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LEARNER STRATEGY TRAINING WHAT IS MEANT BY LEARNING STYLE?

This characterizes the consistent and rather enduring traits, tendencies, or preferences that may differentiate you from another person. They are appropriate characterization of how you generally behave. The term learning style is used to encompass four aspects of the person: y cognitive style, i.e., preferred or habitual patterns of mental functioning; y patterns of attitudes and interests that affect what an individual will pay most attention to in a learning situation; y a tendency to seek situations compatible with one's own learning patterns; and y a tendency to use certain learning strategies and avoid others. Learning style is inherent and pervasive and is a blend of cognitive, affective, and behavioral elements. WHAT ARE LEARNING STRATEGIES? These are specific methods of approaching a problem or task, modes of operation for achieving a particular end, or planned designs for controlling and manipulation certain information. y Wenden and Rubin (1987:19) define learning strategies as "... any sets of operations, steps, plans, routines used by the learner to facilitate the obtaining, storage, retrieval, and use of information." Richards and Platt (1992:209) state that learning strategies are "intentional behavior and thoughts used by learners during learning so as to better help them understand, learn, or remember new information." Faerch Claus and Casper (1983:67) stress that a learning strategy is "an attempt to develop linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in the target language." According to Stern (1992:261), "the concept of learning strategy is dependent on the assumption that learners consciously engage in activities to achieve certain goals and learning strategies can be regarded as broadly conceived intentional directions and learning techniques."

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All language learners use language learning strategies either consciously or unconsciously when processing new information and performing tasks in the language classroom. Since language classroom is like a problem-solving environment in which language learners are likely to face new input and difficult tasks given by their instructors, learners' attempts to find the quickest or easiest way to do what is required, that is, using language learning strategies is inescapable. Language learning strategies are the often-conscious steps or behaviors used by language learners to enhance the acquisition, storage, retention, recall, and use of new information. Strategies can be assessed in a variety of ways, such as diaries, think-aloud procedures, observations, and surveys.

Researches in both outside the language field and investigations with language frequently show that the most successful learners tend to use learning strategies that are appropriate to the material, to the task, and to their own goals, needs, and stage of learning. More proficient learners appear to use a wider range of strategies in a greater number of situations than do less proficient learners, but the relationship between strategy use and proficiency is complex. Research indicates that language learners at all levels use strategies, but some or most learners are not fully aware of the strategies they use or the strategies that might be most beneficial to employ. WHAT ARE LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGIES? Language learning strategies are the often-conscious steps or behaviors used by language learners to enhance the acquisition, storage, retention, recall, and use of new information. Strategies can be assessed in a variety of ways, such as diaries, think-aloud procedures, observations, and surveys. IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGIES Language learning strategies are good indicators of how learners approach tasks or problems encountered during the process of language learning. In other words, language learning strategies, while non-observable or unconsciously used in some cases, give language teachers valuable clues about how their students assess the situation, plan, select appropriate skills so as to understand, learn, or remember new input presented in the language classroom. Developing skills in three areas, such as metacognitive, cognitive, and socioaffective can help the language learner build up learner independence and autonomy whereby he can take control of his own learning. Lessard-Clouston (1997:3) states that language learning strategies contribute to the development of the communicative competence of the students. Being a broad concept, language learning strategies are used to refer to all strategies foreign language learners use in learning the target language and communication strategies are one type of language learning strategies. It follows from this that language teachers aiming at developing the communicative competence of the students and language learning should be familiar with language learning strategies. As Oxford (1990:1) states, language learning strategies "... are especially important for language learning because they are tools for active, self-directed movement, which is essential for developing communicative competence." Besides developing the communicative competence of the students, teachers who train students to use language learning strategies can help them become better language learners. Helping students understand good language learning strategies and training them to develop and use such good language learning strategies can be considered to be the appreciated characteristics of a good language teacher (Lessard-Clouston 1997:3). Strategy training aims to provide learners with the tools to do the following: y Self-diagnose their strengths and weaknesses in language learning y Become aware of what helps them to learn the target language most efficiently y Develop a broad range of problem-solving skills y Experiment with familiar and unfamiliar learning strategies
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Make decisions about how to approach a language task Monitor and self-evaluate their performance Transfer successful strategies to new learning contexts

