Williams, M. & Burden, R. (1997). How does the Learner deal with the process of Learning?

In Psychology for
Language Teachers - a social constructivist approach. Cambridge University Press.

How does the Learner deal with the process of Learning?

7.1 Introduction

In the previous two chapters we considered various attributes that learners bring to the
learning process. We discussed how learners’ motiv ation affects their learning in important
ways. W e have seen too that learners bring their own individual characteristics,
personalities, attributions and perceptions of themselves to the learning situation. In this
chapter we shall consider ways in which learners draw upon their existing skills and
knowledge, and use their personal attributes in the process of learning. W hat we are
concerned with here is how learners go about learning something; that is, the skills and
strategies that they use and the processes that they go through in order to make sense of
their learning. We first provide an overview of what is meant by skills and strategies,
together with the notion of ‘learning to learn’. We then focus on language learning
strategies, before considering strategy training.
Until recently the notion of learning strategies has been relativ ely neglected. In recent
years, however, there has been a growing interest amongst psychologists in the cognitiv e
strategies people use to think, to learn and to solve problems. The impetus for this arose
mainly from information-processing models of learning (see Chapter 1), and has given rise
to a proliferation of research and writing on these topics. Research into different aspects of
thinking is being carried out in various countries in both Western and Eastern Europe,
Russia, the USA and Australia. This has led to the production of a number of so—called
‘thinking skills’ programmes, and courses on thinking are now offered in several universities
in the USA. The Somerset Thinking Skills programme (Blagg et al. 1988), The OxfordshIte
Skills programme (Hanson 1991), and Matthew Lipman’s Philosophy for Children (Lipman
1988; Whalley 1991) are examples of commercial ‘packages’ which claim to teach thinking
skills to both children and adults.
There are a number of recent books describing work in this field. Clear and readable
accounts are provided by Nisbet and Shucksmith (1991) in their book Learning Strategies
and by Coles and Robinson (1991) in their edited collection of papers entitled Teaching
Thinking.

7.2 Learning strategies

One outcome of such work has been an interest in the broader notion of learning strategies.
What is clear from cognitive psychology (see the overview in Chapter 1) is that learners are
far from passive in their learning; rather, they are actively involved in making sense of the
tasks or problems with whic h they are faced in order to learn. When confronted with a
learning task, learners have various resources at their disposal and make use of them in
different ways. Cognitiv e strategies are only one of the resources people have available to
them. As we shall see, we also make use of a variety of other processes to help us to learn
something. We use our minds, but also our feelings and our social and communicative skills
in active ways.
Over the last twenty years there has been a growing amount of research into language
learning strategies. This work, which has been mainly descriptive in nature, is concerned
with investigating how individuals go about the task of learning something, and attempting
to discover which of the strategies that learners use are the most effective for the particular
type of learning involv ed.
Before we embark on a survey of the field, it is important to clarify what we mean by a
learning strategy. Most of us have probably used some or all of the following in learning a
foreign or second language:

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 • repeating words over and over again;
• listening attentively to try to distinguish words;
• trying to work out the rules of the language by forming hypotheses about how it
works;
• trying out these hypotheses to see if they work;
• testing yourself to see if you remember words;
• guessing the meanings of unknown words;
• using your knowledge of language rules to try to make new sentences;
• rehearsing in your head what you are about to say;
• practising the sounds of the language to yourself;
• asking a speaker to repeat something;
• pretending that you understand in order to keep the communic ation going.

These are some of the many strategies that people use to try to succeed in the complex
task of learning a language. There are a number of differences between them. Some of
them are used consciously, that is, we made a conscious and deliberate decision to do this
in order to help us to learn, but we can also use strategies unconsciously. Sometimes a
strategy can be observed, such as when we repeat words aloud, and sometimes they are
not observable, such as when we try to work out rules in our heads. In fact, learning
strategies are notoriously difficult to observe, which is one reason why research in this area
is so problematic. From the above list it can also be seen that some of these strategies are
cognitive, that is, they involv e processing language in our own minds, while others, such as
the last two, are rather more social in nature.

