5) The combination of two strategies. F reported the use of translation as a
cognitive strategy, combined with creative elaboration (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990,
138) to be able to recall the difference between two linguistic items:
F: I learned REcord and reCORD. I think that now I will be able to
remember the difference. I thought about Spanish. I related it, record, disco,
the stress in the first syllable (both in English and in Spanish) and
record, grabar, the stress in the second syllable (in both languages) It is
clear now, I won’t forget it anymore.
6.3.2. Beliefs about metacognitive strategies
It was found that the participants were very eager to reflect on their learning
process. In fact, the information quoted in the last section is very good proof of that.
With regards to metacognitive strategies the learners referred to different aspects of their
learning process. I have identified instances of the three different main areas of
metacognitive strategies: planning, monitoring and evaluating.
O’Malley et al (quoted in O’Malley and Chamot; 1990, 137), classified
metacognitive strategies into seven categories: planning, directed and selective attention,
self-management, self-monitoring (with eight subcategories), problem identification and
self-evaluation. Let me analyse some of them throughout the information I got from the
participants.
a) Planning
According to O’Malley et al, planning consists of either the advance organisation
of a task, or the organisational planning of a task. In both cases, the task is already given
for the learner to work on it. However, in the Oaxaca/97 project, I found that planning
also refers to the strategy to plan actual tasks, that is to say, to elaborate tasks from
scratch, or re-elaborate given tasks, in order to meet the learner’s needs. F explained how
he would deal with the third conditional:
F: (to practise the third conditional) I will have conversations dealing with
hypothetical matters, inventing things in order to use the structure...a group of
students answering questions like: What would you do in such a situation? And
then each participant had time to think about the answer, working individually,
and then....analyse what the other people said. Express yourself for the others to
know what you think and be able to compare. ...(after the counsellor's suggestion
of writing the sentences instead of working in a group) I feel that this activity would
be better if worked in pairs or groups...because most times, when you think about
the first part of the sentence (subordinate clause) unconsciously you are thinking