Exploring EFL student's metacognitive strategies when coping with speaking activities in a communication class: a colombian context case study

Abstract

Learning strategies has been the focus of numerous studies in the field of language learning and teaching. Among learning strategies, there are Metacognitive Strategies, which have to do with the tools learners use to regulate their learning process. These tools may enhance the development of a skill, for example speaking. Because of this, knowing how students monitor their language to cope with speaking activities is important. Hence, this research focuses on exploring the Metacognitive Strategies a group of student employ in speaking activities. The participants of this study were 10 EFL students from a public university in Colombia. A qualitative method, interviews, observations and a checklist were used to collect and analyze the data. The findings reveal that the students use Metacognitive Strategies related to planning, monitoring and evaluation; being planning the most salient among the three of them. Additionally, the use of metacognitive strategies depends on the type of speaking activity, the difficulty of the task, the time allotted for the activity and the proficiency level of the students. The results of this study are relevant in both the research and teaching field. First, in the research field, it provides more literature as few studies have been addressed on this topic. Second, in the teaching field, it may serve as a source of information for methodological approach inside the EFL classrooms since it gives lights on students’ actions when undertaking speaking. Keywords: Metacognition, Metacognitive strategies, speaking, speaking activities.