May 2008 Zrna Agacevic

Univerzitet u Zenici
Pedagoški fakultet
Odsjek za engleski jezik i književnost

Methodology of teaching English language

Book Report
Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know
by Rebecca L. Oxford

Mentor: Kasumagić Larisa, MA

Student: Agačević Zrna

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This book deals with six main types of language learning strategies and presents eight-
step model for strategy training. It covers all four language skills and offers a large number of
training activities. The book gives a description of real-life situations and illiustrations of
leraning strategies providing concrete examples from English, German, French, Italian,
Japanese and Spanish.
Language learning strategies help foreign language learners to improve their own
learning. This book is for teachers and students who want to be more effective and self-
directed. It is divided into seven chapters. Each chapter contains figures, tables and useful
activites. At the beginnig of each chapter there are the preview questions representing the
issues that particular chapter deals with. Activites presented in this book are marked with
capital L (listening), S (speaking), R (reading), W (writing) and A (all skills). This represents
the language skill related to each strategy.
Learning strategies are divided into two classes: Direct and Indirect. Direct Strategies
make three groups of strategies: Memory Strategies, Cognitive Strategies and Compensation
Strategies. Indirect Strategies make three groups also: Metacognitive, Affective and Social
Strategies. These groups are further divided into sets. This divison makes a system which is
called the Strategy system.
Every exercise in this book has given the purpose of the exercise as well as materials,
time and instructions how to conduct it. There is a list of numerous interesting activities for
every strategy. For example, after presenting and explaining Memory Strategies the author
shows how to represent sounds in memory, or how to do semantic mapping and similar
activities.
Chapter one deals with looking at language learning strategies and it gives definition
of learning stategies and provides a lot of information nedeed for the understanding of this
book. The following chapter defines direct strategies and describes them in detail. There are
different figures explaining strategies. The next chapter shows to us how o apply direct
strategies to the four language skills. It discusses how direct strategies are used to develop
each of the four language skills.
After direct strategies, indirect strategies are introduced. It is interesting how direct
strategies are used for dealing with language and indirect strategies for general managment of
learning. This chapter explains how to center, arrange and plan our learning. The next chapter
tells us how to apply indirect strategies to the four language skills. One of the unusual
activities is called Encouraging Yourself, where students make positive statements, which can
improve each of the four language skills.

One of the final chapters is about language learning strategy assessment and training.
Here are given some techniques for finding out what language learning strategies students
use. This chapter is a very good guide for teachers because it can help them identify their

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students’ strategies and improve their learning. This chapter also presents tips on assessing
students’ strategies and conducting strategy training.
The last chapter deals with networking at home and abroad describing how language
learning strategies are used in diverse settings and programms around the world. This chapter
encourages teachers to get connected and develop a support network starting at home and
reaching around the world. The whole book has many resources providing many good ideas,
as well as people or institutions to contact for more information.

Glossary:
1. Approach – a unified but broadly based theoretical position about the nature
of language and of language learning and teaching that forms the basis of
methodology in the language classroom.
2. Attrition – the loss or forgetting of language skills
3. Cognitive Strategies- strategic options relating to specific learning tasks that
involve direct manipulation of the learning material itself
4. Communication Strategies – strategic options relating to output, how one
productively expresses meaning, and how one effectively delivers messages to
the others.
5. Compensatory strategies- strategic options designed to overcome self-
percieved weaknesses
6. Learning strategies – strategic options relating to input, processing, storage
and retrieval
7. Metacognitive Strategies – strategies that involve planning for learning,
thinkikng about the learning process as it is taking place, monitoring of one’s
production or comprehension, and evaluating learning after an activity is
completed
8. U-shaped learning – the phenomenonof moving from a correct form to an
incorrect form and than back to correctness
9. Unanalyzed knowledge- the general form in which we know most things
without being aware of the structure of that knowledge
10. Visual learning style – the tendecy to prefer reading and studying charts,
drawings and other graphic information

Language Learning Strategies was a very interesting and unusual book for me. It is not
written in the way most books are. It introduces a new idea of how we can learn and at the
same time monitor our learning process. Some seemingly complicated definitions are given in
a very simple manner and organized in figures and tables. While reading this book you have
to be focused in order to understand it properly.
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I was surprised by the number of different activities that this book provides. Every
activity is very interesting, amusing and targeting at a specific strategy. For example, the
toothache activity puts you in a real-life situatuion, I’ll describe it briefly: you are a student
living in another country, whose language you speak only a little.One of your teeth fell out
and you know you have to go to the dentist. You have a dictionary and a phrase-book and you
must learn how to ask about a dentist and be able to make an appointment time. When you get
to the dentist’s office , you need to be able to cooperate with the dentist in treating the
problem.
At the end of each activity there is a question: which language learning strategies you
need to use? To be able to recognize and apply language learning strategy isthe aim of every
activity. Poems, plays, tasks, all kinds of exercises are in this book! It is interesting how
commics are used for learning language, for example, you can invent your own lines to fill in
the missing captions while guessing with pictures.
Every chapter of this book starts with preview questions. These questions are
introducing the main terms that will be used in the coming chapter. After discussing the
strategies the author explains how to use those strategies to develop each of the four language
skills. For example, using mechanical techniques, such as flashcards, can be very good for
developing listening, reading and writing skills.
The best activities are those that develop all learning skills, and they are marked with
capital A. One of those activities is using laughter because laughter can reduce anxiety and
bring plaesure to the classroom. Laughter can be stimulated by role-plays, games, and active
exercises in which learners are allowed to play as they learn.
I think that this book is wonderful for many reasons. First of all, it provides
information easy to understand and if you are a strategy beginner this book is the right one for
you! Secondly, it is full of useful and amusing activities, which you can use in your
classroom. Thirdly , I like how strategies and language skills are connected and depending on
your weak skill, you can find activities that aim at improving that particular skill. I strongly
recommend this book to teachers and students who want to be teachers because this book
makes you aware of the learning process and helps you improve your language learning.