended. Accelerated development of meta-cognitive skills is very important to learners. At the same time, matacognitive learning is a process of acquiring a number of skills required to enhance one's personality. Metacognitive strategies can help them to develop highly critical cognitive functions. In simple words, the student must also possess the necessary metacognitive skills to analyze the problem, select an appropriate strategy to solve problems.

As for teachers, they play very important roles in development of learners learning all the time. Therefore when we discuss the learning/teaching strategy, e can’t ignore the influence of teachers. From my perspective, they have responsibility to encourage learners to think about what they need to know and be able to do is also important in learning. Another aspect is encouraging learners to see themselves as people who construct knowledge themselves rather than relying on "expert" teachers. Designing a learning environment involves creating learning opportunities that focus on the development and practice of skills that learners want so they can carry out activities and gain their goals. It also involves learners working as a collaborative team to identify and solve problems together.