Developing First-year ESL Engineering Students’ Communication and Learning Skills Through ‘Metacognitive Moments’

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Recent research reporting on 24 internationally-located courses in English for Academic or Specific Purposes (EAP/ESP) led to the identification of issues critical to the preparation of English as Second Language (ESL) students for academic study. A significant proportion related to students’ need to acquire ‘academic’ language and develop a range of learning and study skills, including metacognitive skills enabling them to plan, monitor and evaluate their own learning processes.
It was found that while faculty explicitly seek to develop students’ cognitive strategies, less attention is paid to metacognition, in part because it is generally believed that students acquire metacognitive strategies informally. However, several difficulties were identified with this approach, including its failure to utilize the opportunity to develop the language required to articulate metacognitive processes.
Investigating such issues, a study was carried out during an EAP course that required students to conduct research into their own contexts. Though this approach encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning processes, faculty found that students remained reluctant to articulate their metacognitive processes. Reasons for this expressed by students included a fear of appearing foolish, exacerbated by lack of confidence in their ability to express themselves clearly.
Addressing the need for explicit tuition in metacognitive strategies and language, students were guided to articulate metacognition during ‘metacognitive moments' in which they described spontaneously what they were doing and why, and evaluated its efficacy. All ‘moments’ were supported by an exploration of the strategies employed and the language required to articulate them. The study established that articulation reinforces and encourages metacognition, and that concomitant language development enhances perceptions of the validity of metacognition among students. Such benefits, including the nature of the language developed, are explored.

Stream: Literacy, Language, Multiliteracies; Languages Education and Second Language Learning

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Caroline Brandt teaches academic communication skills to female engineering students taking B.Sc. degrees at the Petroleum Institute in the United Arab Emirates. She has a Ph.D. in TESOL Education (University of East Anglia, UK), an M.A. in Linguistics for TESOL (University of Surrey, UK); an undergraduate M.A. in Linguistics (University of Edinburgh, UK), as well as a Cambridge ESOL Certificate and Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults.
Caroline has been involved in adult ELT in various capacities since 1982 and has taught in several countries in Europe, Australasia and the Arabian Gulf. She has been a teacher trainer and trainer of trainers, and has worked at foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate levels and held various positions of responsibility in several universities. Her publications include journal articles, book chapters and two books that reflect her two main areas of research interest: 'Read, research, write: Academic skills for ESL students in higher education', UK: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2008; and 'Success on your certificate course in English Language Teaching: A guide to becoming a teacher in ELT/TESOL', UK: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2006.