ACADEMIC REPORT: Identifying Metacognitive and Socio-Affective

Strategies

Universidad del Atlántico

Práctica pedagógica
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MERGEFOR
1 IDENTIFYING METACOGNITIVE AND SOCIO-AFFECTIVE STRATEGIES IV

2 WHAT ARE METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES? 1

3 WHAT ARE SOCIO-AFFECTIVE STRATEGIES? 1

4 WHAT IS THE SCHEME OF METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES? 1

4.1 Advance Organizers.......................................................................................................................... 1

4.2 Directed Attention............................................................................................................................ 1

4.3 Selective Attention........................................................................................................................... 2

4.4 Self-Management............................................................................................................................. 2

4.5 Functional Planning.......................................................................................................................... 2

4.6 Self-Monitoring................................................................................................................................ 2

4.7 Delayed Production.......................................................................................................................... 2

4.8 Self-Evaluation................................................................................................................................. 2

5 WHAT IS THE SCHEME OF SOCIO-AFFECTIVE STRATEGIES? 2

5.1 Social Strategies............................................................................................................................... 2

5.1.1 Asking Questions..................................................................................................................................2
5.1.2 Cooperating With Others.....................................................................................................................3
5.1.3 Empathizing With Others.....................................................................................................................3

5.2 Affective Strategies........................................................................................................................... 3

5.2.1 Lowering Your Anxiety.........................................................................................................................3
5.2.2 Encouraging Yourself............................................................................................................................3
5.2.3 Taking Your Emotional Temperature...................................................................................................3

6 REPORT ON METACOGNITIVE AND SOCIO-AFFECTIVE STRATEGIES 4

6.1 Metacognitive Strategies.................................................................................................................. 4

6.1.1 Advanced Organizers...........................................................................................................................4
6.1.2 Selective Attention...............................................................................................................................4
6.1.3 Self-Management.................................................................................................................................4

6.2 Socio-Affective Strategies................................................................................................................. 5

6.2.1 Social Strategies...................................................................................................................................5
6.2.2 Affective Strategies..............................................................................................................................6
7 CONCLUSION 7PAGE \*
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8 BIBLIOGRAPHY 8
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1 IDENTIFYING METACOGNITIVE AND SOCIO-AFFECTIVE STRATEGIES MERGEFOR

Throughout this written report, I will demonstrate important items, such as the

concept of metacognitive and socio-affective strategies, their structure, and the concerning

review of the observations. Thus, I will describe the scheme of such strategies proposed by

O’Malley et al. (1985) and Oxford, (1990). And finally, I will review the information and

data collected from my practicum observations and demonstrate the specific moments and

situations in which students and the teacher make use of the metacognitive and socio-

affective strategies.
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2 WHAT ARE METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES?

Metacognitive strategies are one type of learning strategy that learners utilize to

reflect on their own learning process and then acquire knowledge more successfully. These

strategies refer to methods used to help students understand the way they learn. In other

words, it means processes designed for students to think about their thinking. According to

O’Malley et al. (1985) describe them as skills of how to reflect on one’s own learning

process.

3 WHAT ARE SOCIO-AFFECTIVE STRATEGIES?

Socio-affective strategies that help learners regulate and control emotions,

motivations, attitudes toward learning, as well as help learners learn through contact and

interaction with others. According to Oxford (1990) learners use socio-affective strategies

when interacting with other people and normally they include strategies that seek support and

cooperation.

4 WHAT IS THE SCHEME OF METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES?

The following are the metacognitive strategies identified by O’Malley et al. (1985)

4.1 Advance Organizers

Making a general or comprehensive review of the organizing concept or principle in

an anticipated learning activity.

4.2 Directed Attention

Deciding in advance to deal with a general learning task and to ignore irrelevant

distractors.
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4.3 Selective Attention

Deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of language input or situational

details that will cue the retention of language input.

4.4 Self-Management

Understanding the conditions that help one learn and arranging for the presence of

those conditions.

4.5 Functional Planning

Planning for and rehearsing linguistic components necessary to carry out an upcoming

language task.

4.6 Self-Monitoring

Correcting one’s speech for correct output in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, or

for appropriateness related to the setting or to the people who are present.

4.7 Delayed Production

Consciously deciding to postpone speaking to learn initially through listening

comprehension.

4.8 Self-Evaluation

Checking the outcome of one’s own language learning against an internal measure of

completeness and accuracy.

5 WHAT IS THE SCHEME OF SOCIO-AFFECTIVE STRATEGIES?

The following are the socio-affective strategies identified by Oxford (1990).

5.1 Social Strategies

5.1.1 Asking Questions

● Asking for clarification or verification.

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● Asking for corrections.

5.1.2 Cooperating With Others

● Cooperating with peers.

● Cooperating with proficient users of the new language.

