Metacognitive strategy use: Accessing ESL learners’ inner voices via stimulated recall

This article reports on findings from a study that employed stimulated recall (SR) to tap English as second language (ESL) learners' metacognitive strategy use and thought processes. Two groups of four students in each were asked to engage in an English group discussion task. Prior to the task, the groups were given time to discuss how they might prepare for the upcoming task. Immediately after the task, each of the eight students was asked to participate in a SR interview to recall the thought processes that had taken place during the group preparation. A fine-grained qualitative analysis of the thought processes of the students indicated that they reported using different types of metacognitive strategies to do local and global planning prior to the task proper. The results also showed that students were planning to use strategies to monitor the turn-taking pattern or contribution of group members while the English task was in action. This paper proposes that SR interviews may usefully be incorporated into the teaching plan as post-task activities. This way, the teacher may be able to access the inner voices of ESL learners about metacognitive strategy, thereby gaining insight into effective teaching of ESL oral skills. Copyright © 2008 Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business.