Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 25 (2): Short Articles

Learning by Teaching: A Meta-learning ProgramShu-wen Lin
Sojo International Learning Center, Sojo University, Kumamoto
Email: <slin@m.sojo-u.ac.jp>

Prior to my teaching career at higher education in Japan, I had 8 years of TESOL experience at highschool level in Taiwan. The students I was teaching had had at least four years of experience learning Englishat the elementary level. They would have had three to four 45-minute English classes every week at thejunior high level, and four to five 50-minute classes at the senior high level. The average English class hours
Taiwanese students have per week are similar to those in Japan. During these initial years of teaching I had
been accustomed to preparing my students for high-stakes examinations by accumulating enough English
vocabulary and grammar knowledge. However, I also became afraid that my students would not be flexible
enough to face the challenges of the rapidly changing knowledge society, which resulted in my increasing
interest in developing their cognitive skills and learning strategies.
My interest in “learning-to-learn” skills stemmed from my anecdotal observations of and experiences in
Taiwan’s high school education system, as well as the emphasis of the latest education reform in Taiwan ondeveloping students’ “learning-to-learn” abilities. I observed during my own learning and teachingexperiences that, in a high school classroom setting, there was often a lack of learning about one’s own
learning, such as learning goals, strategies, and strengths and weaknesses. Reflection on the course of myown study in school revealed that I had been learning primarily for the purpose of obtaining the higherpossible score on the high-stakes, paper-and-pencil, and one-off Joint Entrance Exam, which determined not
only the admission to university but also to a specific department. The learning environment was rathermonotonous. My time in school was often filled with various types of tests and exams, with excessive time
allotted for mechanical practice to memorize subject content. Teacher-directed instruction was the norm,and prescriptive, teacher-determined answers were viewed as the only “standard” answers.
Soon after I started my teaching career, I began to grow increasingly dissatisfied with my teaching. It
was becoming a reproduction of my own school experience. Although the joint examination system had been
replaced with multiple assessment methods and entrance schemes, students’ and teachers’ thinking about
learning was limited because of the content-packed curriculum and large class sizes. My own students wereused to being dependent on me for directions for learning. For example, they often asked me how to scorehigher on English tests, expecting that I knew the “single best correct” answer. Having been stimulated by
the students’ questions, such as “Why do I constantly forget the vocabulary I have learned?” and “How do I
find the meaning of a text?”, I began to think about how I myself learn. This was a question that I had never
explicitly thought about when I was a student. I could not help but speculate how my students would beaffected if they were in my place, i.e. being asked to solve learning problems or make learning decisions.
In addition, around the time I proposed my thesis plan, the Taiwan Ministry of Education updated thecurriculum guidelines for high schools, with a new emphasis placed on logic and critical thinking, creativity,
reflection, and learners’ self-management (Ministry of Education, 2009). Some researchers and practitioners
in Taiwan (e.g., Chen, 2012; Cheng, Yeh, & Su, 2011; Dai, 2011) studied or addressed such an emphasis.
Despite the acknowledgement of the emphasis on thinking skills and learning process as the feature of theguidelines, teachers experienced difficulties in putting it into practice (Chen, 2012; Cheng, Yeh, & Su,

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36Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 25 (2): Short Articles2011). Furthermore, newspaper reports (e.g., Chen, 2015) indicated that, after the implementation of thecurriculum guidelines, high school students in Taiwan remained weak in planning for, monitoring, andreflecting on their own practices.
Inspired by the foregoing, I decided to carry out my doctoral research project on facilitating thedevelopment of students’ meta-learning capacity. Meta-learning centers around students being aware ofthemselves as learners and taking control over their learning strategy selection and deployment (Biggs,1985). Doing this can contribute to their success in difficult and demanding learning situations and theirdevelopment as independent learners (Norton, Owens, & Clark, 2004; Ward, Connolly, & Meyer, 2013). The
concepts of meta-learning and reflection and the links between them served as the basis for developing andevaluating the meta-learning program in my study. Other researchers (e.g., Lizzio & Wilson 2004; Tarricone2011) had suggested that meta-learning can be developed through reflection in problem-solving contexts. In
my research, I drew an analogy between the meta-learning–reflection relationship and the science of sonar
technology (see Figure 1): Learners who are more deeply and critically reflective can attain greaterawareness and control over their own learning.

