Spanish and Metacognition

One way this experience informs my way of understanding children better is through my attempt to improve my Spanish. Because, in many ways, I am at an elementary level (upper elementary now!).

I've been interested to note that a lot of the conversations the volunteers have is about Spanish, how they're progressing, what they're doing to improve, and what works for them. Yesterday, my roommates (both volunteers) and I were talking about our Spanish lessons. I take 3 one hour sessions after school each week. Sara prefers 2 hour sessions, because she doesn't feel that she gets anything from the 1 hour sessions. Rachel felt that having a session during the week was too distracting and preferred the idea of taking a 2 hour or so class on the weekend. This type of conversation is typical and indicates that we all are trying to get better at Spanish (i.e. learn) and are trying to think of the best strategies to get us there (i.e. metacognition-thinking about how we think).

I am curious to learn when this type of thinking begins in children, and when/how we can facilitate young children to start thinking about how they think and what works best for them. I know I do a lot in my math class to allow for different ways of thinking, but I'm not sure that I focus on helping students acquire a better understanding of how they learn best. This to me seems so essencial. It also seems to me that a group of students should be serious about learning in order for these types of conversations to happen. I remember having these types of conversations with my friends in middle school, particularly when we talked about big projects or tests. However, these conversations would mostly focus on the number of hours we spent studying/preparing, not on our strategies.