I. II.

What are the learning strategies and the teaching strategies? What is the significance of the studies of learning strategies and the teaching strategies? Do the strategies mean anything to L2 teaching?

III. How do the learning strategies and the teaching strategies correspond to each other?

Ans. I. What are the learning strategies and the teaching strategies? (1) Learning Strategies: In first language learning, a learning strategy is a way in which a learner attempts to work out the meanings and uses of words, grammatical rules, and other aspects of a language, for example by the use of generalization and inferencing. A child may not pay attention to grammatical words in a sentence, but in trying to understand a sentence may use the learning strategy that the first mentioned noun in a sentence refers to the person or thing performing an action. However, in second language learning, the learning strategies mean the intentional behavior and thoughts that learners make use of during learning in order to better help them understand, learn or remember new information. These may include focusing on certain aspects of new information, analyzing and organizing information during learning to increase comprehension, evaluating learning when it is completed to see if further action is

needed. Learning strategies may be applied to simple tasks such as learning a list of new words, or more complex tasks involving language comprehension and production. The effectiveness of second language learning is thought to be improved by teaching learners more effective learning strategies.

Learning Strategy Advance Organizers

Description Metacognitive Strategies Making a general but comprehensive preview of the organizing concept or principle in an anticipated learning activity Deciding in advance to attend in general to a learning task and to ignore irrelevant distractors Deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of language input or situational details that will cue the retention of language input Understanding the conditions that help one learn and arranging for the presence of those conditions Planning for and rehearsing linguistic components necessary to carry out an upcoming language task Correcting ones speech for accuracy in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, or for appropriateness related to the setting or to the people who are present Consciously deciding to postpone speaking in order to learn initially through listening comprehension Checking the outcomes of ones own language learning against an internal measure of completeness and accuracy

Directed Attention

Selective Attention

Self-Management

Functional Planning

Self-Monitoring

Delayed Production

Self-Evaluation

Repetition

Cognitive Strategies Imitating a language model, including over practice and silent rehearsal Using target language reference materials Using the first language as a base for understanding and/or producing the second language Reordering or reclassifying, and perhaps labeling, the material to be learned base on common attributes Writing down the main idea, important points, outline, or summary of information presented orally or in writing Consciously applying rules to produce or understand the second language Looking for patterns and regularities Constructing a meaningful sentence or larger language sequence by combining known elements in a new way Relating new information to visual concepts in memory via familiar, easily retrievable visualizations, phrases, or locations Retention of the sound or a similar sound for a word, phrase, or longer language sequence Remembering a new word in the second language by (1) identifying a familiar word in the first language that sounds like or otherwise resembles the new word and (2) generating easily recalled images of some relationship between the new word and the familiar word Placing a word or phrase in a meaningful language sequence Relating new information to other concepts in memory Using previously acquired linguistic and/or conceptual knowledge to facilitate a new language learning task Using available information to guess meanings of new items, predict outcomes, or fill in missing information Putting things that are similar together in groups
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Resourcing Translation

Grouping

Note Taking

Deduction

Inducing Recombination

Imagery

Auditory Representation

Keyword

Contextualization Elaboration Transfer

Inferencing

Classifying

Predicting Concept Mapping Diagramming Discriminating

Predicting what is to come in the learning process Showing the main ideas in a text in the form of a map Using information from a text to label a diagram Distinguishing between the main idea and supporting information Linguistic Strategies Using expressions to start conversations and keep them going Doing controlled exercises to improve knowledge and skills Using the surrounding context to guess the meaning of unknown words, phrases, and concepts Picking out and presenting the major points in a text in summary form Listening for key information without trying to understand every word Reading quickly to get a general idea of a text Affective Strategies Learners share their own opinions, feelings, and ideas about a subject Thinking about how well you did on a learning task, and rating yourself on a scale Thinking about ways you learn best Socioaffective Strategies Working with one or more peers to obtain feedback, pool information, or model a language activity Asking a teacher or other native speaker for repetition, paraphrasing, explanation, and/or examples Pretending to be somebody else and using the language for the situation you are in Creative Strategy Thinking of as many new words and ideas as you can

Conversational Patterns Practicing Using Context

Summarizing

Selective Listening

Skimming Personalizing

Self-Evaluating

Reflecting Cooperation

Question for Clarification

Role-playing

Brainstorming

Oxford also draws a distinction between direct strategies and indirect strategies. Direct strategies are specific procedures that learners can use to internalize the language. Indirect
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strategies, on the other hand, include things such as evaluating one s learning, and cooperating with others.

