Metacognitive Strategies

Metacognitive strategies are higher-order executive processes that learners use to plan, monitor, and evaluate their own learning. They do not operate directly on language material (that is the role of cognitive strategies) but rather manage and regulate the learning process itself. The term draws on Flavell's (1979) concept of metacognition — "thinking about thinking" — applied to second language acquisition by O'Malley and Chamot (1990) and Oxford (1990).

The Three Core Functions

Function	What the learner does	Examples
Planning	Deciding what to do before a task; setting goals; selecting strategies	"Before I listen, I'll focus on the main idea first, then details on the second listen"
Monitoring	Checking comprehension or production during a task; tracking progress	"I don't understand this paragraph — I'll re-read it more slowly"
Evaluating	Assessing performance after a task; judging strategy effectiveness	"My essay lacked examples — next time I'll brainstorm evidence before writing"

These three functions form a cycle: planning leads to task execution (using cognitive strategies), monitoring provides real-time feedback, and evaluation informs future planning.

Subcategories (O'Malley & Chamot, 1990)

Strategy	Function	Description
Advance organising	Planning	Previewing the task, activating prior knowledge, generating expectations
Directed attention	Planning/Monitoring	Deciding to focus on specific aspects and ignore distractors
Selective attention	Planning/Monitoring	Attending to specific input features (key words, discourse markers)
Self-monitoring	Monitoring	Checking accuracy of comprehension or production during the task
Self-management	Planning	Arranging conditions for learning (study environment, materials, time)
Self-evaluation	Evaluating	Checking outcomes against goals after task completion

Metacognitive Knowledge vs Metacognitive Strategies

Wenden (1998) distinguished between:

• Metacognitive knowledge — What learners know about learning: beliefs about language, self-awareness of strengths/weaknesses, knowledge of available strategies. This is declarative.
• Metacognitive strategies — What learners do to manage learning: the procedural application of planning, monitoring, evaluating. This is procedural.

Both are necessary. A learner may know that previewing before reading helps (knowledge) but fail to actually do it (strategy). Learner Training develops both.

Research Evidence

O'Malley & Chamot (1990) — In studies of ESL learners in US schools, found that the most effective learners combined cognitive and metacognitive strategies, while less successful learners relied predominantly on cognitive strategies alone (e.g., repetition, translation) without the executive layer.

Vandergrift (2003) — Studied metacognitive strategy use in L2 listening among French learners. Skilled listeners used significantly more planning (predicting), monitoring (checking predictions), and problem-solving strategies. Less skilled listeners fixated on individual word recognition (a purely cognitive approach).

Goh (2008) — Proposed a metacognitive approach to listening instruction with three components: experience (listening tasks), reflection (post-task discussion of strategies), and awareness-raising (understanding cognitive processes). Studies showed improved listening performance.

Zhang & Seepho (2013) — Meta-analysis of metacognitive strategy instruction in reading found consistent positive effects on comprehension, with explicit instruction in planning and monitoring yielding the strongest gains.

Graham & Macaro (2008) — Studied strategy instruction for L2 listening among English secondary school students learning French. Learners who received explicit metacognitive strategy instruction (prediction, monitoring, evaluation) significantly outperformed a comparison group on listening comprehension.

Anderson (2002) — Argued that metacognition is the single most significant factor distinguishing skilled from less skilled readers across both L1 and L2 contexts, more important than vocabulary size or syntactic knowledge for comprehension tasks.

Why It Matters for ELT

• Metacognitive strategies distinguish skilled from unskilled learners. This is one of the most consistent findings across SLA research. Teaching metacognition directly improves learning outcomes.
• Make thinking visible. Model metacognitive processes explicitly: think aloud during a reading or listening task, showing how you plan, monitor, and evaluate. Learners cannot imitate what they cannot observe.
• Build reflection into lessons. After tasks, ask learners: "What strategy did you use? Did it work? What would you do differently?" This builds the evaluation function.
• Listening and reading benefit most. Receptive skills are particularly responsive to metacognitive instruction because learners often lack awareness of what they do (or fail to do) while processing input.
• Pre-task planning raises performance. Giving learners time to plan before speaking or writing tasks has been shown to improve complexity, accuracy, and fluency (Ellis, 2005). This is metacognition in action.
• Self-Assessment and goal-setting are metacognitive acts. Can-Do Statements, learning journals, and portfolio self-reflections all develop the metacognitive layer.

References

• Anderson, N. J. (2002). The role of metacognition in second language teaching and learning. ERIC Digest. Center for Applied Linguistics.
• Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34(10), 906–911.
• Goh, C. C. M. (2008). Metacognitive instruction for second language listening development: Theory, practice and research implications. RELC Journal, 39(2), 188–213.
• Graham, S., & Macaro, E. (2008). Strategy instruction in listening for lower-intermediate learners of French. Language Learning, 58(4), 747–783.
• O'Malley, J. M., & Chamot, A. U. (1990). Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge University Press.
• Oxford, R. L. (1990). Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. Newbury House.
• Vandergrift, L. (2003). Orchestrating strategy use: Toward a model of the skilled second language listener. Language Learning, 53(3), 463–496.
• Wenden, A. L. (1998). Metacognitive knowledge and language learning. Applied Linguistics, 19(4), 515–537.
• Zhang, L., & Seepho, S. (2013). Metacognitive strategy use and academic reading achievement. English Language Teaching, 6(10), 1–13.