7.3 S kills and strategies

It has also proved difficult to define and to classify learning strategies, partly because terms
such as skills, strategies, executive processes, micro-strategies and macro-strategies are
used differently by different people.
First, a distinction is sometimes made between a skill and a strategy. In this distinction,
learning strategies are conceived of as operating at a level above skills; they can be seen as
the executive processes which manage and co-ordinate the skills. Nisbet and Shucksmith
(1991:24—5) explain the distinction by using an analogy of a football team. A player
possesses a range of skills, such as how to pass the ball to another player. However, to
succeed in a football match he has to know when to use these skills and how to put them
together. Thus, he uses tactics to co-ordinate them. In order to employ a good tactic, he
has to be aware of other things that are going on around him, to choose the appropriate
strategy for the partic ular moment, and to monitor whether it is successful.
A learning strategy is like a tactic used by a player. It is a series of skills used with a
particular learning purpose in mind. Thus, learning strategies involve an ability to monitor
the learning situation and respond accordingly. This means being able to assess the
situation, to plan, to select appropriate skills, to sequence them, to co-ordinate them, to
monitor or assess their effectiveness and to revise the plan when necessary. So, for
example, guessing the meaning of a word or skim ming a text are skills, but the learner has
to be able to use them in a purposeful way when appropriate. In other words, strategies are
purposeful and goal-oriented.
Other authors have made similar distinctions between more general and more specific
strategies. Sternberg (1983), for example, distinguishes executive skills from non-executiv e
skills, while KItby (1984) sees them as macro-strategies and micro-strategies. While these
distinctions are useful, the main problem with them is that they are not always that clear-cut
in practice, and it may be more realistic to conceive of strategies as more or less global or
task specific ; in other words as higher order or lower order. We shall, therefore, often use
the term ‘strategies’ in this chapter to refer to a range of such processes rather than making
a distinction between skills and strategies.

2
 Nisbet and Shucksmith (1991:28) provide a useful table of what they term ‘super-skills or
strategies’ which might be commonly needed to carry out a learning task well. (See Figure
22.) It is easy to see their application to language learning.
An important question to ask at this point is why we should be interested in learning
strategies. W e can go some way towards answering this by looking at what makes learners
successful at learning something. Why are some people more effectiv e at learning than
others? Effective learning is not merely a matter of an individual having a high IQ. (In
Chapter 1 we discussed the limitations of viewing IQ as something fix ed.) W hat appears to
be important is the learners’ ability to respond to the particular learning situation and to
manage their learning in an appropriate way. Studies of successful and unsuccessful
learners show that people who succeed in learning have developed a range of strategies
from which they are able to select those that are most appropriate for a particular problem,
to adapt them flexibly for the needs of the specific situation, and to monitor their level of
success (Nisbet and Shucksmith 1991:6). Nisbet and Shucksmith (ibid.:5) make the
disturbing observations that most adults will avoid the need to learn if they can by sticking
to familiar routines, and, when faced with an unfamiliar task, most people will not know how
to set about solving it.

a - Asking questions: defining hypotheses, establishing aim s and parameters of task,

discovering audience, relating task to previous work, etc.
b - Planning: deciding on tactics and timetables, reduction of task or
problem into components: what physic al mental skills are necessary?
c - Monitoring: continuous attempt to match efforts, answers and discoveries to initial
questions or purposes
d - Checking: preliminary assessment of performance and results
e - Revising: maybe simple re-drafting or re-calculation or maybe involving setting of
revised goals
f - Self-testing: final self-assessment both of results and performance on task

Figure 22 A list of commonly mentioned strategies (Nisbet and Shucksmith 199 1:28)

7.4 Learning to learn

This brings us back to one of the major themes of this book, that education is a lifelong
process, one purpose of which is to equip learners to cope in a changing world. As Knowles
(1976:23) similarly reminds us, one of our main aim s in education is ‘helping individuals to
develop the attitudes that learning is a lifelong process and to acquire the skills of self-
directed learning’. Two questions follow naturally from this. Can individuals learn to become
more successful at learning, and, can we as teachers help people to learn more effectively ?
There is increasing evidence that we can answer both of these questions in the affírmative.
As Wenden and Rubin claim (1987:8), ‘[o]ne of the leading educational goals of the
research on learner strategies is an autonomous language learner’, one who is equipped
with the appropriate skills and strategies to learn a language in a self-directed way. This has
initiated interest in what is now termed learner training in second and foreign language
teaching, whic h is concerned with ways of teaching learners explicitly the techniques of
learning a language, and an awareness of how and when to use strategies to enable them
to become self-directed. This we would see as one of the most important functions of
teachers as educators. An im portant question though is, how do we do it?
Traditionally, curric ula have tended to concentrate on im parting knowledge and skills, and
have neglected the teaching of how to learn. In language teaching, for example, we have
often tended to focus on teaching the form of the target Language by presenting pieces of
the language in carefully graded steps, at the cost of teaching people how to learn the
language.

3
 It might be argued that in school, children will pick up knowledge of how to learn from
their experience of being involved in learning. Sadly, although learners do pick up some
knowledge of how to learn, it is not always the most appropriate type. Instead, many
learners develop strategies which are merely concerned with coping with the demands of
the school curriculum, of finding ways to meet the requirements imposed by teachers,
strategies whic h will pay off in the classroom situation but serve no useful purpose in later
life. The radical educator, John Holt, makes this point in many of his books (Holt 1964,
1968, 1969).

