Metacognitive Strategy Training In Secondary School Language Classroom In China

In the past two decades, numerous studies have been done in autonomy, self-regulation self-instruction. It is accepted that teaching should aim at producing autonomous learners who can take charge of their learning outside class. Former research done in metacognition all seems to prove training in strategies is the facilitator of learners' autonomy. In China, where appliance and discipline are so much valued, where teachers have been dominating the classroom, and where countless passive, dependent learners are produced, there is great value for instruction in strategies, to improve the self-regulation level of adolescents.A lot of research has been done in metacognition, too, mostly in cognitive psychology. But its focus is on identification of the development of metacognition in the field of math, memory, Chinese etc. Little has been done in the training of metacognitive strategies, especially in English classrooms. This paper presents a training program conducted with Junior One students in an ordinary school in Lanzhou. The study lasted for two semesters with the objectives to enrich the students' metacognitive knowledge, to improve the learners' level of self-regulation and to test if there is any correlation between metacognition and the learners' school records or language proficiency. Two questionnaires are designed to investigate the subjects' improvement on metacognition. A City General Examination is used to examine the effect of training on language proficiency. Data collected is analyzed by means of SPSS and the results are as follows: MAT has provided the learners with large number of strategies to cope with differentlearning problems; the subjects have greatly improved in metacignition. They could well plan their learning, monitor the process, evaluate the performance and the use of strategies; MST helps improve learners' language proficiency. There is some coefficiency between metacognition school records. Many factors contribute to it.The analysis also reveals some limitation of the program and leaves much to be improved.