Dear FLE 324 members,
If you like you can also choose to comment on the article on metacognitive listening instruction for young learners. Please take into consideration the following points:
To what extent do you think the metacognitive instruction framework suggested in the article applicable and useful in teaching Turkish young learners EFL listening skills? Do you think it can be applied to adult learners as well? If so, how? What do you think of the success rate with adult learners? What are some of the challenges waiting for the EFL teachers in Turkey in implementing this kind of instruction?
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Metacognitive instruction in listening for young learners
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I think that their study seems so successful. While reading it I remembered my own learning listening experiences which were disaster. I went to a prep school in high school and my second language was German. I remembered that when we saw teacher with the tape recorder in hand we all felt so bad, because we were afraid of listening passages. I always had a tendency to avoid from listening passages that was because I did not understand. Nobody asked us our opinions about listening. So in that sense I really like the approach in the article. It is the best idea ever to make learners become aware of their own learning strategies by making them write reflections about their feelings.
I do not think that Turkish learners are not able to learn with that kind of instruction. Since they do not have much experience it does not make any difference. What I am trying to say is that metacognitive instruction would be helpful for Turkish young learners as well. Maybe more than it did to those in the article. I think in Turkey in EFL classrooms the most serious problems are observed in listening and speaking skills. So I believe that a similar approach can be applied in Turkey. After each listening passage they can be asked how they feel about the listening passage, the difficulties they have encountered and what they think about how they can come up with a solution to that problem etc. So I think the same with the author in that because they are young learners, they need some explicit guidance from their teachers as well. For them to find all the strategies and difficulties by themselves is not an easy task. I think the same thing is valid in Turkey as well. Teacher can present them some techniques to deal with the difficulties. Individual retrospection and processed based discussions are good strategies to teach them some ways.
I think the same approach can be applied to adult learners as well but there might be some problems in the processed based discussions part. Since they are adults they all have different backgrounds in terms of everything. They will not be the same with the children. Adults are shyer and they do not share everything because of their shyness. This might be a disadvantage but there may be also an advantage of the same approach. As you grow older you experience more and you have an accumulation of information already how to deal with some difficulties in life. An adult is good at improving some dealing strategies against something. In that sense teacher’s help can be excluded from the approach and because they are adults, there will be more strategies more coping techniques than young learners’. How can we apply this with adults? The beginning will be the same. After some listening sessions adults might be asked about some difficulties they faced with while listening and trying to answer the questions than they might be asked reflect on those problems and try to come up with solutions of dealing etc. Actually the process would be the same. I believe that the success rate would be high because adults like finding solutions and creating their own way of dealing with problems. It won’t be a problem I think.
Again in Turkey because all EFL classrooms are to crowded the first difficulty for teacher will be the scarcity of time and some classroom management problems maybe because we like talking together. There would be a chaotic environment during discussion sessions. Apart from those I cannot find any other difficulties. On the contrary, all the steps are for their raising awareness of their own learning and help them develop some strategies for themselves.
Listening can be a hard skill to improve especially for young learners. Young learners may not reach the necessary level of cognitive skill for understanding what has been said, they are unable to process information quickly enough to make sense of what is said. Listening is a receptive skill. Students are generally passive in learning listening and this is boring especially for young learners. However; teachers can try to increase their participation to learning listening and their awareness in learning with meta cognitive approaches. Teacher can ask students write reflections or speak about the audio they have listened. I think meta cognitive instruction in listening for young learners can be also very beneficial in teaching listening to Turkish young learners. Unfortunately, listening instruction is very poor for young learners in Turkey. The first time I had listened an audio and activities related to this was when I was at high school. This can be very late for improving listening ability. Such an approach can be very helpful in Turkey for young learners. Feelings and experiences about the audio can be discussed as an post listening activity in language classes. Especially young learners can freely talk about their feelings about listening. They can talk about the factors which influence their listening. They can analyze some problems about listening and improve some strategies to cope with these problems with the help of their teachers.
