MASTERS IN EDUCATION (TESL)

GROUP: TESL 1
COURSE CODE: GGGE6533
COURSE TITLE: LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGIES
INSTRUCTION

GROUP TASK (25%)

Development of Learning-to-Learn Programme

NAMES : LEE YI ROU (GP06473)

MELANIE A/P SELVARAJ (GP06478)
MOHAMAD KHAIRI FAKHRI BIN FAZIL (GP06480)
SHANU PREEYA A/P THANNIMALAI (GP06499)
WONG PEI MIIN (GP06514)

DATE OF SUBMISSION : 29TH APRIL 2019

LECTURER : DR HARWATI BINTI HASHIM

Introduction

In language learning, a strategy is required to be adapted in order to achieve the main

purpose of learning (Hardan, 2013). According to Oxford (1989), language learning
strategies (LLS) refer to behaviours or actions which learners use to make language
learning more successful, self-directed and enjoyable. In 1990, Oxford also describes
learning strategies are transferable to new situations. Learners are able to employ the
same strategies not only in language learning but also the learning of other subjects
like Science and Mathematics. In other words, when learners are engaged in any
learning task, they use different approaches to complete the task regardless to the
subjects they learn. On the other hand, O’ Malley and Chamot (1990) further discussed
learning strategies as techniques and tools used by second language learners for
remembering and organizing samples of the second language. These strategies help
learners to involve in the task actively, organize the new information they have learnt
and followed by the self-evaluation of the learning.

With globalization, the importance of acquiring language especially English

language has simultaneously increasing the significance of LLS. It also shows the
necessity of employing techniques and tactics in practicing language learning activities
as a good language learner is required to know how to learn a language instead of
what to learn. Therefore, LLS focus more on mental action, direct goal to assist
learners and involve neurological process and cognitive operation. There are six
classifications of LLS namely Memorization Strategies, Cognitive Strategies,
Compensation Strategies, Metacognitive Strategies, and lastly Affective and Social
Strategies. In this Learning-to-Learn module, these strategies are employed with the
adaptation of Chamot’s Training Model (1999).
Strategy 1: Happy Birthday

Classification of the strategy:

Social Strategy (asking questions)

Purpose:
By using these steps, you can name the months in a year

Main idea and Usage:

Through the strategy “Happy Birthday”, you will learn the months in a year and how to
ask your friends questions.

Steps:
1. A calendar is shown and point to your birthday on the calendar.

2. Listen to a month song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe9bnYRzFvk&start_radio=1&list=RDFe9bnY
RzFvk

3. Pay attention to the months in the song. (January, February, March, April, May,
June, July, August, September, October, November, December)
4. List the months in the worksheet given.
5. Ask the birthday month of your friend.
6. Write his or her name according to his or her birthday in the worksheet.

Examples:

1st step (Set induction)

A calendar is shown and point to your birthday on the calendar.

2nd step (Introduce the strategy)

1. Listen to a month song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe9bnYRzFvk&start_radio=1&list=RDFe9bnY
RzFvk

2. Pay attention to the months in the song. (January, February, March, April, May,
June, July, August, September, October, November, December)

3rd step (Practice)

1. List the months in the worksheet given.
2. Ask the birthday month of your friend.
3. Write his or her name according to his or her birthday in the worksheet.
e.g. Amy: When is your birthday?
Sam : It’s in October.

Worksheet

Name of Months Birthday Star

October Sam

4th step (Self- evaluation)

Circle the number of months that you can remember now.

Self-Evaluation Form

Name: Class:
 How many months can you tell?

Work harder Not bad Good Excellent

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

5th step (Expansion)

The stimulus of the steps can be changed. You can ask your friends’ favourite food,
colours, sport activities, seasons and days using the above steps.

6th Step (Assessment)

Complete the word search worksheet and hand it to your teacher.

Assessment
Strategy 2:
Sleeping Vampire

Classification of Strategy:
Memory Strategy (applying images and sounds; creating mental links)

Purpose:
The use of the Sleeping Vampire song in teaching subject-verb agreement

Main idea and Usage:

Through the application of this Sleeping Vampire song, pupils will be able to learn
the proper use of subject-verb agreement in sentences.

Steps:
1. Ask pupils how they identify which verb form – singular or plural, to use in
sentences.
2. Display the basic SVA chart.
3. Present the Sleeping Vampire song with reference to the SVA chart.
4. Provide each student with the Sleeping Vampire song lyric card.
5. Get pupils to sing along.
6. Pupils complete the given exercises by referring to their lyric card while
singing the song.
7. Teacher guides the pupils for Worksheet 1. As for the completion of
Worksheets 2 and 3, pupils apply the Sleeping Vampire technique
independently by singing out the song (with reference to their lyric cards)
while completing the exercises.

