Maintaining Control: Autonomy and Language Learning

6. Learner autonomy in a mainstream writing course: Articulating learning gains

Learner autonomy in a mainstream writing course 87 Introduction The starting point for this chapter was my interest in exploring gains in metacognitive knowledge about writing which occurred during a onesemester course in academic writing (WRIT 151) that I was teaching and coordinating. The course aimed to develop both learners’ knowledge of the characteristics of effective academic writing, and, at the same time, their independence as writers. I was therefore interested in tracing possible links between individuals’ understanding of the tasks they were engaged in, and their willingness and ability to attempt those tasks with diminishing amounts of support. To do this, I examined in detail an extended piece of reflective writing that each of the 15 learners in my workshop group submitted at the end of the course. The learners’ writing provided numerous instances of sophisticated task knowledge, as well as examples of person and strategic knowledge (Flavell 1979). It is likely that the course’s requirement that learners constantly reflect on and discuss their writing goals, strategies and difficulties helped develop their understanding of the essay writing process, and their confidence to approach future writing tasks independently. Exploring development in the metacognitive knowledge base of second language learners is an important issue for those committed to promoting learner autonomy. This is because metacognitive knowledge “is a prerequisite to the deployment of … self-regulatory processes” (Wenden 2001: 62) involved in independent or autonomous learning behaviour. In other words, learners can only begin to develop 6 Learner autonomy in a mainstream writing course: Articulating learning gains Sara Cotterall 88 Sara Cotterall independence in learning once they possess: (a) awareness of their strengths and weaknesses in relation to the tasks; (b) an understanding of the tasks they are engaged in; and (c) knowledge of strategies which can help them undertake such tasks. For learners such as those described here, gaining some independence as writers is of the utmost urgency, since most learning at university (at least in the New Zealand context) is assessed through essays and other written tasks. In this chapter, I first refer to previous research into the acquisition of metacognitive knowledge in language learning, and specifically into its role in second language writing. I then provide some background on the writing course and the learners, and explain how the development of metacognitive knowledge was a central and explicit course goal. In the main section of the paper, I present statements about metacognitive knowledge reported in the reflections of learners in the workshop group I taught, and consider the possible relationship between those instances of metacognitive knowledge and the development of learner autonomy. I then discuss some instances where the learners reported having transferred learning gained during the writing course to new situations. Finally, while acknowledging the limitations of this small-scale piece of research, I discuss some of the challenges for writing teachers and researchers which it highlights. Previous research on metacognitive knowledge in language learning According to Flavell (1979: 906), metacognitive knowledge is a specialised portion of a learner’s acquired knowledge base that includes what learners know about learning. Wenden claims that metacognitive knowledge is stable, develops early, is stateable and consists of a system of related ideas (Wenden 2001: 45). Three different types of metacognitive knowledge — derived from a taxonomy developed by Flavell — are referred to in the cognitive and foreign and second language literature: person, task and strategic knowledge. In the literature on second language acquisition, these correspond to learner, task and process variables. Flavell’s taxonomy (1979: 907) distinguishes between the three different types of metacognitive knowledge in the following way: person knowledge (the knowledge people have about themselves and others as cognitive processors); task knowledge (the knowledge people have about Learner autonomy in a mainstream writing course 89 the information and resources they need to undertake a task, and about the nature and degree of effort required to perform the task); strategy knowledge (knowledge regarding the strategies which are likely to be effective in achieving certain goals and undertaking certain tasks). Both Wenden (2001) and Victori (1999) claim that metacognitive knowledge has not been sufficiently investigated as an ‘individual difference’ variable that may account for differential performance in language learning. Furthermore, Wenden asserts (2001: 63): There is a need for research which documents the metacognitive knowledge learners bring to specific tasks of language learning and language use. Wenden (2001) presents a summary of two types of previous studies of metacognitive...