Learning Strategies

Learning strategies is the term applied to the various behaviors or techniques we use to learn. Some are consciously employed, and others are automatic. As mentioned above, most learning styles are expressed by observable learning strategy behaviors. In a nutshell, learning strategies are:

1.  things we do;

2.  relatively easy to change;

3.  different, depending on our learning styles;

4.  effective or not effective for specific situations; and

5.  frequently under some level of conscious control.

Some learning strategies will be specific to each of the four skills. The receptive skills of reading and listening can share certain strategies, as can the productive skills of speaking and writing. Let’s look at some concrete examples of learning styles in each of these areas:

1.  Comprehension/receptive strategies can include such things as using

2.  Background knowledge, analyzing word parts, using context, asking

for help, using a dictionary, and the like.

3.  Production strategies can include such things as adhering to the known,

4.  Paraphrasing, using an authentic text as a guide, asking for help, using

5.  A dictionary, rehearsal, and the like.

The key to strategic thinking is metacognition (cognition is thinking, and metacognition is thinking about thinking). Metacognition for strategy use includes such things as monitoring, evaluating, and refining your use of strategies and deliberately selecting appropriate strategies for specific tasks. Other metacognitive strategies include planning and rewarding oneself for specific kinds of progress. These latter strategies are perhaps the most significant way to achieve success in autonomous (independent) learning because it is up to the learner to decide what to learn, when to learn it and how.  Strategic competence is the ability to select the appropriate learning strategies for the learning or communicative situation in which you find yourself. There are two ways of looking at strategic competence. One is from the point of view of learning; the other is from the point of view of communication. From the point of view of learning, we talk about learning strategies – those actions that help you to learn more effectively.  Competence refers to (1) being able to deal with situations where you are in over your head, and/or (2) taking control of your learning and linguistic behavior. The first kind of strategic competence is very important at lower levels of proficiency; the second kind is more important at higher levels of foreign-language proficiency. There are countless learning strategies, so many people find that it is helpful to group them when thinking about them or learning to use them. Over time, a number of different taxonomies (groupings) of learning and communication strategies have been suggested.  Some taxonomies contain purely learning strategies; others combine learning and communication strategies. Taxonomies per se are of most interest to theorists and researchers. For you, the most important things are knowing about the strategies that are listed in each of them, using a variety of strategies in your language-learning endeavors, and selecting the one(s) that is/are most appropriate for any given learning task. Deep strategies make connections among things: unknown to known, among unknowns, new connections among knowns. These activities normally involve investment of personal energy and attention and thus impose something of an additional cognitive load. Examples of deep strategies include making associations among concepts, elaboration.  Surface strategies do not make much of an investment in the material being learned. They are of a “just get it done” nature. Although they tend to be less useful for bringing material into long-term memory, they can be very helpful when there is something that needs to be dealt with in the short term. Rote memory is often a surface approach, because it may not make use of connections to other things. Reading through word lists without much thinking about the contents can also be a surface approach. Let’s look at what happens now in a classroom setting. The teacher assigns a reading; it has twenty-five new words, and there is a word list that follows that translates each word into English. As you read the article, you look back at the word list. That is a surface strategy. Later, you learn that your teacher might give you a quiz, and you are worried about knowing these twenty-five words, so you spend a half-hour memorizing the word list by first covering up the English and telling yourself the meaning of the word and then covering up the foreign word and, using the English as a prompt, writing it down. These are also surface strategies. If you are strongly ectenic, you will probably want to confirm your hypothesis by checking with the word list (reflective strategy). That is okay. You have used a deep strategy to get the meaning, and that meaning will probably stay with you much longer than through simple memorization. You may even find that it does not take you any time at all to prepare for that quiz because you have already learned the words in the process of figuring them out on your own. Comprehension strategies are used when you need to understand something that has been said or written. Perhaps there are new expressions in a text. You can use a number of strategies to understand them. You can guess their meaning from context; this is more instinctive for inductive learners. You can break the words apart and see if you can analyze their meaning; this is more natural for ectenic learners. You can apply background knowledge of the topic to determine what the limits on the range of possible definitions of these words would be; this is a naturally synoptic strategy. You could also look up the word in the dictionary – something that an ectenic learner is more likely to do than a synoptic one.  Strategies for production are used when you need to say or write something. There are a number of other kinds of strategies that can be used as well. Of those, at lower levels of proficiency, the ones that are most useful will very likely be the compensation strategies – how to communicate when you do not have the words to express what you need to be able to say. In the case of analytic strategies, one might use description in lieu of a specific, unknown word. For example, if someone wants to buy a nail file, he or she might ask for the long, sharp thing for nails. One of the authors did just that in a foreign country recently – and learned the word for nail file in the process.  How can you use learning strategies effectively? Let’s take some examples. If you are an ectenic learner and you need to express something for which you do not have the words, then an analytic compensation strategy may be perfect for you. As in the case with the nail file, describe any aspect of what it is you want to say, and you will probably be understood. Then take note of the “correct” word for next time. If you are a synoptic learner, you could do the same thing, but probably a holistic compensation strategy would work better for you. Try using similar ideas and analogies, as in the case of the chicken and its shoes and hat. You, too, should take note of what the word is when you get it, but make sure you have it right. Often, synoptic learners come close but are not precise when they learn new things in real-life contexts. Ask again, if you need to. If you are not an auditory learner (regardless of your other learning styles) and you get this information in an auditory fashion, take the first opportunity you have to write it down (and, if necessary, to look it up in a dictionary). You will need to figure out for yourself which strategies are the most effective for you.

There have been mentioned above that learning styles are expressed by learning strategies; they are what you can see and hear. Another way to look at it is that learning styles – habitual patterns of preference – influence choices of learning strategies. So, for example, the synoptic learner will prefer to get the gist of a listening or reading passage first, whereas an ectenic learner may want control of the specifics before seeing how they relate to the whole picture. Thus, the global (synoptic) learner will gravitate to top-down (big picture to details), and the particular (ectenic) learner will want to go from bottom up (details then whole). Of course both will need eventually to use the opposite strategies.

Bibliography:

1.    Brown, H.D. (2000): Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. Gass,

2.    S.M. I L. Selinker. (2008): Second Language Acquisition. An Introductory Course. New York: Routledge. VanPatten,

3.    Leaver, B.L; Ehrman, M; Shekhtman, B. (2005): Achieving Success in Second Language Acquisition. CUP

4.    B. i J. Williams. (red.) 2007: Theories in Second Language Acquisition. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

§  ©