Ir al contenido principal

Working with the metacognitive strategies in class

What about reading?

Among the metacognitive strategies, we can focus on a method that, as teachers, you surely know very well… reading comprehension.

  (Google image)

In general, it is not among the students' favorite things, but in the end they will thank you because it is a good way to understand the ideas of a text, but it also serves for many other things that we will explain.

Reading comprehension really helps to work on metacognition. It allows our students to use metacognitive strategies because they control, supervise and evaluate their own reading and their way of reading to understand the text. Furthermore, by having to fully understand the text, they become aware of how necessary it is to control their own learning process. Depending on how seriously they take it, they will understand more or less. Finally, it helps them to have motivation and responsibility, and in the end they will develop more and more interest in reading.

I'm going to give you an example of how to carry out reading comprehension in foreign language class to work on metacognition:

  • First, as a recommendation, prepare well the reading you are going to choose. That is, you can use the one that appears in the textbook, but if you prefer to choose one, you should keep some things in mind. Make sure it fits the level of the students, but in some cases you can choose some reading that is a little higher level, so they will have to work harder and they will pay more attention. Also make sure that you know what the reading is about and that you can answer their questions.
  • Once the text has been chosen, first you have to put them in context, for example by showing them related images or simply reading the title.
  • During reading, we will proceed with the strategies that your students can use: 
  1. Identify the main idea of ​​the text.
  2. Make notes in the margins of the page.
  3. Summarize each paragraph with one word.
  4. Underline the main idea of ​​each paragraph.
  5. Make a summary or a diagram, depending on the text.

  • After finishing reading, they can answer questions about the text or compare it with their daily life. They can also express how they felt when reading it or if they identify with it.

                                                                                                                                             Teacher Paula


Comentarios

Publicar un comentario

Entradas populares de este blog

The Affective Method

In the teaching of a foreign language the role of the affective strategy is very important, it is normal that in the classroom, when studying a foreign language we can find emotional barriers, such as fear of making mistakes, insecurities when speaking in front of the class, among many others that we have to help overcome, we as teachers must take into account several factors that are considered part of this affective strategy.  We must encourage comfort and confidence by creating a suitable environment for it, using active participation of students, where they are not afraid to make mistakes for fear of ridicule, an environment where mistakes are considered part of learning and emotionally support students when necessary, which brings us to another important factor, the emotional goals, we must help students to have their emotional goals clear and make it clear that this can be beneficial to them, learn to control frustrations and know how to show them.  Celebrating achieveme...
Publicar un comentario
Leer más

Introduction

Welcome to our blog, we are Paula, Edu, Jimena and Alejandra, four teachers who teach foreign language in a Primary School.  After several years of teaching, we have been developing different strategies that have helped us to keep our students motivated when learning a foreign language. These strategies are: metacognitive, affective, cognitive, social, compensatory and grammatical.  Our main goal is to empower teachers with these resources so that they can enrich themselves and foster growth in their students. Join us on an adventure and let's discover new strategies.  "Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world" (N. Mandela). Welcome!
Publicar un comentario
Leer más

Grammar Translation Method

History and origin of the method:  The Grammar Translation Method is a classical approach initiated in the history of linguistic pedagogy which has been in teaching for years.  This method originated in the 19th century and focuses on classical languages such as Latin and Greek.  Its main purpose was the reading and translation of literary and philosophical texts in their original form. Giving special importance to the translation and understanding of both the grammar and structure of the language.  Characteristics of the method:  This method is characterized by several points that we will name below:  First, there is the emphasis on grammar, which consists of once the text is read the students focus on the grammatical structure in order to give importance and learn verb conjugations, grammatical rules or syntactic structures among others. The technique of attention will be applied in order to perform it successfully. Secondly, there is translation. This fe...
Publicar un comentario
Leer más