Metacognitive strategies and their implementation into the ESP classroom in the context of distance learning

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Metacognitive strategies and their implementation into the ESP classroom in the context of distance learning

Inesa Baibakova, Oleksandra Hasko

Байбакова Інеса, Гасько Олександра

Метакогнітивні стратегії та їх застосування при вивченні англійської мови фахового спрямування у контексті дистанційного навчання

Стаття присвячена поняттю метапізнання загалом і впровадженню відповідних стратегій у курс англійської мови фахового спрямування зокрема, оскільки ця проблема недостатньо вивчена в такому аспекті і набуває особливого значення в сучасних умовах дистанційного навчання. Проведене дослідження виявилося актуальним з точки зору критичного мислення, метакогнітивного моніторингу і саморегульованого навчання та розвитку належних метакогнітивних навичок у студентів. Наслідком застосування метакогнітивних стратегій є суттєве підвищення ефективності освітнього процесу.

Ключові слова: метапізнання, навчальні стратегії англійської мови фахового спрямування, метакогнітивний моніторинг, саморегульоване навчання, онлайн освіта

The article deals with metacognition as the notion in general and its strategies in particular implemented into the ESP course since online education has revealed the importance of some distance learning aspects, metacognitive strategies being part of them. The latest research and publications analysis prove that in spite of the fact that metacognition has been much researched and implemented into teaching and learning in EFL/ESL classroom concerning a foreign language it has not been deeply considered with regard to ESP. The article is aimed at focusing on metacognition and the corresponding strategies in terms of ESP, metacognitive monitoring, self-regulated studies in the framework of online education. The notion of metacognition being defined as `thinking about one's thinking' and in a wider sense treated as `awareness or analysis of one's own learning or thinking processes' is applied to plan, monitor, and assess one's understanding and performance. It comprises a person's awareness of oneself not only in terms of his/her thinking and learning but also of seeing himself/herself as a thinker and learner. Thus, there exists mutual correlation between students ' success and their metacognitive knowledge: the higher level of metacognition, the better educational outcome and vice versa. Developed metacognitive skills enhance learners' motivational perspective, increase their ability to clearly understand objectives and tasks set enabling them to study and master new material faster due to efficient approaches used and proper strategies applied which is especially important for online learners as it requires considerable control and time management in a limited time frame for the ESP course and mixed grouping. The above mentioned findings have proved to be worth further focusing on being crucial from the point of view of ESP metacognitive strategies for regulating students ' educational process, conducting metacognitive monitoring as well as performing self-regulated learning which is ofparticular importance under current circumstances in the framework of online education.

Key-words: metacognition, ESP learning strategies, metacognitive monitoring, self-regulated studies, online education

Problem under consideration

metacognitive professional english distance

Online education has revealed the importance of some distance learning aspects, metacognitive strategies being one of them.

The latest research and publications analysis: In spite of the fact that metacognition has been much researched (Hasselhorn, Labuhn, 2011: 223-230; Turvey, Crowder, 2017: 67-90; Lehmann, Hahnlein, Ifenthaler, 2014: 313-323; Tsai, 2009: 34-48; Terada, 2017; Teaching and Learning Team, Cambridge International, 2015; McCabe, 2020) and implemented into teaching and learning in EFL/ESL classroom concerning a foreign language it has not been deeply considered with regard to ESP.

The article is aimed at focusing on metacognition and the corresponding strategies in terms of ESP, metacognitive monitoring, self-regulated studies in the framework of online education.

The main body of the article: According to Electronic Merriam-Webster dictionary: metacognition is `awareness or analysis of one's own learning or thinking processes'. The Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University regards metacognition wider as `thinking about one's thinking' and more precisely defines it as a process `used to plan, monitor, and assess one's understanding and performance'(Chick, 2021) since it comprises person's awareness of oneself in terms of both (1) persons' thinking and learning and (2) seeing himself/herself as a thinker and learner.