DIRECT STRATEGIES: Memory Strategies 1. Grouping 2. Associating/ elaborating 3. placing new words into a context 1. Using imagery 2. Semantic mapping 3. Using key words 4. Representing sounds in memory 1. Structured reviewing 1. Using physical responses or sensation 2. Using mechanical techniques Cognitive Strategies 1. Repeating 2. Formally practicing with sounds and writing systems 3. Recognizing and using formulas and patterns 4. Recombining 5. Practicing naturalistically B. Receiving and sending messages C. Analyzing and reasoning 1. Getting the idea quickly 2. Using resources for receiving and sending messages 1. Reasoning deductively 2. Analyzing expressions 3. Analyzing contrastively (across languages) 4. Translating 5. Transferring 1. Taking notes 2. Summarizing
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A. Creating mental linkages

B. Applying images and sounds

C. Reviewing well D. Employing action

A. Practicing

D. Creating structure for input &

output

3. Highlighting Compensation Strategies 1. Using linguistic clues 2. Using other clues

A. Guessing intelligently

B. Overcoming limitations in speaking and 1. Switching to the mother tongue 2. Getting help writing 3. Using mime or gesture 4. Avoiding communication partially or totally 5. Selecting the topic 6. Adjusting or approximating the message 7. Coining words 8. Using a circumlocution or synonym

INDIRECT STRATEGIES: Metacognitive Strategies 1.Overviewing and linking with already known material 2. paying attention 3. Delaying speech production to focus on listening B. Arranging and planning your learning 1. Finding out about language learning 2. Organizing 3. Setting goals and objectives 4. Identifying the purposes of a language ask (purposeful listening/ reading/ speaking/

A. Centering your learning

writing) 5. Planning for a language task 6. Seeking practice opportunities C. Evaluating your learning 1. Self-monitoring 2. Self-evaluating
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A. Lowering your anxiety

Affective Strategies 1. Using progressive

relaxation,

deep

breathing, or meditation 2. Using music 3. Using laughter B. Encouraging yourself 1. Making positive statements 2. Taking risks wisely 3. Rewarding yourself 1. Listening to your body 2. Using a checklist 3. Writing a language learning diary 4. Discussing your feeling with someone else Social Strategies 1. Asking for clarification or verification 2. Asking for correction B. Cooperating 1. Cooperating with others 2. Cooperating with proficient users of the new language C. Empathizing with others 1. Developing cultural understanding 2. Becoming aware of others thoughts and feelings

C. Taking your emotional temperature

A. Asking questions

(2) Teaching Strategies: Teachers will have different teaching strategies when they have different teaching purposes. For example, when teachers teach listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, teachers may have different strategies to cope with the teaching problems.

Besides, teachers of languages often fail to recognize that different teaching takes place according to certain dimensions or variables. The kind of difference that occurs is sometimes methodological, sometimes out of pace and intensity, sometimes a question of entire pedagogical outlook. Owing to these variables, teachers must have various teaching strategies. These variables are:

Pupil age

Different teaching is a appropriate to young children, adolescents, and adults

Level of proficiency

Different

teaching

is

appropriate

for

beginners,

Educational framework

intermediate level, and advanced level learners Different teaching is required in a context general education, or acquiring a practical command, culturefree, and of special-purpose learning, e.g., vocational or educational ends Different teaching may sometimes appropriate, depending on whether the learner is a volunteer or a nonvolunteer Different teaching is required if the foreign language instruction is carried out in the mother tongue, or in the target language itself, or in some other foreign language Different teaching is indicated depending on whether the language being learned has the status, in the situation where it is being learned, of a second language or a foreign language

