“Ja Frau, but how do I say martial arts?”
Benjamin knows the names of 15 other sports and free time activities in German. He can spell them; he can read them from a page; he can pronounce them accurately and he can recognise them in a text, answering comprehension questions correctly and scoring highly.
And yet, when it comes to producing his own written work, or developing his conversational fluency in classroom activities, he stops to ask me about a random item of vocabulary before he has even started with the task.
How do we overcome this barrier in our classrooms, without frustrating our pupils and dampening their desire to achieve more? It’s a difficult balance but one that teaching metacognitive strategies can go some way to solving.
Although Benjamin’s question is completely valid, while he is busy asking it, he is not practising the skill he is supposed to be practising at that time: developing question and answer strategies and fluency in his foreign language.
This is a pupil who needs help in self-regulation: putting strategies in place so that he can get started, rather than stalling by asking unnecessary questions.
Benjamin needs to be supported to productively struggle.
What is self-regulation?
Put simply, self-regulated learners are aware of their strengths and weaknesses and the strategies that they can employ for learning.
In our modern foreign languages scenario here, Benjamin seems to have an awareness of the task requirements, as he is seeking some key vocabulary he wants to use. But he is slow to start; he stares into space, unable to form his first sentence.
What he has missed is that there is an easier way to complete the task successfully, using words and phrases he is already familiar with and competent using, without having to seek new vocabulary out, and calling on the support of his teacher.
So, how can we help Benjamin to work this out for himself?
Recommendation 2 of the Education Endowment Foundation’s Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning Guidance Report reminds us that not all students will automatically develop metacognitive strategies, such as planning, monitoring and evaluating their own learning, and suggests a ”seven-step model” for explicitly teaching these strategies.
The seven steps are:
- Activating prior knowledge: I ask pupils a series of questions about what they have learned previously that is relevant to today’s learning.
- Explicit strategy instruction: I talk to pupils about how they will complete the task and take them through each step, as well as discuss possible strategies and how to manage their emotions.
- Modelling of learned strategy: I verbalise my thought processes to pupils about the task, my choice of strategy and how I am managing my emotions.
- Memorisation of learned strategy: I check to see what pupils have understood and that they can remember the key aspects that have been taught.
- Guided practice: Multiple opportunities are provided for pupils to practise and support is gradually removed as pupils take on more responsibility.
- Independent practice: Pupils then complete the task by themselves without support.
- Structured reflection: Pupils consider any changes they think they should make next time, whether the strategies they chose were effective and how their emotions affected their behaviour.
All of these steps are important, but if I overlook the modelling stage, I risk students having to make a mighty leap from being set a task to completing it, without signposting them to the best way how.
Through modelling the strategies that I would myself employ to complete the speaking task successfully - such as having exercise books open on pages of helpful vocabulary or recycling language from the question in my answer and, in turn, asking the same question back of my partner to sustain the conversation - I am teaching my pupils strategies to approach the task.
So, the next time Benjamin asks me for an unfamiliar word or phrase in German, I’ll give him a gentle nudge to self-regulate: “Do you really need that word, Benjamin? Are there some other sports you could substitute instead so that you can keep your conversation going? I think there might be, have a look on page 7…”
By focusing on metacognition and self-regulated learning, we offer pupils like Benjamin productive strategies to see them through their struggles.
Sadie Thompson is a head of German and deputy director of HISP Research School
