Why encourage learning awareness?

Traditionally, education has been based on a theoretical approach and a linear transmission of knowledge from teacher to the students. In fact, and speaking from my own experience as student, this model is being currently used but less harshly, and includes more technology in the classroom, but closely resembles the model of an omniscient teacher, who must disseminate their wisdom lecturing people and using PowerPoint presentations.

If we focus on what this model implies, we could say that knowledge is given by others; we can only access it if it is transmitted and we cannot do by ourselves. However, thanks to studies that have redefined the concept of knowledge and learning, and treat learning as a process, we know that students can participate independently and consciously in this process and take care of their own learning process.

For a teacher, it should be essential to promote and encourage the student to become aware of these skills in their own learning process, and conceive them as something positive and effective. Because, in order to achieve positive results, the learner must be aware of these metacognitive strategies.

These strategies may sound very technical and very difficult to implement in a classroom, but this should not scare us or make us think that this is something unattainable, since, as indicated by the CVC terminological dictionario «it is just to know what learning consists of, know how you learn best and how is yourself, your emotions, your feelings, your attitudes, aptitudes »

A series of exercises such as self-evaluation, comparison with other students, to organise plenary sessions to talk about the most difficult issues, the clarification of goals and objectives of an exercise and finding opportunities to put into practice what they have learned will lead them to:

1. Become aware about the process itself. Observe and analyze their learning process
2. Be aware of the mental processes
3. Reflect on how to learn
4. Manage and regulate the use of learning strategies
5. Achieving autonomy.

From my point of view, all these strategies are effective. My own experience as a teacher taught me that the obtained results in my classes reinforce the use of metacognitive strategies. So I decided to apply them to myself, as a student of languages, and that is why I share this with you. I hope these advices might be useful to you.

I encourage you to learn more about this topic in Centro Virtual Cervantes

How task-based approach helped me to learn a new language

Every time I visit a country for the first time, I feel an uncontrollable desire to learn its language. I focus on reading everything around me and I do my best to understand the most: posters, ads, billboards, etc. I consider that the most interesting part of all this “learning a new language” process lies in the part of mingling with locals, listen to their talks, and enjoy the experience of trying to understand a coded message. What I like the most is the experience of figure out daily use expresions, those that you do not learn in a regular course.

How did I come to be here? The answer is easy, from my own experience as student of different language courses. In many of those courses, the main objective was to focus on grammar, lots of grammar exercises, nonsense drills, cut up sentences that need to be fixed , unrealistic listenings that don’t contribute to the learning process in any way.

In short, these exercises do not require a huge mental effort and, in many cases, can be solved without having assimilated the unit. This creates a certain degree of boredom on the student and it kills their desire to get involved. It´s just the opposite to what happens when you are in another country. Why don´t we try to improve upon it?

Therefore, from my experience as a student, I bet on the benefits of task-based approach to generate the following:

• The involvement of students in the learning process.
• Interaction with other students who generate real and spontaneous communication.
• Motivation to use the target language and interest in communicating
• Tutoring of students to promote the progress of the group
• Awareness about what are they learning
• Exposure to error, recognition and solution

According to my experience, in most cases, this approach has a higher success percentage and satisfaction on students and teachers. That is why I totally recommend using it in class

If you want more information about the task-based approach, please consult the link provided at Cervantes Virtual Center

Greetings.