Learner volition

Language of instruction

Target language status

The successful use of appropriate teaching strategies often helps teachers increase students proficiency and greater self-confidence. Teachers can integrate the teaching
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strategies with the learning strategies and conduct simulations, games, and other interactive tasks. The following rules of teaching strategies can be provided to teachers when they integrate strategy training into classroom activities: 1. Identify students needs to determine what strategies they are currently using, how effective the strategies are, and how they can be improved. 2. Choose relevant strategies to be taught. 3. Determine how best to integrate strategy training into regular classroom activities. 4. Consider students motivations and attitudes about themselves as learners and about learning new ways to learn. 5. Prepare materials and activities. 6. Conduct completely informed training, in which students learn and practice new strategies, learn why the strategies are important, learn to evaluate their use of the strategies, and learn how to apply them in new situations. 7. Evaluate the strategy training. 8. Revise the strategy training procedure for the next set of strategies to be taught. When teachers instruct their students, there will be some conflicts between the teaching styles and the learning styles. Actually, students whose learning styles resemble the teachers are more likely to achieve good grades than are students with opposing styles, who may drop the course or even discontinue studying the language. There are several teaching strategies for teachers to deal with such conflicts: 1. Assess students and teachers styles and use this information to understand classroom

dynamics. 2. Change teachers teaching behavior. Teachers can orient their teaching styles to meet their students needs by providing a variety of multisensory, abstract, and concrete learning activities that appeal to different learning styles. 3. Change learners behavior. Language learners use their style preference to their own advantage. Learners can benefit when teachers realize this and when teachers provide opportunities for students to move beyond their stylistic comfort zone through the use of strategies with which they might not initially comfortable. 4. Change the way students work in groups in the classroom. Teachers can use the principles of cooperative learning in grouping students for interactive work. 5. Change the curriculum. Teachers might organize lessons as a series of activities or episodes, each with a different objective and style. 6. Change the way style conflicts are viewed. Teachers who encourage students to become aware of learning style preferences help promote flexibility and openness to the use of many styles.

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II. What is the significance of the studies of learning strategies and the teaching strategies? Do the strategies mean anything to L2 teaching?

According to Rebecca Oxford, language learning strategies contribute to the main goal, 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 actions taken by 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

According to David Nunan, the learners could be categorized by type. types and their preferences are set as follows:

Learner

Type 1 Concrete learners These learners tend to like games, pictures, films, video, using cassettes, talking in pairs, and practicing English outside class.
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Type 2 Analytical learners These learners like studying grammar, studying English books and reading newspapers, studying alone, finding their own mistakes, and working on problems set by the teacher.

Type 3 Communicative learners These students like to learn by watching, listening to native speakers, talking to friends in English and watching television in English, using English out of class in stores, trains, and so on, learning new words by hearing them, and learning by conversations.

Type 4 Authority-oriented learners These learners prefer the teacher to explain everything, like to have their own textbook, to write everything in a notebook, to study grammar, learn by reading, and learn new words by seeing them.

And the characteristics of good learners are as follows: They can find their own way. They can organize information about language. They are creative and experiment with language. They can make their own opportunities, and find strategies for getting practice in using the language inside and outside the classroom. They can learn to live with uncertainty and develop strategies for making sense of the target language without wanting to understand every word. They can use mnemonics (rhymes, word associations, and so forth) to recall what has been learned.
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 They can make errors work. They can use linguistic knowledge, including knowledge of their first language in mastering a second language. They can let the context (extralinguistic knowledge and knowledge of the world) help them in comprehension. They can learn to make intelligent guesses. They can learn chunks of language as wholes and formalized routines to help them perform beyond their competence They can learn production techniques (eg., techniques for keeping conversation going) They can learn different styles of speech and writing and learn to vary their language according to formality of the situation.

