Metacognitive Knowledge, Metacognitive Strategies, and CALL

The task that brought about this comment required the learner, an Open University student of German, to use a concept map to make a list of all the roles he played in everyday real life, including being an online language learner. The learner then had to imagine that each of these was a job he was applying for and had to write down the qualities he could bring to each job, bearing in mind that the application should be successful. Next, the learner was asked to add to the list of qualities the abilities he possessed and was aware of but did not feel were being made use of at the time of writing. Finally, the learner was asked to focus on the jobs for which he did not seem to have many qualities (in his case, as in many others among his peers, the online language learner was identified as being one of these jobs) and, in such cases, to explore whether he could use qualities from other jobs in this role, thus transferring certain skills. The main aim of this exercise was to raise learners' awareness of their resources and skills and to help them unearth their positive qualities. The sessions ended with all participants in turn opening their individual concept maps in the virtual plenary room and sharing what they lead found out about themselves, (i.e., their acquired self-knowledge).