and evaluating of experience"(73) and metacognition is achieved by the corresponding
strategies of planning, monitoring and evaluation (see 3.3.2, p. 50)
It is also important to mention the relationships of alertness and orientation and
awareness in self-direction. Alertness and orientation are particularly important within a self-
directed learning approach. As can be seen in Fig. 4.3, both elements make possible the
learning process by opening the learning process and keeping opened the awareness box. In
fact, that would be the same function that researchers attribute to leaming-to-leam schemes.
It is not a coincidence that both elements are the core of the definition of the concept
learning to learn. In the first chapter, I stated that learning to Ieam has been divided into two
main areas: training at a psychological level and training at a methodological or technical
level. In the former, the aim is for the learner to re-examine her own attitudes, beliefs,
feelings, etc in order to change, readjust or reinforce them in relation to a self-directed
learning approach. This aspect of the learning to Ieam programme makes her ready, i.e.
alert, to detect new linguistic information. The latter aspect of the programme, the technical
or methodological training, makes the learner focus on all those aspects of self-direction that
are necessary for managing the learning process. Like a FL teacher, the SAC counsellor
makes the learner orient, i.e. focus, her attention. With regard to self-directed learning, the
expected result of the combination of these two types of training is awareness, that is, the
fact that the learners realise the subjective experience of the different stages of their learning
processes.
According to Tomlin and Villa (1994), awareness may be important in the process
of detection because it may increase the level of alertness and orientation. They also suggest
that awareness can be exploited to enhance them. This is certainly true for self-directed
learning. However, this process effect also works in the opposite direction. In other words,
the role of alertness and orientation in the form of learning to Ieam schemes enhances
awareness, which in turn, can act directly upon learning. In a self-directed learning scheme,
it is important to emphasise the interactive relationship of these two elements (see Fig. 4.2).
Both, alertness and orientation are made up of external and internal factors. On the one side,
the internal factors of alertness are the characteristics of the learner (motivation and some
elements of metacognitive knowledge that generate it -attitudes, beliefs, etc.) that make her
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