Nisbet and Shucksmith’s description of a typical child called Bill is salutary:

Bill is one of life’s plodders, conscientiously looking for and sticking to the one ‘rig ht’ method
of working. It is a strategy w hich, unfortunately, pays off in many school situatio ns, and he will
probably end up with a reasonably good set of grades and a school report w hich describes
him as a ‘good student’. His inability to adapt to changing requirements and his lack of self-
know ledge may start to be a problem when he is expected to study on his ow n. But for the
present, his teachers do nor see him as a problem and are quit e glad to have a few like Bill in
their classes. (1991:3)

There are many ‘Bills’ in our language classes. In a similar vein, Coles and Robinson
(1991:91) argue persuasively that ‘schools should be less concerned with imparting
information and more concerned with encouraging the kind of teaching whic h pays attention
to the way children learn’. We shall return to this notion later. However, we shall turn now
to one of the central skills needed in order to learn how to learn effectively, metacognition.

7.5 Metacognitive strategies

A useful distinction is made in the literature on learning strategies between cognitive and
metacognitive strategies. Cognitive strategies are seen as mental processes directly
concerned with the processing of information in order to learn, that is for obtaining, storage,
retrieval or use of information.
However, there is another set of strategies operating at a different level to these, whic h
involve learners stepping outside their learning, as it were, and looking at it from outside.
Such strategies include an awareness of what one is doing and the strategies one is
employing, as well as a knowledge about the actual process of learning. They also include
an ability to manage and regulate consciously the use of appropriate learning strategies for
different situations. They involve an awareness of one’s own mental processes and an ability
to reflect on how one learns, in other words, knowing about one’s knowing. This different
level is called metacognition, a term first introduced by John Flavell (1970, 1976, 1981). The
main point to make at this stage is that metacognitive awareness is important for effectiv e
learning. It is a concept we shall develop in more detail later.

7.6 Summary

We are now in a position to summarise some points about the skills and strategies used in
learning, following Wenden (1987a:7—8). They are the various operations that learners use
in order to make sense of their learning. They can be of a higher or lower order. They refer
to specific actions that a learner uses in response to a particular problem, rather than
describing a learner’s general approach to learning. They may be concerned with any stage
in the learning process, that is, they may be concerned with obtaining information, storage,
retrieval or use of the information. Some strategies are observable and some are not. They
may be used consciously or unconsciously, and they are amenable to change, in other
words, they can be learned. Strategies can be cognitive, that is, they can involve mental
processing, or they can be more social in nature, and their effective use is enhanced by
metacognitive awareness.

4
7.7 Language Learning strategies

Research into language learning strategies began in the 1960s, since when a considerable
amount of descriptiv e work has been carried out in this area. Much of this has clearly been
influenced by developments in cognitive psychology. Good surveys of this field are provided
by Wenden and Rubin (1987), O ’Malley and Chamot (1990), Ellis (1994) and Oxford (1990).
For a practical application at classroom level and a selection of activities for teaching
strategies to pupils, the reader is referred to Ellis and SinclaIt’s book, Learning to Learn
English (1989).
It has already been suggested in Chapter 6 that learning a language is different in many
ways from learning most other subjects because of its social and communicative nature.
Learning a language involves communicating with other people and therefore requires not
only suitable cognitive skills but also certain social and communicative skills. It is not
surprising, therefore, to find in the literature on Language learning strategies that further
categories are identified. Joan Rubin, who pioneered much of the work in this field, makes
the useful distinction between strategies that contribute directly to learning, and those that
contribute indirectly to learning. Thus, operations concerned with memorising, inducing
rules, guessing meaning and rehearsal contribute directly to the learning of the language at
a cognitive level; they are the mental processes by which learners acquire a knowledge of
the language system. However, there is another group of processes that we employ to help
us to learn a foreign language more efficiently in an indirect way by bringing us into closer
contact with the target language. This serves to give us more input of the language, or an
increased opportunity to try out the language with other people. Seeking opportunities to
speak to tourists, listening to the radio or writing to a penfriend would be examples of
indirect strategies.
Rubin (1981, 1987) suggests that there are three major types of strategies used by
learners which can contribute directly or indirectly to language Learning. The first group she
calls learning strategies. These contribute directly to the development of the language
system which the learner constructs. They include both cognitiv e and metacognitiv e
strategies. She identifies six main cognitive strategies contributing directly to language
learning.

