In a very different way from Tomlin and Villa, van Lier simply defines awareness as
the state of "know(ing) where you are going, what you are doing and why" (ibid,20).
Analysing the concept of consciousness as the state involving awareness, van Lier highlights
the importance of it and mentions some of its characteristics. For him, consciousness
constitutes a high level of mental activity that includes intellectual and affective processes
(from Vygotsky) and adds to it a self-directed element (taken from Csikszentmihalyi's
definition). In this way, consciousness is not just a personal cognitive state. On the contrary,
he discusses the term of consciousness, and the related concept of awareness,
in a broader sense in which it allows for increasing self-regulation, for deeper
processing, for more efficient learning actions, and for feelings of knowing,
unknowing, and appropriate levels of confidence in one's own abilities. This is a
more organic sense of consciousness which regards it as an interpersonal construct,
which originates in interaction with the world and is closely tied to sociocultural
development. Consiousness is thus a sociocultural construct as well as a cognitive
one. (ibid,71)
The clear opposition between these two perspectives of awareness and its essential
role in the learning process can be explained with regard to the approach of each of their
authors. While Tomlin and Villa are interested in language learning in general, either in its
formal or informal versions, van Lier is particularly committed in a framework of autonomy.
In fact, part of his proposal for a language curriculum consists of students being "encouraged
to develop their language awareness...to become autonomous" (ibid., 19).
Referring back to the model of Tomlin and Villa (Fig. 4.1), awareness is physically
placed above alertness and detection, but it is just an associated element without which the
process of learning can still occur. From a self-directed perspective, however, awareness is
an essential element without which self-directed learning is impossible.
In fact, when referring to the process of self-direction it is necessary to state that one
is talking about two simultaneous learning processes: the process of learning to Ieam and the
process of learning something else, in this case a foreign language. Thus, it is a cognitive
and a metacognitive process, in which both learning awareness and language awareness are
involved. Although the content of these two types of awareness is different, they consist of
the same elements. According to van Lier, consciousness means "the organising, controlling
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