ReplyDeleteI think meta cognitive instruction in listening can also be very helpful with adults who are learning English. The success rate can be high enough to improve the listening skills with adult learners. However; I think this method is more beneficial with young learners. Young learners are more in need of such an instruction because, they may not realize the factors which influence their listening. Adult learners generally have this awareness unlike young learners. Adult learners can have problems when talking about their feelings and factors which influence their listening.
English Language teachers can have some challenges while applying this approach in Turkey. Especially in young learners’ instruction there is nearly no place for listening in Turkey in most of the school. In most of the schools teachers do not have the necessary equipments. In Turkey most of the teachers use the grammar translation method. Because of the grammar subjects they have to deal with and different kinds of examinations. Teachers tend to teach grammar in such a short time which is allocated for teaching English. However; it is not impossible to apply this method. For example; we observed a young learners’ classroom in METU collage. They have necessary equipment and time for teaching listening. Students were motivated for learning listening.
Metacognition can be seen as one of the latest “buzz” words in language teaching; at least it is like that for most of us. It may sound intimidating in the very first encounter due to its length or abstract nature. However, when we look at its definition we see that it is not that daunting. As it is stated in the article, metacognition is one’s knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive processes and products. It also includes active monitoring and consequent regulation of these processes. I believe that metacognition plays a critical role in successful language learning. It enables learners to become more aware of themselves and select appropriate strategies for improving their performance, most probably leading to success in the end.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to listening, I can easily say that it is one of the most anxiety provoking skills among learners; because in listening tests, learners don’t have the control over what they are listening to. They cannot control the pace of the listening text, they cannot stop the speaker and want him/her to repeat or paraphrase what s/he has said. These are all important factors which evoke negative fears towards listening. While we are listening to something, we go through many stages. We have to be aware of phonological features of fast speech such as reduced forms, assimilation and elision. We have to be careful about phonetic and phonological cues. When the topic is unfamiliar, it becomes more and more difficult for us to comprehend what is being said. We cannot expect very young learners whose cognitive abilities are still in process of development to be aware of all these factors.
The metacognitive instruction framework for young learners in developing listening skills suggested in the article is a useful one but I have some doubts about the validity of the research. I liked how they approached the issue but the number of the participants is so small that it makes me question the results.
When I consider my own experiences as a language learner, I can say that this very same approach can be applied in Turkey; however I’m sure that the results will change. Because the study was carried out in a second language context, that means the participants also encounter the target language outside of the classroom. In Turkey, learners don’t have a chance like that. It is wrong to say that it does not matter whether the learners are adults or children: it really matters. In my opinion this metacognitive approach is more effective and useful for adult learners whose cognitive abilities have been already completed. The adults are more aware of what they are doing and it is highly probable that the reflections they give tend to be more dependable than the reflections given by young learners.
First of all, I want to say that i liked the study too much because before reading it I had a very limited knowledge on metacognitive learning, and did not exactly know how I can apply this in my own classroom when I start teaching.
ReplyDeleteListening for me is the most important skill in learning a language just like reading. Because only just listening and reading can students, receive input and use it in their production-based skills such as writing and speaking.
Listening is a very demanding activity for learners in general (including me). No matter how much people tell and write things like “yes we should choose passages that would be interesting for students, activate their schemata…,etc.” These things are not possible all the time so we should help the students to improve strategies to monitor and evaluate their own learning and cope with the stress and boredom that sometimes come as a bonus in listening classes. The teacher also should encourage the learners to take part actively in their own learning and enable them to select appropriate strategies for improving their own performance. The activities that I liked most while reading the article are the teacher’s modeling what she thinks and asking students write reflection reports just after the listening is over.
Field’s ideas suggesting the use of bottom-up approach while listening are also interesting. He argues that we should train the learners to develop sensitivity in perceiving acoustic signals especially in fast speech. By doing that we can spot the problems related to perception and comprehension that we can’t see while using a top-down approach.
In the study that is conducted on improving young learner’s metacognitive understanding, the three stages that is included in the lessons were really nice. Especially the teacher directed discussion part that is suggesting the reading self-reports by each individual student seems crucial for this issue. By doing that we can both have first hand concrete knowledge coming from the students themselves, and the reading aloud of reflections can also serve students’ learning from each other. We can even improve collaboration by forming groups of students and asking them to help each other coping with their problems while listening.