1 Clarification/verification refers to strategies used by learners to check whether their

understanding of a rule or language item is correct.
2 Guessing/inductive inferencing refers to various strategies concerned with making
hypotheses about how the language works. In order to make suitable hypotheses,
learners need to be able to select appropriate information, attend to what is
important, hold a number of pieces of information in the head, and use information
from the context and their world knowledge as well as samples of the language.
3 Deductive reasoning is a strategy where the learner uses a
knowledge of general rules to produce or understand language.
4 Practice is concerned with storage and retrieval of language. This includes such
strategies as repetition and rehearsal.
5 Memorisation is also concerned with storage and retrieval of
information, and ways of organising the informarion for storage.
This category includes mnemonic strategies and using lexical groupings.
6 Monitoring refers to learners’ checking of their own performance, including noticing
errors and observing how a message is receiv ed. (Ruhin 1987: 22—7)

Metacognitive strategies, in Rubin’s categorisation are used to oversee, regulate or self-

direct language learning, as discussed above. Various classifications of metacognitiv e
strategies can be found, e.g. in O’Malley and Chamot (1990). They involve such processes
as planning, prioritising, setting goals and self-management.
Secondly, communication strategies are those used by a learner to promote
communication with others. They are strategies used by speakers when they come across a
difficulty in their communication because of a lack of adequate knowledge of the language.

5
These processes are particularly important to language learners as, by finding ways to
continue the communication rather than abandon it, the speaker indirectly obtains more
exposure to the language and an increased opportunity to practise it. In this way they can
increase their input of the language to be processed by their cognitive strategies.

Some examples of communication strategies used between Japanese adult learners of

English are shown below.

1 Speaker A: Aah, some green, some green...

Speaker B: W hat’s that?
Speaker A: A little pot, in that, trees.
Speaker B: Ah, plants.

(Ishida: 1993)

Here, speaker A does not know the word ‘plant’ and attempts to describe it instead. Speaker
B understands the explanation and supplies the correct word, allowing the conversation to
continue.
In the next example, student C uses the strategy of ‘indirect appeal’, where she was
unable to complete her utterance, and appealed to the teacher to finish it for her, thus
continuing the discourse.

2 Student C: 1 tbought, um, British people are similar to American people, but...but...
(She uses eye contact to ask for the teacher’s assistance.)
Teacher: You thought, because we speak the same language, they must or could be the same.

(Ishida: 1993)

Building on work by Tarone (1977), the third of Rubin’s categories is social strategies. These
refer to the activities that learners use in an attempt to increase their exposure to the
language. Like communication strategies, they contribute indirectly to learning. Strategies in
this category include initiating conversations in the foreign language, watching films and
reading books.
The definition and categorisation of language learning strategies was further developed by
Rebecca Oxford (1990) in her book Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher
Should Know. Oxford sees the aim of language learning strategies as being oriented towards
the development of communicativ e competence, and that they must, therefore, involv e
interaction among learners. Learning strategies, she argues, must both help learners to
participate in communication and to build up their language system. Oxford (1990:9)
provides a list of twelve features of language learning strategies, which usefully serve to pull
together the discussion so far.

1 They contribute to the main goal, communic ative competence. They can foster
particular aspects of that competence:
grammatic al competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and
strategic competence.
2 They allow learners to become more self-directed.
As we have already described, the aim of teaching learning
strategies is to help learners to take control of their own learning.
3 They expand the role of teachers.
We shall discuss this point further below.
4 They are problem oriented.
In other words, they are used in response to a particular problem.
5 They are specific actions taken by the learner. That is, they are specific behaviours in
response to a problem, such as guessing the meaning of a word, rather than more
general aspects such as learning style, personality or motivation.
6 They involve many aspects of the learner, not just the cognitive. They involv e
affective and social aspects as well.

6
 7 They support learning both directly and indirectly.
8 They are not always observable.
9 They are often conscious.
Strategy training helps learners to become more aware of the strategies they use,
and to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate ones. However, the aim
must be to enable learners to use appropriate strategies automatically and
unconsciously .
10 They can be taught.
People can improve their learning through strategy training.
11 They are flexible.
Learners exert choic e over the way they use, combine and sequence strategies.
12 They are influenced by a variety of factors.
For example, stage of learning, task requirements, age, sex, nationality, general
learning style, personality, motivation and purpose for learning the language.

Oxford has developed also a somewhat different system of categorisation which, while
containing most of the features of previous classifications, is more detailed. She divides
strategies into two main classes, direct and indirect, which are further subdivided into six
groups (see Figure 23). Rather than being seen as isolated entities, each type can support
and connect with another.
In Oxford’s system, metacognitive strategies help learners to regulate their learning.
Affective strategies are concerned with the learner’s emotional requirements such as
confidence, while social strategies lead to increased interaction with the target language.
Cognitive strategies are the mental strategies learners use to make sense of their learning,
memory strategies are those used for storage of information, and compensation strategies
help learners to overcome knowledge gaps to continue the communication. Oxford’s book
provides us with a detailed taxonomy of sub-strategies under each of these headings.