5.1.3 Empathizing With Others

● Developing cultural understanding.

● Becoming aware of others’ thoughts and feelings.

5.2 Affective Strategies

5.2.1 Lowering Your Anxiety

● Using progressive relaxation, deep breathing, or meditation.

● Using music.

● Using laughter.

5.2.2 Encouraging Yourself

● Making positive statements.

● Taking risks wisely.

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● Rewarding yourself.

5.2.3 Taking Your Emotional Temperature

● Listening to your body.

● Using a checklist.

● Writing a language learning diary.

● Discussing your feelings with someone else.

6 REPORT ON METACOGNITIVE AND SOCIO-AFFECTIVE STRATEGIES

My written report is based on the observations of the English class for social science

undergraduate students at a public university.

6.1 Metacognitive Strategies

On the side of the metacognitive strategies, I identified the following:

6.1.1 Advanced Organizers

I was able to observe that the teacher encouraged the use of the advance organizer’s

strategy. Since the topic of the class was countable and uncountable nouns. The teacher first

made a brief introduction before merely explaining the topic and proposing a learning

activity, and with such introduction the teacher related the students' prior knowledge along

with the new topic to help them link the topic and enhance the connections within the new

knowledge. As an example, the teacher linked the food vocabulary that the students

previously knew, with the new topic to classify and quantify the nouns in that vocabulary.
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6.1.2 Selective Attention

Now I am going to provide an example of the use of selective attention strategy, the

teacher for that class had prepared an audio, but instead of explaining the listening activity

directly and then playing the audio, the teacher instructed the students to pay specific

attention only to keywords, instead of understanding every word or expression they hear. In

this way, focusing on specific aspects of the language input would help student’s retention

and comprehension of the audio to a greater extent.

6.1.3 Self-Management

In regard to the strategy of self-management, although each one of the students has

different conditions to facilitate learning, I could notice that the teacher is the one who

encourages the use of the strategy of self-management. The teacher showed me the type of

scheme he uses to create a plan for the class. It is based on the syllabus and includes defined

objectives and goals to take into consideration during the realization of the class. In the same

way, he provides the learning material to the students and synthesizes the concepts or

complex information into simpler insights that are understandable to students.

6.2 Socio-Affective Strategies

On the socio-affective strategies’ side, I identified the following:

6.2.1 Social Strategies

In the case of social strategies:

6.2.1.1 Asking Questions.

I noticed that the students in the classes when doing grammar exercises, they ask questions to

the teacher, they ask if what they are doing is correct. They also look for clarification in

different concepts that they may have doubts about. As an example, in the class of countable

and uncountable nouns students asked the specific category of a noun and the reason. Since
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many nuances of this English topic are different from the concepts in Spanish. That could

explain why students are inquisitive about this topic. Therefore, students make use of the

social strategy of asking questions, asking for clarification or verification and correction.

6.2.1.2 Cooperating With Others.

Two-thirds of the time the teacher proposes group activities. In these activities students can

construct knowledge by discussing within each other the key concepts. Also, I noticed that

they helped each other to complete the exercises. As an example, the teacher instructed them

to work in pairs and categorize the nouns into either countable or uncountable. Therefore, I

consider this as a social strategy, cooperating with peers.

6.2.2 Affective Strategies

In the case of affective strategies:

6.2.2.1 Lowering Your Anxiety.

The teacher creates a good classroom environment by maintaining a good sense of humor and

politeness. Moreover, in my observations I noticed that many students laughed at jokes made

by the teacher and even gags they told each other when working in groups. This with the

intention of breaking the monotony and making the class more dynamic. Resulting in

students paying more attention than usual. Therefore, I consider this effective strategy,

lowering your anxiety, using laughter.

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7 CONCLUSION

To conclude, while one can observe students making use of metacognitive strategies

for reflection on their own learning process and then achieving better academic performance,

teachers can impact students’ learning process by teaching them how to use these strategies

so that they acquire new knowledge more adequately and in a more meaningful way.

Additionally, the use of socio-affective strategies helps dealing with emotional and socio-

cultural challenges that students encounter in their learning process. Through the realization

of this report, I can identify how teachers can positively impact the students’ academic

performance. Thus, using metacognitive and socio-affective strategies can increase the

efficiency and confidence with which the learner understands his learning process, as well as

his/her ability to develop a product, learn essential information, or perform a skill. While

teaching learning strategies requires high commitment from both the teacher and the learner,

the results are worthwhile.

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8 REFERENCES

O'Malley, J. M., Chamot, A. U., Stewner-Manzanares, G., Russo , R. P., & Küpper, L.
(1985). Learning Strategy Applications with Students of English as a Second
Language. TESOL Quarterly, 19(3), 557-584.
Oxford, R. (1990). Language Learning Strategies. What Every Teacher Should Know.