In this study after learning some strategies, the students improved both self-confidence and strategy knowledge. Their aim before was just finding the correct option for the questions but later they developed a wider range of strategies like taking noted on repeated items, inferencing, overcoming boredom and motivating themselves by engaging in positive self talk. It also reduced the anxiety and increased the motivation.
This improving metacognitive knowledge of learners can be used in adult learners more effectively than the youngsters. Because in the article it was stated that the pupils’ suggestions on the effectiveness of a strategy included just “one” thought related either to the strategy or not exactly related to it. As adult learners have a broader sense of self, they can manage and evaluate their own learning more successfully than the little ones. They can engage in critical thinking and develop ideas on a strategy that are more original and greater in number. The only problem that I can think of with adult learners is that they may not want to share self-knowledge, which they think of as being private, with others.
As for the application of this kind of teaching listening in Turkey the biggest problems are crowded classes, inadequate time, and parents who are natural experts on all the things and telling the teachers to have more traditional approaches. If all these problems are eliminated, the instructions based on developing students’metacognitive knowledge would have a great success.
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ReplyDeleteIn simple terms, metacognition is thinking about thinking. It can also be described as “learning how to learn” in broad terms In terms of cognitive psychology it can be defined like that one's knowledge concerning one's own cognitive processes and products or anything related to them. Active monitoring, consequent regulation and orchestration of these processes to achieve a goal also seem to be the necessary components of metacognition (Flavell, 1976 cited in Goh, 2008). In link with this definition, metacognitive development can be described as conscious development in
ReplyDeleteone’s metacognitive abilities, such as the move to greater knowledge, awareness and control of one’s learning, selecting strategies, monitoring the progress of learning, correcting errors, analyzing the effectiveness of learning strategies, and changing learning behaviors and strategies when necessary (Ridley et al., 1992). Looking back over the years, we can see how the emphases on teaching listening and the focus of listening instruction have changed. Although instructional practices were initially heavily influenced by models of the written language and a behaviorist approach, the focus has since moved to developing listening as a skill needed for constructing and communicating meaning. More recently, discussions about listening instruction have emphasized the role of strategy training and learner metacognition in facilitating comprehension. Goh’s study focuses on the listening process. Although the number of the participants is not enough for generalizations, the results are quite satisfying and creates new vantage point in ESL and EFL education. The successful part of the study is its combining traditional exercises with new techniques, which are individual post-listening reflections on their listening experience and teacher-facilitated discussions that focused on specific aspects of metacognitive knowledge about listening. I think, it is good to note that students’ opinions and approaches toward listening have changed after just eight lessons. They have created their own listening strategies and understood what they are required to do. They have started to approach listening in confidence and so they enjoyed the lessons, which were may be a nightmare for them before. It was also stated in Anderson’s (2002) study: The use of metacognitive strategies activates one's thinking and leads to improved performance in learning in general. According to Wenden (1998), Learners who have metacognitive abilities seem to have the following advantages over others who are not aware of the role metacognition plays in learning another language:
1. They are more strategic learners.
ReplyDelete2. Their rate of progress in learning as well as the quality and speed of their cognitive engagement is faster.
3. They are confident in their abilities to learn.s
4. They do not hesitate to obtain help from peers, teachers, or family when needed.
5. They provide accurate assessments of why they are successful learners.
6. They think clearly about inaccuracies when failure occurs during an activity.
7. Their tactics match the learning task and adjustments are made to reflect changing circumstances.
8. They perceive themselves as continual learners and can successfully cope with new situations
In addition to other studies, Thompson and Rubin (1996) worked on the influence of metacognitive and cognitive strategy instruction on the listening comprehension performance of American university students learning Russian. The listening scores of the experiment group receiving systematic training in listening strategies were compared to the scores of a similar group who received no instruction over a two-year period. Pre- and post-tests showed that the students who received strategy instruction in listening to video-recorded texts improved significantly over those who had received no instruction at the end of two years.