Direct Strategies Indirect Strategies

A- Creating mental linkages A- Centring your learning
B- Applying images and Meta- B- Arranging and planning
Memory sounds cognitive your learning
C- Revie wing w ell stategies C- Evaluating you r
Learning
D- Employing action

A- Practising A- Lowering your anxiety

B- Receiving and sending
B- Encouraging yourself
Cognitive messages Affective
Strategies C- Analysing and reasoning Strategies C- Taking your emotional
temperature
D- Creating structurefor input
and output

A- Guessing intelligently A- Asking questions

Compen- Social
B- Co-operating w ith others
sation B- Overcoming limitations in Strategies
Strategies speaking and w riting C- Empathising with others

Figure 23 Diagram of the strategy system showing two classes, six groups and 19 sets (Oxford
1990:1 7)

It can be seen that much of the recent work in this area has been underpinned by a
broader concept of language learning strategies that goes beyond cognitive processes to
include social and communicative strategies.

7
 A point worth emphasising here is the link between the emotions and cognition. Our
feelings will affect our use of cognitive processes and vice versa. Gardner and Maclntyre
(1992) suggest that affective variables are probably more powerful in influencing strategy
use than intelligence and aptitude. Maclntyre and Gardner (1989), for example, come to the
conclusion that the use of cognitive strategies is very much affected by anxiety.
As well as affective factors, Learning strategies have been found to be influenced by other
variables. These include attitude, motivation, age, personality, gender, general learning
style, national origin, aptitude, proficiency in the language, perceived proficiency and task
requirements (Oxford 1989; Oxford and Nyikos 1989; Rost and Ross 1991; Gardner and
Maclntyre 1 992). In reviewing the effects of different factors on the deployment of learning
strategies, Oxford and Nyikos (1989) conclude that motivation appears to correlate best with
strategy use, and that increased motivation and self-esteem lead to more effective use of
appropriate strategies and vice versa. It is apparent also that social factors such as socio-
economic group and the environment influence the way in which people use strategies, and
it seems likely that culture will also play a part. Tran (1988), in investigating the way in
which Vietnamese women employ learning strategies, found that his subjects used fewer
strategies than men, unlike studies with Western subjects, where women generally use a
wider range of strategies.
In the same way, we also feel that it is helpful to take a broader view of the notion of
metacognition. We emphasised above that metacognition is conscious, and generally
involves at least two related concepts; first, a knowledge about learning, and second, an
ability to employ cognitive strategies intelligently. We also stressed that metacognition is
central to effectiv e learning. It is ‘the process that underlies the efficient use of strategies
and the essence of intelligent activity’ (Wenden 1987b:573). However, if we are to take a
broader view of metacognition, it must involve more than a knowledge of one’s cognitiv e
strategies. What is sometimes forgotten is that it can also include affective aspects of
learning; a conscious knowledge of the feelings that the Learning problem evokes. It must,
therefore, include a knowledge of the self.
Quicke (1994) sim ilarly views the concept of metacognition from a broad perspective.
Following Flavell’s own perceptions, Quicke reminds us that:

A metacognitive approach to teaching and learning is in fact a step away from a narrow
cognitivist view of education to a more holistic vie w which encompasses ‘total
development ’ and ‘development of the self’ as agent.

(Q uick e 1994:249)

He argues that by taking such a view, the distinctions between emotion and cognition break
down. He sees education as involving the development of ‘whole’ persons as self-directed
agents and autonomous learners, with metacognitiv e awareness being crucial in this
process.

Metacognition in our view, therefore, includes not only a knowledge of mental processes,
as these are necessarily linked to and affected by emotions and feelings. It must also
encompass a knowledge of factors relating to the self, and the way in which these affect the
use of cognitive processes. Thus, an awareness of one’s personality, feelings, motivation,
attitudes and learning style at any particular moment would be included within such a
concept of metacognitive awareness.
To set this argument within the social constructivist model of learning adopted in this
book, it is also im portant to realise that there are a number of factors that will affect the
way learners will actually construct their metacognitive knowledge. So, there will be various
influences from within the context in which the learning occurs that affect the !earners’
beliefs about themselves, their feelings and their motivation. These in turn will influence
their employment of cognitive strategies, and the way in which they consciously develop and
build up an awareness of their use.