LEARNING STRATEGIES A variety of instructional models for foreign language strategy training have already been developed and implemented in a variety of educational settings. Seven of these are described below. General Study Skills Courses. These courses are sometimes intended for students with academic difficulties but can also target successful students who want to improve their study habits. Many general academic skills can be transferred to the process of learning a foreign language, such as using flash cards, overcoming anxiety, and learning good note-taking skills. These courses sometimes include language learning as a specific topic to highlight how learning a foreign language may differ from learning other academic subjects. Foreign language students can be encouraged to participate in order to develop general learning strategies. Awareness Training: Lectures and Discussion. Also known as consciousness-raising or familiarization training, this consists most often of isolated lectures and discussions and is usually separate from regular classroom instruction. This approach provides students with a general introduction to strategy applications. Oxford (1990) describes awareness training as a program in which participants become aware of and familiar with the general idea of language learning strategies and the way such strategies can help them accomplish various language tasks. Strategy Workshops. Short workshops are another, usually more intensive, approach to increasing learner awareness of strategies through various consciousness-raising and strategyassessment activities. They may help to improve specific language skills or present ideas for learning certain aspects of a particular foreign language. These workshops may be offered as non-credit courses or required as part of a language or academic skills course. They often combine lectures, hands-on practice with specific strategies, and discussions about the effectiveness of strategy use. Peer Tutoring. Tandem or peer tutoring programs began in the 1970s in Europe and are flourishing in many universities across the United States. Holec (1988) describes this system as a direct language exchange program that pairs students of different native language backgrounds for mutual tutoring sessions (e.g., an English-speaking student studying Italian and a native-Italian-speaking student learning English). Requirements of the tutoring sessions are that students have regular meetings, alternate roles of learner and teacher, practice the two languages separately, and devote equal amounts of time to each language. Often, students exchange suggestions about the language learning strategies they use, thus providing an ad hoc form of strategy training. Another approach to peer sessions is to encourage students who are studying the same language to organize regular target-language study groups. Students who have already completed the language course may also be invited to these meetings. Less proficient students can benefit from the language skills of more proficient students, and more proficient students may yield better insights into the particular difficulties of the target language than a teacher.
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Strategies in Language Textbooks. Many foreign language textbooks have begun to embed strategies into their curricula. However, unless the strategies are explained, modeled, or reinforced by the classroom teacher, students may not be aware that they are using strategies at all. A few language textbooks provide strategy-embedded activities and explicit explanations of the benefits and applications of the strategies they address. Because the focus of the activities is contextualized language learning, learners can develop their learning strategy repertoires while learning the target language. One advantage of using textbooks with explicit strategy training is that students do not need extracurricular training; the textbooks reinforce strategy use across both tasks and skills, encouraging students to continue applying them on their own. Videotaped Mini-Courses. Rubin (1996) developed an interactive videodisc program and accompanying instructional guide aimed at raising students awareness of learning strategies and of the learning process in general, to show students how to transfer strategies to new tasks and to help them take charge of their own progress while learning the language. Using authentic language situations, the instructional program includes 20 foreign languages and offers the opportunity to select the language, topic, and difficulty level. Materials are structured to expose students to various strategies for use in many different contexts. Strategies-Based Instruction (SBI). SBI is a learner-centered approach to teaching that extends classroom strategy training to include both implicit and explicit integration of strategies into the course content. Students experience the advantages of systematically applying the strategies to the learning and use of the language they are studying. In addition, they have opportunities to share their preferred strategies with other students and to increase their strategy use in the typical language tasks they are asked to perform. Teachers can individualize strategy training, suggest language-specific strategies, and reinforce strategies while presenting the regular course content. In a typical SBI classroom, teachers do the following: y Describe, model, and give examples of potentially useful strategies y Elicit additional examples from students, based on students own learning experiences y Lead small-group and whole-class discussions about strategies y Encourage students to experiment with a broad range of strategies y Integrate strategies into everyday class materials, explicitly and implicitly embedding them into the language tasks to provide for contextualized strategy practice Teachers may conduct SBI instruction by starting with established course materials, then determining which strategies to insert and where; starting with a set of strategies they wish to focus on and design activities around them; or inserting strategies spontaneously into the lessons whenever it seems appropriate (e.g., to help students overcome problems with difficult material or to speed up the lesson). What is Styles- and Strategies-Based Instruction? Styles- and strategies-based instruction (SSBI) is a name that has been given to a form of learner-focused language teaching that explicitly combines styles and strategy training activities with everyday classroom language instruction (see Oxford, 2001; Cohen & Drnyei, 2002). The underlying premise of the styles- and strategies-based approach is that students should be given the opportunity to understand not only what they can learn in the language