Professor Linda Baker (University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA) argues that `more-successful students exhibit higher levels of metacognitive knowledge about a given domain and are more skilled at regulating their cognitive processes than less-successful students' (Baker, 2010: 204-210). Dr. Marcus Hasselhorn, PhD, a professor for psychology of education and human development at the Goethe-University Frankfurt/Main, Germany and Dr Andju Sara Labuhn, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Research on Individual Development and Adaptive Education of Children at Risk (IDeA) at the German Institute for International Educational Research (DIPF) in their work `Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning' published in Encyclopedia of Adolescence, 2011 underline that it is `awareness' which constitutes a crucial element of defining metacognition (Hasselhorn, Labuhn, 2011: 223-230). The same point of view is shared by Brent E.Turvey (Forensic Criminology Institute, Sitka, Alaska, United States and Aguascalientes, Mexico) and Stan Crowder (Kennesaw State University, Georgia, GA, United States) who claim, `It is the awareness and then strategic adjustment that pushes someone with flashes of brilliance into a consistently brilliant thinker who can learn, absorb, and apply new material with increasing ease' (Turvey, Crowder, 2017: 67-90). Thomas Lehmann (University of Freiburg, Germany), Inka Hahnlein (University of Passau, Germany) and Dirk Ifenthaler (Deakin University, Australia) highlight cognitive, metacognitive and motivational perspectives on preflection in self-regulated learning in online learning environments (Lehmann, Hahnlein, Ifenthaler, 2014: 313-323) which is of particular importance under current circumstances.

The article `The Model of Strategic e-Learning: Understanding and Evaluating Student eLearning from Metacognitive Perspectives' by Meng-Jung Tsai (Graduate School of Technological and Vocational Education, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology) reads, `students with high metacognitive abilities not only are clearly aware of their learning objectives, but also know effective and efficient approaches to construct knowledge' (Tsai, 2009: 35). According to the author, the `difficulty of detecting the implicit metacognitive skills of individuals may be more significant in e-learning environments due to the cognitive overloading to process online information' (Tsai, 2009: 40).

To illustrate and explain student online learning from metacognitive perspectives the Model of Strategic e-Learning has been suggested by Meng-Jung Tsai (Tsai, 2009). The Strategic eLearning Model offered comprises four characteristics of online learning environments, namely: (1) flexible time and space, (2) indirect social interactions, (3) abundant information resources and (4) dynamic learning interfaces. The model also reflects three domains of e-learning strategies which include the perceived-skill, affection and self-regulation, the latter being especially important for online learners as it requires considerable control over their time schedule.

A limited time frame for the ESP course, mixed grouping and low motivation of students are the reasons to involve the analysis of certain students' coherent cognitive and mental abilities. Thus, the factors relevant to the process of learning a foreign language should include professional impact and previous experience. The teaching approach `how-to-learn' has become one of the major goals of education at tertiary level. This approach directed the focus of research to learning strategies the absence of which was recognised as a critical obstacle to students who start their tertiary education. In the process of learning foreign languages, students can become more confident via becoming aware of the wide range of language learning strategies they can use effectively (Wong, Nunan, 2011).

There are different strategies the teachers can apply to make ESP learning more effective: mnemonics, thinking journal, reciprocal teaching. To promote students' metacognition ESP teachers can implement the following ideas in their ESP classroom (Terada, 2017): identifying one's own learning style and needs; planning for a task; using teaching resources appropriately; arranging a study space and schedule; monitoring mistakes; evaluating task success; setting explicit goals and help ESP students reaching them; managing ESP students to promote their own learning instead of being passive listeners; encouraging a group work in terms of cooperative discussing; trying selfassessment and reflection; applying reciprocal work; discussing the possibility of applying strategies for different tasks (e.g. reading strategies for listening tasks); providing ESP students with the autonomy and trying to urge students to select appropriate resources for answering the questions; encouraging the students to ask you questions and ask themselves (Terada, 2017).

If we train students, let us say, in reflective essay writing then ESP metacognition teaching resource will serve two primary functions: (1) to teach ESP students how to use the metacognitive cycle (planning, monitoring, evaluating and regulating) in relation to essay-writing: developing essay-writing skills; (2) to use essay-writing assignments as a way to develop metacognitive reflection and help students gain metacognitive knowledge and self-regulated learning skills.

The teacher can provide some metacognitive/ self-regulated learning reflection topic options which can be considered by the students in terms of including them into their essays. The topics can be as follows: Building on my strengths and weaknesses in this professional subject or expertise, Effective revision of the terminological system used in the essay, Analysing how my behaviour impacts my learning and my rate of progress, Paying attention in what way my emotions, moods and attitudes impact my learning, What could I do differently in order to maximise learning? How to trigger my learning power? My obstacles to learning and how I plan to overcome them, Factors that influence my ability to learn and remember learning, What approach to learning is most appropriate for me (Teaching and Learning Team, Cambridge International, 2015).

Apart from metacognition and self-regulated learning, the ESP teachers organize their efforts towards enhancing learner autonomy in students: to this end the essay-writing instructions also guide students towards developing their own assessment criteria that they will use to assess their own work. This approach is thoroughly related to the `planning' stage of the metacognitive cycle and helps students to consider the task requirements.