8
 Another point that is worth emphasising here is that metacognitive awareness is a
necessary step in learning to regulate learning. However, the final aim is not to be
constantly thinking about our learning, but to move towards a situation where the use of
appropriate strategies becomes unconscious, where the skills of learning become intuitive.
Effective learners need to be able to employ strategies unconsciously, and then to be able to
call their metacognitive awareness into play as and when necessary when faced with a
difficulty.
There have been several attempts at categorising metacognitive strategies. W enden
(1987b:574) builds on several of Flavell’s original writings to make the distinction between
three types of metacognitive knowledge: knowledge about person, knowledge about task
and knowledge about strategy. Knowledge about person involv es everything that one
believes about oneself and others as learners. This includes beliefs about one’s personal
attributes and preferred style of learning, knowledge about what one knows and does not
know and what one can and cannot do, and an awareness of one’s progress. Flavell’s person
variables, however, only refer to cognitive knowledge, and this concept was extended by
Wenden to include affective factors such as ‘1 became angry when... ‘or, ‘1 felt depressed
when. . . ‘(ibid.:576).
Knowledge about task refers to an awareness of the purpose and demands of the task, as
well as an ability to assess the information provided, and to select what is relevant from
what is irrelevant. Knowledge of strategy involves an understanding of which strategies
should be used for different types of tasks as well as a general knowledge about learning
languages, for example, ‘The best way to learn languages is...
In addition to these different types of knowledge, ‘regulatory skills’ are also included as a
part of metacognition. Wenden divides these into preplanning and planning-in-action. Pre-
planning involves determining objectives, selecting materials and methods, assessing
proficiency level and predic ting difficulties. Planning-in-action includes such strategies as
monitoring, evaluating outcomes and revising plans. It is worth pointing out that these two
aspects of metacognition, knowledge about learning and the regulation of learning, exist in
a reciprocal relationship. The insights gained from one feed into the other.
We shall consider strategy training next in this chapter. However, it should be noted at
this point that training in metacognitive awareness must include awareness of what learning
a language involves as well as training in the selection of appropriate strategies for different
situations. By appropriate’ we would include the notion of appropriateness for the individual.
In addition to this, metacognitive training should include heightening awareness of the
feelings involv ed in different aspects of language learning, and of individuals’ own
personalities and strengths and how these could best be employed in language learning.
In the next chapter, we shall move from this broad view of learning strategies and focus
on the cognitive processes that are involved in learning something. However, the questions
to which we now turn are: what can teachers do to help their learners employ appropriate
learning strategies, and what evidence is there that such approaches actually influence
learners’ ability to learn how to learn?

7.8 Strategy training

We shall first provide a brief review of some of the attempts to teach thinking and learning
skills, before we discuss the teaching of language learning strategies. Despite our
accumulation of knowledge about the kinds of skills and strategies involved in effectiv e
learning, it has not proved an easy task to incorporate this information into the teaching
process. One of the debates in this area centres upon the issue of whether thinking
strategies are best taught independently as lessons in their own right, or whether, by a
process of ‘infusion’, they are better taught as part of a specific subject.
Proponents of the former school believe that the language, concepts, skills and strategies of
effective thinking and problem-solving can and should be taught directly by means of a
specifically designed programme. Probably the most universally employed programme of this
nature is Feuerstein’s Instrumental Enrichment (IE), which has been introduced into the
education systems of more than 40 countries across the world (Sharron 1987). Instrumental

9
Enrichment is a highly structured series of tasks directly related to identified aspects of
thinking such as making comparisons, categorising, organising one’s thoughts and drawing
inferences. The programme has been the subject of numerous evaluation studies (Saveli et
al. 1986; W eiier and Craft 1983). Although not all studies have produced unequivocally
positiv e results, there is now sufficient evidence to indicate that under appropriate
conditions, with properly trained teachers, this programme can and does have a positiv e
effect on the cognitive abilities, educational attainments, feelings of self-worth and general
levels of motivation of many learners who were previously failing in school (Burden 1987).
Moreover, an even more striking positive effect has been found on the attitudes of teachers
who have become involved in teaching this programme (Blagg 1991). This programme will
be described further in the next chapter.
Other programmes designed to teach thinking skills include the Somerset Thinking Skills
Programme (Blagg et al. 1988), de Bono’s emphasis on lateral thinking exemplified in his
GORT programme (1977, 1979, 1993), and Lipman’s Philosophy for Children (Lipman 1988;
Whalley 1991). However, none of these have been subject to anything like the same degree
of rigorous evaluation as Feuerstein’s programme.
The alternative ‘domain-specific’ approach has been advocated most persuasively by the
metacognitive theorist and researcher Anne Brown and her colleagues, who argue that skills
and strategies are best taught in relation to specific curriculum subject areas (Brown et al.
1983; Brown and Carnpione 1986). This has been followed up with regard to such subject
areas as mathematics (Halpern 1992; Lawson and Ric e 1987) and, most notably, reading
comprehension (Palincsar and Brown 1984). Brown and her co-workers have admitted to
being heavily influenced by Vygotsky ’s ideas and have sought in their work on the
assessment and teaching of children with Learning difficulties to find ways of gradually
transferring, by drawing upon the idea of Vygotsky’s zone of next potential, the control of
cognitive skills from teachers to learners. Particularly successful has been the improvement
of reading comprehension in seventh grade retarded readers by means of a technique
described as reciprocal teaching (Palincsar and Brown 1984). The teacher and learners
begin by working together, with the teacher initially doing most of the work, but gradually
passing on more and more responsibility to the learners as their skills increase so that they
are eventually able to work independently.
By analysing the strategies used by good readers in text comprehension, Palincsar and
Brown identified four main features: (a) they periodically stop and summarise what they
have just read, (b) they formulate questio ns to ensure that they have grasped the main
points, (c) they check back and clarify any points about which they feel uncertain, (d) they
try to predic t what will come next. Poor readers tend to use few, if any of these strategies.
In order to improve the skills of retarded readers by strategy training, Palincsar and Brown
instructed teachers first in how to carry out an ongoing assessment of each learner’s current
level of skill. (It is only possible to carry out this work with small groups.) By modelling the
processes of summarising, asking appropriate questions, clarifying ambiguity and predic ting,
the teacher gradually begins to hand over the responsibility for these tasks to each of the
learners in turn. At the same time their performance is monitored by the teacher, who
provides feedback and further modelling where necessary.
In this way it was possible to demonstrate not only impressive gains by most learners on
reading comprehension tests but also transfer to other similar activ ities and spontaneous
use of strategies where none had previously been in evidence.

