Examining Future Secondary School Teachers’ Plans to Foster Metacognition in Their Lessons

Metacognition involves the awareness and regulation of one’s cognitive processes during learning. Despite its recognized benefits, its practical application in teaching remains limited due to challenges such as a lack of resources, knowledge, and teacher confidence. This study examines how future secondary school teachers of first-language French in Francophone Belgium included metacognitive prompts in their lesson plans following a metacognition training program. By analyzing the 5-week lesson plans of 21 pre-service secondary school teachers, this research investigates whether and how the training was reflected in planned prompts intended to support students’ metacognitive activity. Findings show that most participants included such prompts in their lesson plans before and after tasks, both orally and in writing; however, only 8 of the 254 prompts were positioned during tasks. This imbalance suggests that pre-service teachers more readily plan metacognitive support in predictable pre- and post-task phases than during the more contingent phase of in-task regulation. This study contributes to teacher education research by offering insight into how pedagogical support for attention to metacognition can be reflected in metacognitively oriented lesson planning.