On Metacognitive Strategies In Foreign Language Learning

Learning is a life-long behavior. In modern English teaching, there isa great shift of focus from how teachers teach to how students learn, thatis to say, the educational research has become learner-centered. Botheducators and psychologists have seen that the ultimate goal of educationis to help students to become independent, autonomous and effectivelearners. The learning strategy studies since 1970s have suggested that toteach students how to learn and train them with proper learning strategiescan be effective in improving teaching and learning effect, reducingstudents' burden in learning, and promoting educational quality on a largescale. The previous studies mostly focused on the language learningstrategies as a whole and stressed its influence on promoting the scores ofexams and fostering language proficiency with little attention to a branchlearning strategy—metacognitive strategy. Metacognition is thecognition of cognition, it is one's self-perception, self-regulation andself-evaluation of his/her cognitive process. Metacognition is regarded asthe most advanced and core component of man's mental structure, whichis pivotal to the development of one's intelligence, potentiality andpromotion of one's language proficiency. The training of metacognitivestrategies can help regulate one's cognitive process and apply one's storedknowledge consciously to become an autonomous learner. This thesisaims to discuss particularly the role metacognitive strategies play inlanguage learning, its relationship with learner autonomy, and tries topresent a metacognitive strategy-based instruction model to help studentsbecome successful and autonomous learners in foreign language learningthrough both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The thesis is divided into five parts.The first part is Introduction which introduces the backgrounds,significance and outline of the thesis.The body of the thesis consists of three parts. Chapter One givesliterature reviews of the definitions and taxonomies of language learningstrategies and metacognitive strategies. It also discusses the relationshipsbetween metacognitive strategies, learner autonomy and other languagestrategies. In Chapter Two, a case study of the use of language learningstrategies by non-English majors in one university is presented. Based onthe results of the case study, three findings are given: 1.The overallfrequency of the employment of language learning strategies ofnon-English majors is moderately low. 2. There are great differences inthe use of all six language learning strategies under discussion betweensuccessful learners and less successful learners, particular in the use ofmetacognitive strategies. 3. Metacognitive strategies are pivotal topromote language proficiency, hence it is imperative to training students'metacognitive ability. Chapter Three reveals the problems existing incurrent EFL teaching in China, and then studies the significance of thetraining of metacognitive strategies and the role teachers may play in astrategies-based classroom. It also presents several metacognitive strategytraining models and their pedagogical implications with an attempt to finda tentative metacognitive strategy-based instruction model which mightbe compatible with Chinese context.The fifth part is Conclusion. Some limitations of the thesis andprospects for further study in this field are discussed.