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Language Learning Journal
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Language learner strategies
Michael Grenfell
a
; Lynn Erler
b
a
University of Southampton, UK
b
University of Oxford, UK
To cite this Article Grenfell, Michael and Erler, Lynn(2007) 'Language learner strategies', Language Learning Journal, 35: 1,
5 7
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09571730701315535
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09571730701315535
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GUEST EDITORIAL
Language learner strategies
Michael Grenfell
a
* and Lynn Erler
b
a
University of Southampton, UK;
b
University of Oxford, UK
No modern language teacher, researcher or policy-maker needs to be reminded of the
enormous changes that have taken place in modern foreign language teaching and
learning over recent decades. We have gone froma world of translation and grammar to
one of the four skills and the pupil as host or tourist. This move has been symptomatic of
a general shift in the principles of language teaching and learning, away from a focus on
syntactic and structural knowledge to one on communicative competence and
interaction. Such changes in perspective have also gone hand in hand with other
language policy developments. We have seen languages for all come and go. We have
also seen the target language focus of communicative language teaching eclipsed by a
return to grammar and explicit knowledge about language. Other agendas have
emerged: autonomy, primary language learning, language across the curriculum, etc.
This Special Issue, which is divided between Volume 35, Number 1 and Volume 35,
Number 2 of the Language Learning Journal, focuses on language learner strategies.
The attention given to learner strategies arises from a conviction on the part of a group
of researchers, teachers and teacher trainers that these strategies have a potential to
raise the achievement of our pupils. Language learner strategies are associated with
research undertaken over three decades into what makes the good language learner,
in the belief that if we can nd out why some learners are successful, then maybe we
can teach what they do to the rest. This research has given rise to a large quantity of
data which shows how successful learners have at their disposal a whole repertoire of
tricks, tactics, skillsstrategiesto make language learning work for them. Of course,
it is not as simple as that. We shall see that language learner strategies raise questions of
denition. For example, what is the difference between a learning strategy and a learner
strategy? Such questions lead to others:
. Are strategies conscious, unconscious or both?
. Are they developmental?
*Corresponding author. School of Education, Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences, University
of Southampton, Higheld, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK. Email: m.grenfell@soton.ac.uk
Language Learning Journal
Vol. 35, No. 1, June 2007, pp. 57
ISSN 0957-1736 (print)/ISSN 1753-2167 (online)/07/010005-03
2007 Association for Language Learning
DOI: 10.1080/09571730701315535
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. Are they dependent on factors such as prociency and age?
. To what extent are they connected with specic goals and aims?
. How important is the situational context to their deployment?
. How are they expressed in individual skill areas?
. To what extent do they combine or act in clusters?
. Are they symbiotic?
. How are they connected with language learning processes?
These questions bring us face to face with issues of theory and practice, process and
product, speculation and evidence. They also ask us to consider the interface between
the social and the psychological, and between the individual learner and the teacher.
They continue to preoccupy researchers in the eld. They also raise questions
concerning classroom pedagogy, the principles that underlie what we do and the
value of individual activities. Strategies do connect with learning styles and specic
syllabus and curriculum plansschemes of work, etc. Finally, however, we must ask:
does their use actually lead to enhanced learning?
The learning to learn agenda is hardly novel. However, it pertains to a
fundamental shift in our thinking about the way learning takes place, and it moves
the focus away from the product to the processes of teaching and learning. Central to
this agenda is the idea of equipping learners with what is necessary to make the most
of their own learning skills. This is where language learner strategies come in: they
offer the tools for learners to manage their own learning. The possibility and potential
of strategy instruction then become very evident. But is it possible?
You will nd these and many other associated issues addressed in the articles
included in this Issue. They arise from a group of researchers working on language
learner strategies in a range of contexts, at various levels of learning a foreign language
and in all language skill areas. This area of work has been around for many years. In
fact, language learning strategies are now one of the key objectives on the KS2 MFLs
framework, and they are also enshrined in the KS3 framework. In some cases, the
strategy rubric has been interpreted as supplying a range of study skills to help the
learner to learn: memorization strategies; dictionary skills; awareness of language
structures; tips to help you communicate, etc. Although the writers in this Issue differ
in their individual perspectives and focuses, they all share a common belief that
strategy work has a much greater potential to shape our pedagogy than has hitherto
been grasped and that an overly utilitarian, feed-in approach to strategies takes a far
too limited view of that potential.
We begin with a scene-setting article which describes the background to language
learner strategy research and modern foreign languages teaching and learning over
recent decades. This article suggests ways in which common issues are linked. It also
introduces a major research groupUKPOLLS (UK Project on Language Learner
Strategies)and their mission to connect empirical and theoretical research with
national curricula and classroom practice.
The other articles, which are shared across Volume 35, Number 1 and Volume 35,
Number 2 of the Language Learning Journal, fall into three main groups. Some offer
empirical investigations of strategy instruction in practice, in particular, in individual
6 Guest Editorial
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skill areas. Others consider the strategies of a particular group of learners. In a third
group, the author looks at teachers working with strategy instruction and what
happened as a result. Another article sets out to show how a strategy questionnaire
was constructed, which might be used by the readeras it stands or modiedto
investigate the strategy use of their group of learners. The methods of data collection
and analysis vary in all the articles and show the possible range of techniques which
might be brought to language learner strategy research.
Many claims are currently made for the value of evidence-based practice and
assertions made to the effect that if teachers change their practice from x to y, there
will be a signicant and enduring improvement in teaching and learning. Although
we would not subscribe to such an instrumental view of research and practice, we do
believe that language learner strategies inquiry offers us a means by which research
may impact more effectively on policy and practice. This Special Issue is intended to
be a step towards the realization of this belief.
Guest Editorial 7
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