Examples:

1st Step (Set Induction)

1. Teacher writes out two simple sentences on the board.
E.g. I eat bread and butter in the morning.
I carry my bag to school.
2. Teacher asks two pupils, one for each sentence, to identify the verb in each
sentence.
3. The teacher then asks the pupils to identify the form of the verb, whether it is
in the singular or plural form.
4. Teacher then asks the pupils how they obtain the answers.

2nd Step (Introduction of Strategy)

1. Teacher displays and explains the SVA Chart.
 I
You
s
We
They

He
She s
It

SVA Chart

2. Teacher then plays the Sleeping Vampire song for the pupils to listen.
3. Teacher then displays the lyrics of the Sleeping Vampire song.
4. Teacher also provides each pupil with a song lyric card.

Lyrics of Sleeping Vampire

I, you, we, they

I, you, we, they
There’s no ‘s’
There’s no ‘s’

He, she and it

He, she and it
Got ‘s’
Got ‘s’

Tune: Are you sleeping?

Song lyric card

5. Teacher then plays the song twice and pupils sing along.
6. Teacher emphasizes how the Sleeping Vampire song can help the pupils
remember which verb form they should use for each pronoun or noun.

3rd Step (Practice)

1. Pupils read the sentences in Worksheet 1 and underline the correct verb.
2. Teacher guides the pupils and get the pupils to sing the Sleeping Vampire
song before they identify each answer.
3. Pupils also refer to the lyric card and SVA Chart for additional emphasis.
 Name: ___Shanu____ Date: 24th March 2019

Underline the correct answers. Follow the examples given.

Examples: She ( walk , walks ) to school every morning.

We ( eat , eats ) breakfast every day.

1. I ( play , plays ) badminton.

2. He ( run , runs ) fast.

3. It ( drink , drinks ) milk.

4. They ( read , reads ) books.

Example of Worksheet 1

4th Step (Self-evaluation)

Language Production assessment:

1. Pupils work in pairs to review their peers’ answers in Worksheet 1 (as seen
above).
2. Pupils sing the Sleeping Vampire song to identify if their friends’ answers are
accurate.
Learning Strategy assessment:
1. Pupils will individually rate the Sleeping Vampire song by colouring the
gesture that best describes how they feel about the Sleeping Vampire
strategy.

Name: ___Shanu____ Date: 24th March 2019

Rate the Scream Vampire song.

Was it helpful?

Yes, it was. It was okay. No, it wasn’t.

Example of strategy assessment

5th Step (Expansion)
1. Pupils complete the given exercise by correctly identifying the subject and
matching it with the correct verb form.
2. The teacher acts as a facilitator that observes the pupils’ use of the technique.
3. Pupils sing the Sleeping Vampire song out loud (with reference to their song
lyrics) while completing Worksheet 2.

Name: ___Shanu____ Date: 24th March 2019

Underline the correct answers. Follow the examples given.

Examples: Abu and I ( cycle , cycles ) to the park.

My rabbit ( hop , hops ) everywhere.

1. Mr and Mrs Raju ( go , goes ) to the market every Sunday.

2. Alia and her friends ( visit , visits ) the library every weekend.

3. The lions ( roar , roars ) loudly.

4. My sister ( bake , bakes ) delicious cupcakes.

Example of Worksheet 2

6th Step (Assessment)

1. Teacher provides the final exercise (Worksheet 3) for each pupil in order to
assess the pupils’ grasp of the focussed element with the application of the
introduced Sleeping Vampire strategy.
2. Pupils identify the sentences as correct () or incorrect () as seen in
Worksheet 3.
3. Pupils identify the subject, verb, as well as the form of the verb – singular or
plural.
4. Pupils practice conditioning themselves to the use of the Sleeping Vampire
song in addition to analysing and synthesising the sentences accurately.

Name: ___Shanu____ Date: 24th March 2019

Put a () for each correct sentence and a () for each incorrect sentence.
Examples:

Mary go to church every Sunday.


Mr Abu drives to work.


Chan Shi Rong and Lee Chong Wei play badminton at the
1.
stadium every day.

2. The children sleeps early every night.

3. Winnie the Pooh loves eating honey.

4. The chocolate cake taste delicious.

Example of Worksheet 3
Strategy 3: The GesCue Generator

Purpose: Learning adjectives to describe physcial appearance of a person. (Year 3:

Topic 1: Welcome!)

Main idea and Usage: Students would guess intelligently on the adjectives in
describe a person’s physical appearance based on compensational gestures and
vocal cues. These gestures and vocal cues would be recalled on later to stimulate
mental linkage.