7.8.1 T he Strategic Teaching Model

Not unexpectedly, most of the published work on learning strategies focusses almost
entirely on what the learner does or should do. The often neglected part that the teacher
plays has been emphasised by the Strategic Teaching Model of Jones et al. (1987). Six
assumptions drawn from cognitive learning theory are used to guide teachers in their
preparation and presentation of lessons. These assumptions are an amalgam of much that
has previously been covered in this chapter, namely that effective learning is goal oriented,

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draws upon prior knowledge, requires knowledge organisation, involves the use of
strategies, occurs in recursive phases and follows a developmental pattern. The guidelines
for employing this model are reproduced in Figure 24, but the interested reader is referred
to O’MalIey and Chamot (1990:187—90) for a fuller description of what these assumptions
entail.
The important point here, to which we shall return later, is that teachers are expected to
become actively involved in assessing, planning and decision-making about what their
learners already know, what they need to know and exactly how they can be helped to
become independent learners. Essentially , the teacher is required to assess the type and
level of current strategy use, to select and describe an alternativ e strategy, if this is felt
likely to be more helpful, to model the new strategy, and finally to support the learner’s use
of that strategy by a process of scaffolding. Claims have been made for the successful
application of this kind of instruction with regard to the acquisition of declarative knowledge
(information) and the development of procedural knowledge (skills) in different curriculum
content areas.
The sequence of steps used in the Strategic Teaching Model is shown in Figure 24.

1 Assess strategy use with:

think-aloud
interviews
questionnaire

2 Explain strategy by:

naming it
telling how to use it, step by step

3 Model strategy by:

demonstrating
verbalising own thought processes while doing task

4 Scaffold instruction by:

providing support while students practice
adjusting support to student needs
phasing out support to encourage autonomous strategy use

5 D evelop motivation by:

providing successfu1 experiences
relating strategy use to improved performance

Figure 24 Strategic Teaching Model Uones et al. (1987) in O’Mailey and Chamot 1990:158)

7.8.2 Process-based instruction

A particularly promising variation on this work that has been employed successfully with
children demonstrating learning difficulties is the process based instruction model of Ashman
and Conway (1989, 1993). This approach has its origins in the work of the Russian cognitiv e
psychologist Luria, later taken up by Das et al. (1979) and incorporated into their
‘Information-integration’ model of cognitive functioning. As its title implies, this model takes
an information-processing approach to learning and views cognition as an interaction
between input, storage and retrieval activities (called coding) and planning.
At this level, process-based instruction is essentially similar to several other information-
processing models for teaching learning strategies. However, their review of the problem-
solving literature led Ashman and Conway to conclude that such information-processing
models could only be of practical relevance if employed within an interactionist framework.

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They noted the importance of taking into account teacher, learner and procedural variables
and translated these into what they termed teacher-learner obligations. Placing a heavy
emphasis on co-operative learning and teaching they developed a ‘classroom integrated’
model which stressed the importance of teaching learning strategies according to a
systematically prepared plan which focussed upon specific curriculum topics and the
development of learners’ knowledge bases.