classroom, but also how they can learn the language they are studying more effectively and efficiently This approach aims to assist learners in becoming more effective in their efforts to learn and use the target language. SSBI helps learners become more aware of what kinds of strategies are available to them, understand how to organize and use strategies systematically and effectively given their learning-style preferences, and learn when and how to transfer the strategies to new language learning and using contexts. SSBI is based on the following series of components: 1. Strategy Preparation. In this phase, the goal is to determine just how much knowledge of and ability to use strategies the given learners already have. There is no sense in assuming that students are a blank slate when it comes to strategy use. They most likely have developed some strategies. The thing is that they may not use them systematically, and they may not use them well. 2. Strategy Awareness-Raising. In this phase, the goal is to alert learners to presence of strategies they might never have thought about or may have thought about but had never used. The SSBI tasks are explicitly used to raise the students general awareness about: 1) what the learning process may consist of, 2) their learning style preferences or general approaches to learning, 3) the kinds of strategies that they already employ, as well as those suggested by the teacher or classmates, 4) the amount of responsibility that they take for their learning, or 5) approaches that can be used to evaluate the students strategy use. Awareness-raising activities are by definition always explicit in their treatment of strategies. 3. Strategy Training. In this phase, students are explicitly taught how, when, and why certain strategies (whether alone, in sequence, or in clusters) can be used to facilitate language learning and use activities. In a typical classroom strategy-training situation, the teachers describe, model, and give examples of potentially useful strategies. They elicit additional examples from students based on the students own learning experiences; they lead small-group or whole-class discussions about strategies (e.g., the rationale behind strategy use, planning an approach to a specific activity, evaluating the effectiveness of chosen strategies); and they can encourage their students to experiment with a broad range of strategies. 4. Strategy Practice. In this phase, students are encouraged to experiment with a broad range of strategies. It is not assumed that knowing about a given strategy is enough. It is crucial that learners have ample opportunity to try them out on numerous tasks. These "strategy-friendly" activities are designed to reinforce strategies that have already been dealt with and allow students time to practice the strategies at the same time they are learning the course content. These activities should include explicit references to the strategies being used in completion of the task. In other words, either students: 1. plan the strategies that they will use for a particular activity, 2. have their attention called to the use of particular strategies while they are being used, or 3. "debrief" their use of strategies (and their relative effectiveness) after the activity has ended.
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5. Personalization of Strategies. In this stage, learners personalize what they have learned about these strategies, evaluate to see how they are using the strategies, and then look to ways that they can transfer the use of these strategies to other contexts. In SSBI, it is the curriculum writers and the teachers role to see that strategies are integrated into everyday class materials and are both explicitly and implicitly embedded into the language tasks to provide for contextualized strategy practice. Teachers may: 1. Start with the established course materials and then determine which strategies might be inserted, 2. Start with a set of strategies that they wish to focus on and design activities around them, or 3. Insert strategies spontaneously into the lessons whenever it seems appropriate. These strategies-based activities are designed to raise awareness about strategies, to train students in strategy use, to give them opportunities to practice strategy use, and to encourage them to personalize these strategies for themselves. Teachers also allow students to choose their own strategies and do so spontaneously, without continued prompting from the language teacher. STEPS FOR DESIGNING STRATEGY TRAINING 1. Determine learners needs and the resources available for training. 2. Select the strategies to be taught. 3. Consider the benefits of integrated strategy training. 4. Consider motivational issues. 5. Prepare the materials and activities. 6. Conduct explicit strategy training. 7. Evaluate and revise the strategy training. The most important considerations in the design of a strategy training program are the students needs, the available resources (e.g, time, money, materials, availability of teacher trainers), and the feasibility of providing this kind of instruction. When including strategies-based instruction in a foreign language curriculum, it is important to choose an instructional model that introduces the strategies to the students and raises awareness of their learning preferences; teaches them to identify, practice, evaluate, and transfer strategies to new learning situations; and promotes learner autonomy to enable students to continue their learning after they leave the language classroom. DEVELOPING STUDENT SELF-AWARENESS OF STYLE TENDENCIES 1. Informal Self-check Lists. These check-lists are usually not formally scored or tallied; rather, they serve as focal points for discussion and enlightenment. You might devise it yourself. 2. Formal Personality and Cognitive Style Tests. Using this type of style tests must be done with caution because they often are culturally biased, have difficult language, and need to be interpreted with a grain of salt. Myers-Briggs Type Inventory

