Language Learners Strategies: Issues in Classification

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Language Learners Strategies Issues in
Classification

• Andrew D. Cohen
• University of Minnesota

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Language Learner Strategies

• Learners conscious and semi-conscious thoughts
  and behaviors, having the explicit goal of
  improving the knowledge and understanding of the
  second language, as well as behaviors for using
  the language that has been learned or for getting
  around gaps in language proficiency.

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Ways to Classify Learner Strategies

• By goal Language learning strategies (e.g.,
  identifying, distinguishing, grouping, memorizing
  strategies) or language use strategies (e.g.,
  retrieval, rehearsal, communicative, and cover
  strategies).
• By function Metacognitive, cognitive,
  affective, or social strategies.

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• By skill Listening, speaking, reading, writing,
  vocabulary, or translation strategies.
• Other Strategies by proficiency levels, by
  specific cultures (i.e., learning the language of
  a specific culture), or by specific languages.

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Concerns about Strategies

• Distinguishing language learning strategies from
  language use strategies may not always be easy.
• The same strategy (e.g., interrupting a
  conversation in order to take part) may reflect
  all four functions, depending on the instant
  metacognitive, cognitive, social, and affective.
• Are strategy descriptions in strategy measures
  fine-tuned enough to be meaningful?

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• Problematic terminological distinctions
• strategies vs. processes
• macro- vs. micro-strategies
• general vs. specific strategies
• tactics or techniques vs. strategies
• overt/motor strategies (e.g., writing marginal
  summaries) vs. strategies involving thought
  processes (e.g., connecting a visual with a word)
• strategies as intention to act vs. strategies as
  action itself
• strategic knowledge vs. strategic action

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• Overlapping (confusing?) concepts used to refer
  to learners taking control of their own language
  learning
• self-management
• self-regulation
• autonomous language learning
• independent language learning
• individual language learning

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• Must strategies be conscious? Do you agree with
  the following?
• Strategies can be classified as conscious mental
  activity. They must contain not only an action
  but a goal (or an intention) and a learning
  situation. Whereas a mental action might be
  subconscious, an action with a goal/intention and
  related to a learning situation can only be
  conscious.

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Strategies vs. skills

• What we have been referring to as strategies may
  actually be skills, or at least a combination of
  strategies interacting with one another. So,
  summarizing a text or looking a word up in a
  dictionary is not a strategy but a skill,
  operationalized through either a sequence of or a
  cluster of strategies.

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Describing Strategies Prototypically
More strategy-like Less strategy-like
Purposeful, goal-directed No clear goal
Planned Unplanned
Self-initiated Initiated by another source
More deliberate More automatic
As the focus of attention With attention elsewhere
Monitored Unmonitored
Evaluated Unevaluated
As a sequence of actions As a single action
Visible to an observer Invisible to an observer
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What are learner strategies for?

• for enhancing learning.
• for performing specified tasks.
• for solving specific problems.
• for compensating for a deficit in learning.
• for making learning easier, faster, more
  enjoyable.

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Individual differences in language learning

• The strategies that learners use and the
  effectiveness of these strategies depend on the
  learners themselves (e.g., age, gender, language
  aptitude, intelligence, cognitive and learning
  style preferences, self-concept/image,
  personality, attitudes, motivation, prior
  knowledge), the learning task at hand (e.g.,
  type, complexity, difficulty, and generality),
  and the learning environment (e.g., the learning
  culture, the richness of input and output
  opportunities).

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References

• Cohen, A. D. Macaro, E. (Eds.) (Forthcoming,
  2007). Language learner strategies 30 years of
  research and practice. Oxford Oxford University
  Press.
• Macaro, E. (2004). Fourteen features of a
  language learner strategy. Working Paper No. 4.
  Auckland, NZ Centre for Research in
  International Education, AIS St Helens.
  http//crie.org.nz/research_paper/1Ernesto_Macaro_
  WP4.pdf. http//www.crie.org.nz/research_paper/2Er
  nesto_Macaro_WP4.2.pdf. http//www.crie.org.nz/res
  earch_paper/3Ernesto_Macaro_WP4.3.pdf.