Joseph Schelfke

Joseph Schlefke is from the United States but has lived in Mexico since 2012, when he moved there to begin a career as an English teacher. In addition to being a coursebook creator and writer, he is a Senior Academic Consultant at Books Services Company, representing the English teaching materials of Express Publishing. He regularly delivers seminars and workshops throughout Latin America and provides occupational support and additional training for English teachers, including exam preparation and further language development. He has a Master of Music degree from the University of Minnesota, holds a Cambridge DELTA, and is a speaking test assessor for Anglia Examinations.

Developing Metacognition in Our Classrooms.

Metacognition is seldom explicitly taught even though we use it in our everyday lives without even realizing it. Learning something new is virtually impossible without calling upon our innate metacognitive skills, which we usually develop empirically, not through a structured approach. This session will discuss the different dimensions of metacognition and show how students’ strengths and weaknesses can be discerned and then addressed. We will also explore quick and accessible ways to help our students develop their own metacognitive abilities, including through collaborative learning, visualization, and self-reflection. It is time for us as teachers to give more focus to how students learn (and can continue to learn throughout their lives) instead of how much they learn.