Figure 1. Relationship between meta-learning and reflection.
To enhance the development of students’ reflection and meta-learning capacity, I adopted a coordinatedsociocultural perspective of learning for the design and development of the meta-learning program. The
pedagogical strategies I used were informed by social constructivist and emancipatory theories of learningand teaching as well as Dewey’s philosophy of experience. These theories posit that students’ uniqueexperiences with the world serve as a catalyst for reflection, and suggest that relationships and interactions
among students and between students and teachers lead to deeper, critical reflection. The meta-learning
program included a service learning component. This involved the students assuming the role of a teacher
and teaching English to younger children. It was a pedagogical strategy for promoting conceptual change inlearning because it stimulated me and my students to step out of the customary hierarchy and engage inconversations on a more even footing, as reciprocal members of a shared community.

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 25 (2): Short Articles
I designed the meta-learning program to be a yearlong EFL elective course. It was offered to grade 10students, aged 15–16 years, in a private high school in Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan. The program
comprised term-time activities including an orientation session, a film viewing, the observation of teacher
demonstrations, group teaching practices in class and in local churches, as well as a one-week servicelearning experience during summer vacation in a remote area in Taiwan. Throughout the program, reflection
activities such as discussions and journaling were assigned to aid the students in developing a habit oflearning by examining their own and others’ experiences. The students responded to the questions prompts I
gave related to the theme of each term-time activity and the service-learning experience. This metalearning program was characterized by a rethinking of the roles of students and teachers, an interdependentand reciprocal partnership among the students and between the students and teacher, a contribution tocommunity service, an emphasis on practical experiences in relation to learning, and a focus on reflection
on practices.
My doctoral study suggested that drawing analogical or contrastive links between various learning
experiences could stimulate students to become aware of perspectives on learning in addition to their own.
For example, a comparison and contrast between my students’ approaches to learning and those of film
characters or their role models helped raise the students’ awareness of their own strengths or weaknesses inlearning and of effective learning strategies. The following excerpt illustrates this point:
There are some similarities between my sister and me. We both love to read English novels
and watch English movies. When there are some good sayings or slang, we will pause thevideo and ask my mom about it. One difference is how good we can memorize thevocabulary or sayings. My sister can remember them all, but I will forget them easily. In
addition, my sister speaks English with full confidence, and she can read English quickly. Soshe learns English better than I do. (2nd semester_S13)
Furthermore, some questions were used as prompts to unpack the students’ perceptions of their priorexperiences of learning, and then to compare and contrast these understandings with current tasks in classor field. The students found that tasks at different levels of English learning, such as elementary, juniorhigh, and senior high, differ noticeably in complexity and in how they can be effectively completed. For
example:In elementary school, my English teacher always played games and sang songs with theclass. Elementary school English was easy because I had learned what was taught inkindergarten…. My junior high school teacher used mnemonic phrases to help us remember
vocabulary words. After teaching the class the words and their uses, the teacher would
have us read the text in the textbook. Whenever we encountered a vocabulary word, weread the use of the word once again. We practiced the words many times, in the text and in
the workbook, so I learned the words by heart. I didn’t have to make special efforts injunior high school…. In senior high school I have to depend on myself to study English mostof the time. Without the teacher’s help of repeating the vocabulary words and theirmeanings, I can barely memorize the vocabulary. I almost always fail the English tests. (2ndsemester_S03)
The above activities and question prompts imposed a structure that facilitated identifying connections
between past and personal learning experiences and learning events in the present and the future, as wellas the learning experiences of other students. This student, in particular, contrasted vocabulary teaching
and its effects at different levels on her English development. Students at lower learning levels appeared toexperience more lively teaching strategies and more learning support. Students at a higher learning level,on the other hand, might be expected to learn independently. However, as with the above learner, students