By looking at the all these results and the others I can say that I will use metacognitive instruction while teaching listening skills. Since I remember how I got bored during listening sessions in high school, I do not want to put my own students into such a situation. I believe that the same metacognitive instruction can be applied in Turkey as well. No matter what level of the students or working conditions of the school, it can be applied. Because, the only thing we need here is devotion. If a teacher is successful and hardworking enough, he or she can manage her classroom in such a way that students can benefit from the lessons all the time without getting bored. The same things are valid for adult classes. What we should know is that our students are also human beings and they need to know what they are learning and they should have a say in what and how they should learn.
Dilara Arpacı 1619832
Burcu Deryan
ReplyDelete1619980
Metacognitive instruction in listening for young learners
Christine Goh and Yusnita Taib
Listening activity usually makes the students nervous since we have to match the sound with its meaning quickly and this is difficult for especially the beginner and elementary level learners. At this point teachers should try to give students active roles in their own listening development. Teachers can also guide the learners in discovering basic aspects of the listening process. This teaching method which elicits and develops learners’ knowledge about the listening process explicitly is called as “metacognitive instruction” in the article.
According to Mendelsohn metacognitive instruction in listening for language learners takes different forms. One common approach is a sequence of activities that encourages planning, monitoring, and evaluating strategies used for the selected listening text. Chamot has suggested a procedure where teachers model how they themselves use strategies when listening to a tape or watching a video with new information. Before listening, the teacher thinks aloud about what he or she already knows about the topic and what words one might expect to hear. After listening to a short segment of the text, the teacher thinks aloud again, describing the mental processes involved during listening, commenting also on whether the predictions have been confirmed or rejected. Finally, the teacher evaluates his or her use of strategies for the particular text. I think it will be useful for both adult and young learners. Moreover, information gathered from the listening text should not be enough for the learners, and instead, they should be encouraged to experience deep thinking process during the listening activity.
When I read the article, I understood that metacognitive listening activity is quite beneficial for the learners since they explore their own learning ways, so their affective filter will decrease and they develop self-confidence toward learning the foreign language. Thus, teachers should certainly encourage students’ metacognitive awareness by asking learners to reflect and discuss the thought process that they engage in during listening activities. According to the study in the article young learners can benefit from the metacognitive instruction as much as adult learners, but young learners’ knowledge is more limited and needs to be developed as compared to the adult ones. Therefore it can be accomplished through introspection and process-based discussion as well as explicit teaching of strategies as the study in the article showed. Of course, the young learners need more guidance from teachers in mediating their perceptions about strategies and task demand. I find this teaching method relatively useful and effective in listening tasks which are rather stressful and burden for the learners. In my opninion although it is a little difficult to apply it in young learners’ class Metacognitive instruction can be still applicable and worth applying in both adult and young learners’ classrooms.
I am happy to learn that there is a study about such an important and problematic language area as listening. However I have some doubts about the results of the study. Also I am not really persuaded by this study, because it is a very limited one in terms of students’ number. I have some other reasons for not supporting this study. First of all I don’t support the idea that metacognitive instruction ca be really successful with young leaners. When I consider the cognitive development of a young learner, I think it is not a good idea to expect them to monitor their own cognitive processes and regulate them continually. I claim this because of my past experiences on learning listening. For the first time that I listened to sth in English, I was in high school. I had great difficulties with all my classmates in listening and if somebody had conducted a study like this on us, we wouldn’t have shown the any progress at all. Although I was fifteen then, I couldn’t understand where the problem was. Therefore, I don’t think that young learners can do the things that 15-year-old students couldn’t do. I mean, young learners may not succeed in using those strategies or may not explain the ones that they use because they do it “unconsciously”. Another important point is that, the cultural norms of the country are also significant in the applicability of this approach. I mean, for introverted and shy students metacognitive instruction doesn’t work, but it may be a good technique for extroverted students. In some parts of Turkey, the student profile mostly consists of shy students, so this technique may not work in those parts of Turkey. Besides, applying this new approach requires a lot of effort on the part of the teacher. Since the teachers in Turkey are used to teaching with old, traditional and easy- to-apply methods, the metacognitive instruction may be a bit challenging for them and most probably they won’t bother with applying this new method. Another problem is the overcrowded classes in Turkey. They will make the implementation of this method impossible even for the most enthusiastic and hardworking teachers.
