Language Learning Strategies

Importance of Learning Strategies

• Learning strategies enhance a student's learning
• Essential for language learning, as they promote active and self-directed involvement
• Lead to improved language proficiency and greater self-confidence
• Have been used for centuries, like mnemonic devices for storytellers

Recognition of Learning Strategies

• Now widely recognized in education under various names (learning skills, thinking skills, etc.)
• Language teachers are discussing and researching learning strategies
• Language learners are recognizing the power of their own strategies

Terminology: Acquiring vs Learning

• Learning is conscious knowledge of language rules gained from formal instruction, typically not leading to fluency.
• Acquisition happens unconsciously through naturalistic language use, leading to fluency.
• It's suggested that learning cannot contribute to acquisition, but learning and acquisition exist on a continuum.
• Both acquisition and learning are necessary for communicative competence.
• The term "learning" encompasses both learning and acquisition in this book.
• Language learning strategies apply to all parts of the learning-acquisition continuum.

Process Orientation

• Focuses on how students gain language, not just what they learn
• Considers factors like interlanguage development
• Error analysis, adaptation to the new language and culture, activities, and reactions to classroom techniques
• Includes student/teacher characteristics (intelligence, personality, motivation) and societal/institutional factors

Four Language Skills

• Listening, reading, speaking, and writing
• Skills are gained incrementally during language development

Second Language vs. Foreign Language

• A second language serves social and communicative functions within the community where it's learned.
• A foreign language is primarily used to communicate elsewhere.
• Most learning strategies apply to both contexts, though some may be easier in one setting.

Communication and Communicative Competence

• Communication is a mutual exchange that enhances cooperation and establishes commonality; it's dynamic and depends on meaning negotiation.
• Communicative competence is the ability to communicate, involving spoken/written language and all four language skills.
• Grammatical competence (accuracy in language code)
• Sociolinguistic competence (appropriate language use in social contexts)
• Discourse competence (ability to combine ideas cohesively)
• Strategic competence (ability to overcome language limitations using strategies)

Learning Strategies: Definition

• Strategy originates from the Greek "strategia," meaning generalship.
• Strategy involves planning and conscious action toward a goal.
• Learning strategies are actions to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, self-directed, effective, and transferable

Features of Language Learning Strategies

• Contribute to communicative competence
• Allow learners to become more self-directed
• Expand the role of teachers
• Are problem-oriented
• Are specific actions taken by the learner
• Involve many aspects of the learner
• Support learning both directly and indirectly
• Are not always observable
• Are often conscious
• Can be taught
• Are flexible
• Are influenced by a variety of factors

Communicative Competence as the Main Goal

• Strategies help learners actively participate in authentic communication, developing communicative competence.
• Metacognitive strategies help regulate cognition and focus on progress
• Affective strategies build self-confidence
• Social strategies provide interaction and empathetic understanding
• Cognitive and memory strategies aid in understanding and recalling new information
• Compensation strategies help overcome knowledge gaps
• Strategies foster grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competence

Greater Self-Direction for Learners

• Language learning strategies encourage self-direction, essential for language use outside the classroom.
• Many language students are passive and accustomed to being spoon-fed.
• Teaching new strategies requires changing attitudes and a desire for greater responsibility.
• Self-direction grows as learners become more comfortable with their own responsibility.

New Roles for Teachers

• Teachers shift from authority figures to facilitators, helpers, guides, consultants, advisors, coordinators, idea people, and co-communicators.
• New capacities include identifying student's learning strategies, conducting training, and helping learners become more independent.
• These changes strengthen teachers' roles, based on the quality of their relationship with learners.

Other Features

• Problem Orientation: strategies are tools used to solve problems or meet objectives
• Action Basis: strategies involve specific actions or behaviors by students
• Involvement Beyond Just Cognition: strategies include metacognitive, emotional (affective), social, and other functions
• Direct and Indirect Support of Learning: Direct strategies involve direct learning, while indirect strategies support learning indirectly, both are equally important
• Degree of observability: Language learning strategies are not always readily observable
• Level of Consciousness: Strategies can become automatic with practice
• Teachability: Learning strategies are easier to teach and modify through strategy training
• Flexibility: Strategies are flexible and not always in predictable sequences

Factors Influencing Strategy Choice

• Degree of awareness
• Stage of learning
• Task requirements
• Teacher expectations
• Age
• Sex
• Nationality/ethnicity
• General learning style
• Personality traits
• Motivation level
• Purpose for learning the language
• Aware and advanced learners tend to use better strategies
• Task requirements and teacher expectations shape strategies
• Motivation and learning purpose are key to strategy use

New System of Language Learning Strategies

• The presented strategy system is more comprehensive and systematic
• It links strategies and strategy groups with the four language skills
• It uses less technical terminology
• Strategies are divided into direct (memory, cognitive, compensation) and indirect (metacognitive, affective, social) classes
• Direct and indirect strategies support each other, interlinking strategy groups