Steps:
1. Students guess the meaning of a few adjectives.
2. GesCue is modelled. The teacher collaborates with students in modeling the
gesture or actions along with vocal cues for each adjective. Adjective: straight hair,
curly hair, spiky hair, long hair, short hair.

3. In groups or pairs, students practice those gestures and vocal cues for each
adjective. Students are encouraged to correct each other.

Examples:

1st step, Set induction:

Students are exposed to the target language and immersed to it without any
intervention

1. A cut-out of a comic strip from page 12, “Get Smart 3” textbook is displayed.
2. Students were asked the meaning of “curly hair”.
3. Students are given a creative freedom to guess the meaning of “curly hair”
and using any means necessary (they are allowed to use their mother tongue
or link them with anything or anyone around them).
Sample of the comic strip:

2nd step,Presentation:

Teacher introduces the GesCue model by collaborating with the students to create
the GesCue for each adjective.

1. The teacher explains each adjective. (curly hair, straight hair, spiky hair, wavy
hair).
2. Students will be guided by the teacher in generating a “Ges-Cue” for each
adjective.
3rd step, practice:

1. In groups or in pairs, students practice the GesCue for each adjective.

Students are allowed to provide peer support by correcting and verifying each
other.
Self-Evaluation:
4th step, evaluation for language production:
1. In pairs, students are given checklists to evaluate each other’s memory on the
Ges-Cue(s) that they have learnt. (cross-evaluation)
 2. Example of the checklist;

Name: …………………………………………………………………………………….

Class: …………………………………………………………………………………….

Tick “Yes” on the Ges-Cues that this person can do and tick “No” on the Ges-Cues that
the person can’t.

Adjectives Yes No
Curly Hair

Straight Hair

Spiky Hair
Wavy Hair

5th step, evaluation for learning strategy, Feed-Forward:

1. Each student will be given a sticky note that they can choose to show how
they feel about the strategy. Green notes for “good”, yellow for “I don’t know”
and red for “bad”.
2. Each stduents have to write a comment using simple sentences or phrases on
how they feel about the Ges-Cue strategy and whether the Ges-Cue strategy
works on them.
3. Each students will paste their sticky notes on a “parking lot” or a special
board.
Expansion
6th step, applying GesCue strategy on a new task

1. The students are given new adjectives on physical appearances of a person;

pretty, ugly, tall, short, fat, slim.
2. The students generates new GesCue(s) based on these adjectives while
teacher facilitates this process.
3. The same process based on Chamot’s Model (1999) is repeated; practice,
self-evaluation, teacher’s evaluation.
 Example of other vocabularies that they can work on (screeshots from Get
Smart 3 textbook page 5;

Assessment
7th step, the teacher evaluate students’ use of the strategy.

1. The teacher evaluate and summarise the learning progression of students

throughout the whole learning process via the Ges-Cue strategy.
2. The teacher devise future lessons based on the students’ feedbacks given in
the 5th stage (Feed-Forward activity).
Conclusion

Second language learning is generally defined as developing the ability to

communicate in the second or foreign language which can be a challenge for young
children. Thus, each individual needs their own language learning styles and learning
strategies to facilitate their language learning to become effective. In other words,
language learning strategies are the best indicators of how learners handle tasks or
problems they come across during the process of language learning. A learning style
signifies the relationship between individuals and their own ways of learning the
language. On the other hand, learning strategies refer to attitudes and behaviour which
inclines to goal achievement. Hence, the language teachers should learn about the
students, their interests, motivations, and learning styles in order to train their students
to use the strategies. Simply put, language teachers need to provide a wide range of
language strategies to students based on their needs and expectations to assists in
their language learning process as they own different learning styles, strategy
preferences and motivations. To meet this goal, indirect and direct strategies of
language learning strategies need to take into account. The Indirect strategy is
inclusive of metacognitive, affective and social strategies whereas the direct strategy
includes memory, cognitive and compensation strategies. Therefore, language
teachers play a crucial role in identifying the best language learning strategies to fit
their learners’ needs to make language learning to be effective and meaningful.
Bibliography

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Hardan, A. A. (2013). Language Learning Strategies: A general Overview. Procedia-

Social and Behavioural Sciences, (106), 1712-1726.

O’Malley, J. M. and Chamot, A. (1990). Strategies used by Second Language

Learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Oxford, R. & Nyikos. M. (1989). Variables Affecting Choice of Language Learning

Strategies by University Students. The Modern Language Journal, (3),291-299.
Oxford, R. (1994). Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know.
University of Alabama, Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publications.