(MBT) measures personality styles that correspond to language learning styles and that learners can benefit from knowing both the assets and liabilities of each style. 3. Reading, Lectures, Discussions. 4. Impromptu Teacher-initiated Advice. These are impromptu reminders of rules for good language learning and encouragement of discussion or clarification. A set of successful styles for language learning might ne appropriately capsulated in the form of ten rules or commandments. TEACHERS VERSION Lower Inhibitions Encourage Risk-taking Build self-confidence Develop Intrinsic Motivation Engage in Cooperative Learning Use Right-brain Processes Promote Ambiguity Tolerance Practice Intuition Process Error Feedback Set Personal Goals LEARNERS VERSION Fear not! Dive In Believe in yourself 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

HOW TO TEACH STRATEGIES IN THE CLASSROOM Rebecca Oxford (1990) provides the most comprehensive taxonomy of learning strategies currently available. These strategies are divided into what has come to be known as direct or cognitive (learners apply directly to the language itself) and indirect or metacognitive strategies (learners manage or control their own learning process). Strategies, like styles, can be taught, and because of their specificity, even more easily than styles. There are at least four different approaches you can take to teaching strategies in the language classroom. 1. Teach strategies through interactive techniques. 2. Use compensatory techniques. PROBLEMS/WEAKNESS Low tolerance of ambiguity SOLUTIONS/TECHNIQUES Brainstorming, retelling stories, roleplay, paraphrasing, finding synonyms, jigsaw techniques, skimming tasks. Making inferences, syntactic or semantic clue searches, scanning for specific information, inductive rule of generalization. Small group techniques, role play, brainstorming, fluency techniques. Syntactic or semantic clue searches,
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Excessive impulsiveness

Excessive effectiveness/caution Too much field dependence

Too much field independence

scanning for specific information, proofreading, categorizing and clustering activities, information gap techniques. Integrative language techniques, fluency techniques, retelling stories, skimming tasks.

3. Administer a strategy inventory. The best and most comprehensive of such instruments is Rebecca Oxfords Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). It is an extensive questionnaire covering fifty separate strategies in six major categories. 4. Impromptu Teacher-initiated advice. Learners can benefit greatly from your daily attention to the many little tricks of the trade that you can pass on them. When those appropriate moments present themselves in your class, seize the opportunity to teach your students how to learn. By doing so, you will increase their opportunities for strategic investment in their learning process.

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