Speaking about metacognitive strategies we would like to mention distance-learning. The pandemic and hence all types of quarantines made the value of self-regulated learning and metacognition towards greater independence in learning clear for all of us. Still, encouraging metacognition in the context of quarantine and distance learning appeared to be more difficult than ever: many metacognitive strategies implemented during the last decades were designed with classroom perspective.

With this in mind, we can trace the different ways by which teachers can promote metacognitive reflection ontheir own focusing on practical tools and specific activities.

Since the situations that unfortunately allow pandemics remain, essentially, unchanged we can predict pandemics to be a recurring problem in the nearest future, theoretically pandemics of 2020 can be repeated every 5-10 years until the undiscovered yet reasons of pandemics are cleared out. So during a lock-down we must keep in mind that concentrating our attention on metacognition, self-regulation, research skills, independent learning and learning autonomy during distance learning would be more beneficial to our students while learning at home. One thing we have all learnt in 2020 is how ill-prepared and badly organized the systems that sustain society were in facing the challenge presented by the pandemic. So focusing on metacognition, selfregulation, research skills, independent learning and learning autonomy is one way we can be better prepared for similar challenges in the future.

J. McCabe writes in her article `Pandemic metacognition: distance learning in a crisis' that in order to be on the safe side while cultivating metacognition in the context of pandemic we should use the following strategies and activities in ESP learning:

1. Make your students use Google Forms: Metacognitive Questionnaires

Consider creating a Google Form that you share with your students: it should look like the form that contains metacognitive reflection questions that refer to each stage of the metacognitive cycle (planning, monitoring, evaluating and regulating learning).

2. Focus on metacognitive question skills

Since much of your teaching will be done via video-conferencing software during a lockdown it's useful to have a range of metacognitive reflection questions to put to students. They should cover different professional contexts that can be useful. In general your reflection questions should refer to:

* Planning, monitoring, evaluating and regulating learning strategies

* Metacognition: the cognitive aspect of the self-regulated learning cycle

* The self-regulation of the conditions that maximise learning (e.g. physiological readiness for learning)

* Task-specific considerations as well as long-term considerations when it comes to selfregulated learning

* Particular attention must be paid to the self-regulation of motivation, engagement, attitudes and emotions due to the specific challenges many students face in a less supervised home-learning environment.

3. Have your students use simple mind-map tasks to express metacognitive reflection

One of the most difficult problems in the context of distance-learning is the lack of student communication that distance-learning software tends to involve. You should ask students to design simple mind-maps that respond to metacognitive questions or tasks on A4 paper so that they can show the other students their ideas via the video-conferencing software you use. Mind-mapping is a powerful study-skill to cultivate in any situation (McCabe, 2020).

Conclusions and further research prospects

The above mentioned findings are worth further focusing on being crucial from the point of view of ESP metacognitive strategies for regulating students' educational process, conducting metacognitive monitoring as well as performing self-regulated learning in the framework of online education.

References

1. Baker, L. (2010). Metacognition. International Encyclopedia of Education, 3rd Edition, Elsevier Ltd., 204-210. doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-044894-7.00484-X

2. Chick, N. (2021). Metacognition. Retrieved from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/metacognition/

3. Hasselhorn, M., Labuhn, A. S. (2011). Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning. Encyclopedia of Adolescence, 223-230. doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-373951-3.00026-0

4. Lehmann, T., Hahnlein, I., Ifenthaler, D. Cognitive, metacognitive and motivational perspectives on preflection in self-regulated online learning. Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 32, March 2014, 313-323. doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.07.051

5. McCabe, J. A. (2020). Pandemic metacognition: distance learning in a crisis. Retrieved January 20, 2021, from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/pandemic-metacognition/

6. Merriam-Webster, Inc. (2021). Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metacognition

7. Teaching and Learning Team, Cambridge International. Metacognition. Educational brief. (2015) Retrieved January 18, 2021, from http://www.cambridgeinternational.org/images/272307-metacognition.pdf

8. Terada, Y. (2017). How Metacognition Boosts Learning. Retrieved January 18, 2021, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-metacognition-boosts-learning.

9. Tsai, M.-J. (2009). The Model of Strategic e-Learning: Understanding and Evaluating Student e-Learning from Metacognitive Perspectives. Educational Technology & Society, 12 (1), 34-48. Retrieved January 20, 2021, from https://www.learntechlib.Org/p/75186/

10. Turvey, B. E., Crowder, S. (2017). Investigators and the Scientific Method. Forensic Investigations, 67-90. doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-800680-1.00004-3

11. Wong, L. L. C., Nunan, D. (2011) The learning styles and strategies of effective language learner. System, 39 (2), 144-163. doi:10.1016/j.system.2011.05.004.

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