Knowledge is important for every learner. If learners can be conscious of the process underlying the learning that they are involved in, then learning will be more effective. Explicit strategy training, coupled with thinking about how one goes about learning, and experimenting with different strategies, can lead to more effective learning. Learning strategies are important for learners because of two reasons. In the first place, strategies are tools for active, self-directed involvement, which is essential for developing communicative competence. Secondly, learners who have developed appropriate learning strategies have great self-confidence and learn more effectively. Moreover, these studies of learning strategies and teaching strategies make teachers be

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able to identify the learning types of their students and teach teachers how to use the appropriate ways to instruct their students. Besides, such studies show a lot of ways to teachers so that teachers can teach students more effectively how to use strategies in order to help them in the language learning process.

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III. How do the learning strategies and the teaching strategies correspond to each other?

Teaching can really affect learning. There are those who deny this viewpoint, and who regard the effects of teaching as being either negligible, counter-productive, or uncontrollable; and who in consequence conceive the function of a teacher as being limited to a combination of language informant, attention-getter and pupil-minder. There is indeed a great deal of low-grade language teaching throughout the world, to which these limitations may apply to varying degrees. Many institutionalized programs produce

average levels achievement so low as to invite the criticism that simple contact with speakers of the language might at least do no worse. But the undoubted existence of inferior language teaching in no way obscures the existence equally real, but often overlookedof superior language teaching, in which learners achieve high levels of command of languages in direct response to deliberate schemes of learning and teaching. In the classroom, teachers can encourage successful subconscious strategy employment through their choice, among several options, of classroom techniques that enhance strategy building. Extending the ten commandments into classroom activities, suggestions for building strategic competence emerge.

TEACHERS VERSION 1. Lower inhibitions 2. Encourage risk-taking 3. Build self-confidence

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LEARNERS VERSION Fear not! Dive in Believe in yourself

4. Develop intrinsic motivation 5. Engage in cooperative learning 6. Use right-brain processes 7. Promote ambiguity tolerance 8. Practice intuition 9. Process error feedback 10. Set personal goals

Seize the day Love thy neighbor Get the BIG picture Cope with the chaos Go with your hunches Make mistakes work FOR you Set your own goals

1.

to lower inhibitions: play guessing games and communication games; do roles plays and skits; sing songs; use plenty of group work; laugh with your students; have them share their fears in small groups.

2.

to encourage risk taking: praise students for making sincere efforts to try out language; use fluency exercises where errors are not corrected at that time; give outside-of-class assignments to speak or write or otherwise try out the language

3.

to build students self-confidence: tell students explicitly (verbally and nonverbally) that you do indeed believe in them; have them make lists of their strengths, of what they know or have accomplished so far in the course

4.

to help them to develop intrinsic motivation: remind them explicitly about the rewards for learning English; describe(or have students look up) jobs that require English; play down the final examination in favor of helping students to see rewards for themselves beyond the final exam.

5.

to promote cooperative learning: direct students to share their knowledge; play down competition among students; get your class to think of themselves as a team; do a considerable amount of small group work.
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6.

to encourage them to use right-brain processing: use movies and tapes in class; have them read passages rapidly; do skimming exercises; do rapid free writes; do oral fluency exercises where the object is to get students to talk (or write) a lot without being corrected.

7.

to promote ambiguity tolerance: encourage students to ask you, and each other, questions when they dont understand something; keep your theoretical explanations very simple and belief; deal with just a few rules at a time; occasionally you can resort to translation into a native language to clarify a word or meaning.

8.

to help them use their intuition: praise students for good guesses; do not always give explanations of errorslet a correction suffice; correct only selected errors, preferably just those that interfere with learning.

9.

to get students to make their mistakes work FOR them: tape record students oral production and get them to identify errors; let students catch and correct form; encourage students to make lists of their common errors and to work on them on their own.

10.

to get students to set their own goals: explicitly encourage or direct students to go beyond the classroom goals; have them make lists of what they will accomplish on their own in a particular week; get students to make specific time commitments at home to study the language; give extra credit work.

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