ReplyDeleteAs I stated before, I don’t think that metacognitive instruction is very useful for young learners, but it may be more useful and easy to implement for adult learners. Adults can easily reflect on their experiences and monitor their strengths and weaknesses which will help them get the highest benefit from metacognitive instruction in listening.
Metacognitive instruction can be applied to young learners with some changes such as firstly teaching them some strategies to evaluate and manage their own learning instead of asking them to tell the strategies that they use during listening. Without teaching some useful strategies, the metacognition won’t work I think. I also think that the students’ knowing what kind of strategies they use while listening may not be of any use to them. Therefore, the first stage of the study seems unnecessary to me. In the first stage, they can learn some useful strategies and try to apply them in the best way they can do to improve their listening skills. Otherwise, only understanding what they do and how they process information during a listening activity doesn’t help them gain anything, I think. It may be more applicable to adults because they are more aware of their cognitive states when compared to young learners. Again, firstly giving some education on strategies that can be used and then trying to see the increase in their listening comprehension abilities will be a better strategy also for adults, I think.
Listening skillis one of the recent issiued skills in learning a language. It is one of most important focus in teaching a language. The Communicative Language Teaching method has a great influence on this I think.
ReplyDeleteWhen we talk about listening, we need to differentiate the written and spoken version of the language. Listening is also more authentic part of the language rather than writing, in my opinion. However; listening skill does not enough or efficient enough all alone itself. Learners still need to show that they understand what they hear. For young learners, TPR is one of the most appropriate ways of measuring it.
How can we supply listening to our learners? This is one of the questions that needs asking. When we look at the past, we see that instructors' ways of doing it are basically by reading texts aloud. Then it moves to face-toface learner talk and then authentic materials and expert speakers in our present time. These are all available for learners. In addition to materials that are supplied effectively, there are also stages in listening process to activate learners' cognitive skills and involve them metacognitively. This is are really easy for young learners because they meet a new language and they are more ready than adults to activate themselves in a broad variety of intelligence types thanks to their age and not being accustomed to use a single or sticked intelligence or skill to learn a language or use it. one of these stages in listening is pre-listening stage. In this stage learners schemata is activated with the activities to use their long term memories. thet use their prior knowledge to understand and comprehend the meaning. during the listening acitvities make learners focus their attention on the listening so that they can more easily recognize the sound. When we focus on product of listening we see that all the listening activities become a test for learners' listening abilitiy.
With these stages learners get awareness of thinking and learning in my opinion. This is what metacognition basically refers to. Metacognition does also help us to have the ability of what to think, how to think and why to think in a particular way. An example of this in L2 listening is when a learner is struggling with a word recognition problem and suddenly remembers a similar problem that he or she managed to solve in another listening event.
Some researchers also refer to metacognition as "seventh sense"
L2 young learners are the beginers of the listening learning and their first focus is drawn to what the teacher speaks. The teacher is the first model as a listening activity. They all the time listen to their teacher and try to comprehend what she or he means. They first attentionally devote themselves and then it becomes an automotization for them as we all have experienced in our first language acqusition. through metacognitive approach we can incrase young learners' approach for listening tasks and learning to listen. If they aware of what they do they can monitor themselves and evaluate much better. they can use them in their communication skills. they can personally be aware of where they can use this listening skill, they can be aware of their task that they are doing and finally they strategically be aware of how to handle and be more effective in listening.
as my final words, L2 listening skill with a metacognitive technique is applicaple for Turkish students as well. and yes, it can also be used for adults. It may be easy for adults to make them aware of their cognitive skills use. However, when I think about myself too, I believe that every adult has a fixed method for himself or herself in some extend. Although they are made aware of thinking metacognitively, they tend to use their own ways. But, young learners may be get accostomed to think metacognitively more efficiently than adults. I believe that if their awareness is awakened unconciously, it becomes "their own style". "Ağaç yaşken eğilir" in my opinion :)
Metacognitive Instruction in Listening for Young Learners
ReplyDeleteThe article of Christine Goh and Yusnita Taib, Metacognitive instruction in listening for young learners, the importance and rising of awareness in listening in EFL context is the main theme.
