Monitoring behavior with self-evaluation checklists can help learners develop metacognitive skills, enhance their learning strategies, and assist them in becoming independent, confident learners. By keeping a record of what they have done and how well they have done it, learners can begin to judge for themselves where their strengths and weakness are and what they need to work on next. This type of self-regulating behavior is particularly important in larger classes in which one-to-one interaction with the instructor is limited.

In the present study, checklists were used in several college and university English courses to monitor writing and speaking performance. In the writing courses, one checklist was used to monitor the quantity and content of student journal writing on a weekly basis. Other checklists were used for self- and peer-evaluation of in-progress and final versions of research essays. In the speaking courses, one checklist was used to monitor participation in weekly small group discussions, and other checklists were used for goal setting at the beginning of the course and self-evaluation at the end.

This presentation will briefly cover the why and how of checklist making and present examples of published and teacher-made checklists along with descriptive statistics illustrating their use in actual classrooms.