Globally, education improvement aims to address the critical area of quality teaching and learning. A common emphasis on quality tends to create a binary of ‘active’ teaching methods and rote learning, while the teaching and learning processes have remained a black box in many contexts. This study explores teaching practices in natural classroom settings to show how students were engaged in ways that foster high levels of learning in Vietnam. This study used qualitative data from teacher interviews and video observations from high- and low-performing classrooms in secondary schools across Vietnam. Findings show that metacognitive teaching strategies were employed by most teachers in high-performing classrooms, including: (a) explicit strategy instruction; (b) verbalising; (c) assessment integration; (d) consistent practice; and (e) positive learning environment. This study illuminates the classroom practices for fostering metacognition and suggests implications of how these practices can meaningfully contribute to improving learning quality.