Listening is a receptive activity, and most of the time, it is difficult for EFL learners to understand what is being said and at the same time to find the right answer for the question. Moreover, in order not to catch any part of the speech or not to misunderstand it, learners have to concentrate no matter how the environment is. Therefore, listening activities can be terrifying and stressful for those who do not have any idea how to deal with it, how to develop strategies for listening comprehension according to question types.
‘Metacognitive Instruction’ in listening is a good way which helps the learner to develop strategies according to his/her own cognitive process. Before commenting on the article, it is good to explain what the Metacognition is: ‘Metacognition is one’s knowledge based his/her own cognitive process.’ Metacognitive instruction in listening claims that by realizing our own knowledge, understanding task requirements and developing strategies and approaches, we can manage to improve our performance in listening activities.
In this study, 10 young learners are taught metacognitive strategies in listening. Learners’ own autonomy and awareness were tried to be increased. At the end of the term, its effects on their performance in the listening tests were investigated. According to the article, it was effective especially for the ones, who were weaker before the metacognitive instruction.
After I read this article, I really liked the idea of metacognitive instruction, and I wished that I had been raised such kind of awareness in my early education. I know the cognitive development of young learners is not as developed as adult learners; however, they have such kind of development, and it worked according to the study. In Turkey, learners start to learn English at the age of 10 at state schools; however, the quality of education is still under discussion. Until now, I have rarely encountered a good listening lesson, which is applied contextually and authentically. Therefore, I think that the quality of listening education, of speaking as well, first must be improved as in private schools, and then we can apply metacognitive instruction in young learners education. I know some very good private schools that start teaching English as a foreign language at primary school level with the help of authentic materials and native speakers. Therefore, state school teachers may have difficulty in finding support.
I think that Metacognitive Instruction can be applied adult learners, and they can easily adopt the strategies and develop their own strategies, since their cognition is much more developed than young learners. Moreover, they can control their concentration and ignore the distractors if they want. So, when they understand the rationale behind the metacognitive theory, they can implement their own strategies after they raised their awareness. As a result, they can be much more successful if it is compared to young learners.
In conclusion, I think that Metacognitive Instruction is beneficial for both the young and adult learners if it is applied according to their cognitive processes. However, there are some challenges in Turkey due to the lack of conscious and support in state schools. So, teachers may have difficulty in teaching based on this approach because of deficiency in materials.
This article outlines a small-scale study of metacognitive instruction for young second language listeners and discusses the value of lessons that highlight the listening process. Listening is a receptive activity, and most of the time, it is difficult for EFL learners to understand what is being said and at the same time to find the right answer for the question. Listening can be a hard skill to improve especially for young learners. Moreover, in order not to miss any part of the speech or not to misunderstand it.
ReplyDeleteTeachers can try to increase their participation to learning listening and their awareness in learning with meta cognitive approaches. Teacher can ask students write reflections or speak about the audio they have listened. I think meta cognitive instruction in listening for young learners can be also very beneficial in teaching listening to Turkish young learners. Unfortunately, listening instruction is very poor for young learners in Turkey.
English Language teachers can have some challenges while applying this approach in Turkey. Especially in young learners’ instruction there is nearly no place for listening in Turkey in most of the school. In most of the schools teachers do not have the necessary equipments. In Turkey most of the teachers use the grammar translation method. Because of the grammar subjects they have to deal with and different kinds of examinations. Teachers tend to teach grammar in such a short time which is allocated for teaching English. However; it is not impossible to apply this method. Despite these disadvantages in Turkey, in my opinion, Metacognitive Instruction is beneficial for both the young and adult learners if it is applied according to their cognitive processes.
