The Cultivation Of Metacognition In English Teaching At Secondary School

In the 1970s, Flavell proposed the term "metacognition" on the study of metamemory. Since then, it has been a focus in educational psychology. Although it was first proposed by him, the thoughts containing self-consciousness and self-monitoring had been widely discussed in history home and abroad. Recent researches in this field show that metacognition has an active effect on various study activities. Based on many of the related theories and English teaching at secondary school, this thesis probes into the possibility, methods and ways of metacognitive training at secondary school.To start with, this thesis introduces the widely accepted definition, nature and components of metacognition. Flavell articulates that its core meaning is "cognition about cognition." Chinese psychologist Dong Qi thinks it is self-consciousness and self-regulation about cognitive activities. According to many scholars, metacognition is divided into metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience and metacognitive monitoring. On the analyses of its relationship with cognition and learning strategies, the thesis tells their contacts and differences. That the development of metacognition determines the application level of learning strategies is also discussed. In addition, the significance of metacognitive study is discussed in four aspects, including the insurance of the students' mastership and the trend of teaching innovation.The thesis then analyses the origin of English metacognitive knowledge. The content of English metacognition at secondary school is discussed from the views of English metacognitive knowledge, English metacognitive experience and English metacognitive monitoring. The thesis applies the knowledge of cognitive psychology and applied linguistics to the study of the possibility, necessity and urgency of the cultivation of English metacognition. They are explained in three aspects- the characteristics of the cognitive development of the children, therequirements of the study content and tasks at secondary school and the objectives of the development of English teaching. Based on the findings of an English metacognitive strategies' questionnaire, the thesis proposes introducing metacognitive training into secondary school English teaching. Meanwhile, it also points out that the training should emphasize imparting metacognitive knowledge to students and making them know themselves better in order to enrich their metacognitive experience and help them monitor themselves.As to the methods and ways of English metacognitive training at secondary school, the thesis introduces three popular methods: questioning, thinking aloud and instructing knowledge and two ways: special instructions and training in classroom teaching. As every kind of methods and ways has both advantages and disadvantages, the thesis suggests using them synthetically and illustrates the training of metacognition in real teaching situation with two examples of listening and reading. The half-a-year comparative experiment proves the validity of metacognitive training. In the end, the thesis points out the problems in metacognitive training: many teachers are lacking of the new teaching theories, and they are always putting the teaching emphasis in results of the examinations. The requirements of the teachers are raised on things like the improvement of teachers' teaching monitoring and reflective teaching.