Christine's articlette

Title of Article: Mauritius: Developing learners' metacognitive skills

Publisher http://www.lexpress.mu/ via allafrica.com

Date of Publication 9/18/2007

Author : Shardha Sandapen

Summary of article:

This article discusses metacognition as it related to reading. The author poses the idea that metacognition can be taught, then she gives some strategies for teaching students how to think about and evaluate their own learning.

Some of the strategies include:
self-questioning- students should be taught to think of the "5Ws" as they read who, what, when, etc as they read through a text.
rereading - when students read text they they do not understand, they should reread the text and look for clues as needed.
clues- pictures, metaphors, similes glossary terms
underlining or highlighting key sentences - students must determine which sentences are important enough to be highlighted.
taking notes
summarizing - one sentence per paragraph - while reading.
discussing the main ideas with a friend

Relevance to integrating technology into language arts for improving student learning

Students can learn more when they realize they're not learning and can identify ways in which they learn, or learn best.

Your perspective on relevance of the issue to your teaching assignment

I am constantly thinking aloud to show students how I cope when I don't understand. I do this on a major level - bringing them my concerns when I have to read a boring text for school and just can't 'get into it'. The students 'help' me by telling me how to connect to the text. They've given me strategies such as, chunking, pair and share, drawing parallels and just do it - then get some ice cream. When I pose confusing questions in class, I'll follow up with a fake voice that says"WHAT is this lady talking about? Why would a person be his own worse enemy.. what does an enemy do anyway? Who are my enemies? Do I do worse things to myself than they do to me?" I show them the path form confusion to understanding- I show them that they can identify (momentarily) as confused, and I try to let them see how to work things out after the point at which they realize they're confused.