Listening is among the most challenging part for language learner. It requires full attention and pronunciation skills in order to be performed. A student may be competent in grammar and vocabulary but this doesn’t mean his or her being competent in listening since it is different and related to the pronunciations of the words and the flow of the listening audio. Many of the students find listening difficult and challenging.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I think it is important to know the word, metacognition to explain metacognitive instruction. Flavel describes metacognition as: “one’s knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive processes and products or anything related to them . . . active monitoring and consequent regulation and orchestration of these processes in relation to the cognitive objects or data on which they bear, usually in the service of some concrete goal or objective.” As Flavel mentions metacognition is simply letting the students evaluate themselves and develop strategies in language learning considering their cognitive skills. Thus, in my opinion, metacognitive instruction in listening is a good way as proven by the research given by the article in which 10 young learners were taught metacognitive skills and they were expected to increase autonomy and self-awareness in listening. After the eight lessons, according to the article, all the students reported a deeper understanding of the nature and the demands of listening, increased confidence in completing listening tasks, and better strategic knowledge for coping with comprehension difficulties. Such process-based instruction is advantageous for the language classes and especially for those who are slow-learners. The research was conducted on the young learners and I think metacognitive listening instruction can be more successful for adult learners as they can develop their own cognitive strategies and they have better cognition than the young learners.
In Turkey’s classrooms, this approach can be applied. However, crowded classes are among the problems that prevent application of this approach. In our classes, each student doesn’t have chance to share his or her feeling. Another problem is that in our country, because of the status or because of the way that the children are brought up, there are shy and extroverted students who don’t want to share their ideas, which prevents success of the approach in our classes. Thus, EFL teachers in our country should be encouraging and they also be patient for the approach to reach the success.
Metacognitive instruction in listening for young learners
ReplyDeleteI think both in Turkey and the other countries where English is taught as a second language, teaching listening is a challenging job. The reason is that neither the teachers nor the learners consider ‘listening’ as an indispensible part of ELT. However, listening provides teachers and learners with the opportunity to evaluate their activating the gained knowledge of L2 and compensate the deficiencies in the following sections.
In my opinion metacognitive instruction can be thoroughly applied in ELT classrooms in Turkey as well. Asking young learners to reflect their ideas about the job after listening, provides the learners with the advantages of gaining self-confidence to be a part of the lesson, producing alternative solutions to the problems, and making the lesson more enjoyable and useful.
In Turkey, listening instruction is given less importance than the other skills unfortunately. For example, the first time I had listening activities during an English lesson was the prep class at high school. I had, like most of my friends, generally a negative feeling about listening. The reason was the techniques used in instructions. If metacognitive instructions are used, it may be more useful for both teachers and learners of L2.
It works with young learners and adult learners, as well. However, applying this instruction to young learners would be comparatively easier than applying it to adult learners. Why? The reason is the completed development of adults both cognitively and emotionally. They have their own characteristics so while some of them achieve to learn the target language in some way, others may have difficulty because of their different backgrounds. In addition, they may not be volunteers to express their ideas because of some complex feelings such as owning the idea alone, interfering the teacher’s work, accepting negative ideas from the others, etc.
To sum up, using metacognitive instruction in listening sections of ELT classrooms is a good way of having feedback from the learners and solving the problems. Also, it is really applicable to adult learners in Turkey.
Listening is the core of language. Because, in daily life we mostly need to listen in order to communicate. Before we give reaction to something, we have to comprehend it, so listening is essential. Most of the language learners have difficulty in listening, Because it is a receptive skill and it requires full attention and pronunciation skills in order to be performed. Learners should concentrate on what is said despite environment. Also, it is much difficult for Turkish learners, because the pronunciation of the sounds quite different. That's why, when participating in lessons involving a receptive skill such as listening, the students especially young ones may become easily discouraged.
ReplyDeleteAccording to article, metacognite instruction in listening for young learners aims to make the learners aware of their potential, problems and solutions by asking learners to report and discuss the thought processes that they engage in during listening tasks. Also, it helps learners to explore new ways of learning and reduces language anxiety and builds confidence when approaching
listening tasks. I appreciate this study on metacognitive. I had not hear about it before. I can say I hadn't any listening activity before starting to university. We just watched movies in English, though they had subtitles it didn't improve our listening skill much. I wish our teachers had known about metacognite instruction. I think it is applicable to a great extend. It can really improve listening skill and prevent the pyscohological obstacles in learning. I don't think there will be a difference between applying metacognitive instruction to young and older learners. It even will be easy for older learners, because young learners need more guidance. In my opinion, the only problem is that some schools in Turkey do not have necessary equipment for listening. However, if metacognitive instruction is given more importance, this problem can be overcome.