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 25 (2): Short Articles
seem often to experience a lack of guidance in strategic learning, which might be one reason why they failin English. If the student had realized the cause of her past achievements and connected this to her presentneeds, this might have encouraged her to actively devise learning strategies or seek assistance from others.
The mechanisms of comparison and contrast of the meta-learning program helped the students to perceive
their experience as coherent, connected instead of discrete, isolated occurrences.
Additionally, the students who assumed a teaching role transformed their perspectives and practices fromthose that they were conventionally socialized to identify with, and they became inclined to perceive
greater responsibility for and commitment to learning and to exercise more control over learning activities.
For example, a student (S18) became aware that the children she taught learned more effectively within agroup. It could be inferred that she might be more likely to employ interdependent learning strategies in herown learning. Some other students explicitly stated, for example, “When I was teaching the children, I could
finally empathize with my teachers and realize what their expectations were for us” (S01_2nd semester)and, “Returning to the role of student, I can identify with what my teachers emphasize.” (S19_2ndsemester)
It is difficult for me to replicate the meta-learning program in my current context considering thecurriculum structure and student characteristics. The institute where I teach now is an international
learning center in a Japanese university. My duties include teaching English communication skills to the firstyear students of undergraduate level and after-class speaking practice with the students. The English
communication course I teach uses a relatively rigid curriculum in order for the students to “develop theability to conduct conversations on everyday topics,” such as family, leisure, and education. The students’English level is basic (A1~A2). It is necessary that I support their meta-learning processes, such as planning,monitoring, and evaluating, with their first language. The fact that I have limited Japanese-language
proficiency adds to the challenges that I face in implementing the meta-learning program. However, I hopeto adopt and adapt, in present circumstances, the pedagogical principles outlined in my thesis, namely (a)fostering a break with hierarchical student–teacher relationships, (b) developing a community that
appreciates interdependence and connection, and (c) facilitating reflective practical experiences throughwritten/oral activities, such as journaling and discussion. I am looking forward to collaborating with otherpractitioner-researchers in the Learner Development SIG and beyond to uncover alternative approaches tolearning to learn.
References
Ministry of Education, Taiwan. (2009). 普通高級中學英文科課程綱要補充明 [Guidelines of English instruction in secondaryschools]. Retrieved from http://web.ylsh.ilc.edu.tw/course/files/990504/03.pdf
Biggs, J. B. (1985). The role of metalearning in study process. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 55(3), 185–212.
Chen, C. (2012). Teachers’ and student’s perceptions of the competence indicators in national curriculum guidelines
for senior high school English (Master’s dissertation). Retrieved from https://etds.ncl.edu.tw
Chen, Z. (2015, April 7). 國高中生反思不足計畫能力弱 [Taiwanese secondary school students lack reflective skills and weakin planning]. The United Daily News. Retrieved from http://udn.com/news/story/6915/819728
Cheng, Y., Yeh, H., & Su, S. (2011). Planning, implementation, and expected impact of the 2010 curriculum guidelines
for senior high school English: Teachers’ perspectives. English Teaching & Learning, 35(2), 91–137.
Dai, M. (2011). Constructing an L2 motivational model of planned learning behavior (Doctoral thesis). Retrieved fromhttps://etds.ncl.edu.tw
Lizzio, A., & Wilson, K. (2004). Action learning in higher education: An investigation of its potential to develop
professional capability. Studies in Higher Education, 29(4), 469–488.
Norton, L. S., Owens, T., & Clark, L. (2004). Analysing metalearning in first-year undergraduates through theirreflective discussions and writing. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 41(4), 423–441.
Ward, S. C., Connolly, R., & Meyer, J. H. F. (2013). The enactment of metalearning capacity: Using drama to help raise
students’ awareness of the self as learner. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 50(1), 14–24.
Tarricone, P. (2011). The taxonomy of metacognition. Hove, NY: Psychology Press.

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