7.1.2.2.3 About metacognitive awareness
On the belief that metacognitive awareness is one of the essential elements of
self-direction, which, above all, needs to be constant along the whole process of learning,
I dedicated a session to the definition of metacognitive awareness and the way the
learners might be able to enhance their awareness through verbal reports. As I stated
above (5.2.3, p. 141), the combination of metacognitive experiences and verbal reports
results in the possibility to analyse and to understand learning processes. While the
former allows the learner to trigger cognitive and affective experiences related to
cognitive processes (in this case, learning a language), the latter, verbal reports, allow the
learner to share her experience with the counsellor and/or other learners. Furthermore, I
also believe that through the use of verbal reports (5.2.3, p. 141) to communicate
cognitive and metacognitive experiences, the learner facilitates development of her own
awareness of these experiences. I believe that in the same way that giving a presentation
or writing an article forces one to be clear about one’s ideas and organise them in a way
they can be conveyed, verbal reports force the learner to think about processes that were
taken for granted or completely ignored. In this session, after I explained to the
participants the three different types of verbal reports, the participants carried out a
language task and self-reported the process retrospectively to the group.
7.1.2.2.4 About metacognitive knowledge
The sixth session dealt with metacognitive knowledge (see handout on appendix
4). Referring again to Flavell’s work, I restated the model of self-directed learning (see
fig 7.5) focusing on the awareness element. So far, we had discussed the importance of
being aware when self-directing one’s studies, but we actually had not discussed the
content of that awareness. Under the subject of “ Being aware of...what?” we analysed
the definition of metacognitive knowledge and the classification of it into the three
already mentioned categories of person, task and knowledge. I exemplified the different
possibilities according to Flavell’s scheme. As the third category refers to strategies I
gave the learners a copy of O’Malley and Chamofs classification of learning strategies
(cognitive, metacognitive and social∕affective strategies), for them to think about the
strategies they generally carry out (I already referred to this point in Section 6.3, p. 178).
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