All in all, metacognitive instruction in listening is applicable for both the young and adult learners, and if it is applied according to their cognitive processes, it brings success.
Özge Tepegöz
1620400
Asiye BAŞTÜRK
ReplyDelete1619949
In EFL classrooms in Turkey, one of the most difficult skills for the students is the listening skill. It is hard to be improved, because it is difficult to get the meaning by only hearing it without seeing. However, it is one of the most necessary skills in order to be able to communicate with others on target language. In Turkey, the reason why it is so difficult is that it is mostly ignored by the teachers. The teachers think teaching grammar is more important than listening, so they can not make the students motivated about it. When the students are not motivated about it, they ignore it, as well. However, the duty of the teacher is to present enjoyable and motivating listening activities and make them feel listening is as important as grammar. The students’ being autonomous is based relatively on whether they find the skill important. Metacognitive instruction claims that the students should be aware of their improvements and follow their cognitive developments themselves. As I said before, the teacher should make them feel listening is important in order to increase their awareness about themselves.
For young learners, it is very difficult to provide metacognitive instruction but not impossible. Because they are young, they may ignore their improvement because it is not their focus at that age. However, because they are not much shy as adults, they can comment on their listening more clearly and correctly. The teacher can apply metacognitive instruction framework on listening by having difficulty at first. But, when the students get how to be aware and give themselves feedback, it is much easier and beneficial to deal with the listening skills of young learners.
In adult learners, it is easier to make the students adapt to the framework. The have the abstract and critical thinking abilities at that age and they can deal with their own learning autonomously. However, they may have difficulty in expressing themselves and giving feedback to themselves because of their shyness. Despite these difficulties, I believe that they will be more successful than the young learners.
In Turkey, it is very difficult to apply such a framework, because the students are much more teacher-based. It is believed that the control of the development of the student should be on teachers. Firstly, this belief should be broken. Starting from young ages, the students should be pushed to be autonomous and responsible for their own learning. They should be given the chance to discover their cognitive developments themselves. This does not mean the teacher should leave them on their own. The teacher should be the leading one. If this framework is applied to the young learners and it goes on while they are growing, I believe it will be useful.
To sum up, although it is difficult to apply this metacognitive instruction framework to Turkish EFL learners, they will get used to it and enjoy controlling their own learning.
Listening is the source of communication. We cannot understand each others without listening and there will be no interaction between people. There are some problems in societies which come from people’s understanding themselves in wrong way as they do not listen each other carefully. There is a statement that what you told is as much as what the people understand from your words. So listening is very important. It is also important for foreign language learners and it is as challenging as it is important. Especially teaching listening is more difficult because it requires focusing on what the speaker says and comprehending it. Generally the teachers are not native speakers so it is also difficult for them to understand every single word in listening activities.
ReplyDeleteIn the article it is stated that metacognitive instruction in listening for young learners is helpful for learners to know what can do and what they cannot do by reporting and discussing the processes they had during listening tasks. It provides learners to explore new ways and their own ways in listening activities and their deficiencies. So they will evaluate themselves and be more enthusiastic in listening activities as they have their own styles in dealing with the problems they face.
By having lessons with metacognitive instructions, listening can be more useful and entertaining but in our schools both teachers and students do not give importance to listening. Most of the schools do not have computers or stereos. So the teachers do not have the necessary materials for listening. Even if they have the opportunities they do not have effective listening activities because of the techniques which are not appropriate and the students do not want to have listening activities. If teachers use metacognitive instruction in their lessons, listening will not be seen terrifying to learners. I think it is appropriate for both young and adult learners. Maybe adults will not want to share their ideas at first but they will get used to it and young learners need to be guided.
In short, if we overcome our economic problems and the schools have computers and stereos in the classes, applying metacognitive instructions in listening activies will be very useful for both adults and young learners.
Gülşah UYAR