The final process-based instruction model involves five phases — assessment, orientation,
strategy development, intra-task transfer, consolidation and generalisation. Lack of space
precludes a detailed account here of exactly how the teacher should deal with each of these
phases. However, it is worth noting that the teacher’s responsibility for helping learners
develop and employ appropriate learning strategies involves far more than just a knowledge
about strategies. Such strategies have, in fact, proved far more difficult to teach than to
identify. Ashman and Conway claim that only a thorough, step-by-step, integrated approach
will bring this about.

7.9 Learner training in foreign Language teaching

In recent years the notion of learner training, i.e. the explicit teaching of strategies, has
received a considerable amount of attention in ELT. The premise underpinning much of this
work is that we can identify the strategies used by good language learners and then teach
these to learners, thus increasing their ability to learn. However, a number of important
questions remain

• How can teachers best foster learners’ strategies?

• How can teachers ensure that these strategies are transferred to other situations?
• Are the strategies used by good language learners the right ones to teach all
learners?
• How do we cater for individual differences?

Several published collections of learner training materials are now available, e.g. Ellis and
Sinclair (1989). In addition, many recent coursebooks claim to include elements of strategy
training. A good survey of the provision made in EFL coursebooks for learner training is
provided by Sinclair and Ellis
(1992).
The research literature contains numerous descriptions of attempts to teach language
learning strategies. Some interesting accounts of these can be found in O ’Malley and
Chamot (1990) and Wenden and Rubin (1987), and they wiIl, therefore, not be repeated
here. Strategy training has included such aspects as teaching ways of learning vocabulary
(e.g. using mnemonics, keywords and word chains), teaching techniques for listening (e.g.
guessing, self-correction or directed attention), teaching strategies for reading such as
semantic mapping, and teaching a variety of metacognitive strategies and self-awareness.
Rather less attention has been devoted to strategies concerned with the productive skills of
speaking and writing. An excellent review of the findings from some of these projects is
provided by Oxford and Crookall (1989).
What the results of most of these studies indicate is that treatment groups, i.e. those who
were explicitly taught strategies, particularly those who were taught metacognitiv e
strategies, performed better on a range of language tasks than did the control groups who
received no strategy training. Such findings, however, are limited in their generalisability.
They can do little more than tell us that after treatment the learners performed better on
certain language tasks, while they give us limited information about the long-term effects of
such training, or its transferability to other situations. W hat we also need to know is how
different learners react to training, how they acquire strategies, and how the teachers’
actions and attitudes affect the process.

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 However, several findings emerged from these studies that are worth noting. First,
different cultural groups responded differently to strategy training. For example, Hispanic
learners were found to benefit more than Asian learners, who preferred to use the strategies
to which they were accustomed (op. cit.:412—13). It appeared that if the new strategies ran
counter to those preferred by the cultural group, the learners understandably resisted using
them. Rees-Miller (1993) postulates that a reason behind this may be that ‘the behaviours
defined as exemplary of successful learning strategies practised by good language learners
may be based on cultural models that are not universal’ (1993:684), i.e. they are based on
highly ethnocentric assumptions (Politzer and McGroarty 1985:14). Oxford and Crookall
(1989) describe how Sutter, in his work with refugees in D enmark, attempted to overcome
this by ‘camouflaging’ new strategies under the guise of familiar ones, a solution we would
not support.
There is also evidence of gender differences in the choice of strategies, as well as
personal differences based on different personalities and learning style preferences.
As Rees-Miller (1993) concludes ‘attempts to translate the theory behind learner-training
into practic e have produced only qualified success’ (1993:279). The issue of strategy
training is far more cornplex owing to the different factors that interact to influence the
teaching and learning of strategies: culture, situation, age, gender, personal learning style
and teachers’ attitudes and beliefs.
It also appears that attempts to characterise good and poor language learners according to
the strategies they use are oversimplistic. A number of studies indicate that unsuccessful
Learners actually employ the same strategies as those used by successful learners. In this
case, the reasons for their lack of success may be far more complex, and the teaching of
more learning strategies may not be the answer.

7.10 Procedures for strategy training in foreign and second Language

teaching

Various models for the teaching of language learning strategies have been proposed. Some
are concerned with teaching strategies separately , and others with integrating the strategy
instruction with language tasks. Generally, direct or explicit teaching, where the learners’
attention is directed to the strategy being taught, is preferred to indirect teaching where
learners are not told the purpose of the tasks. O’Malley and Charnot (1990:157—60)
summarise some of the different procedures for teaching strategies. These generally involv e
a sequence of first helping students to identify or become aware of strategies that they are
already using, then presenting and explaining a new strategy, with a rationale for using it.
At this stage the teacher might model the strategy. This is followed by practising it, at first
with substantial support or ‘scaffolding’, but gradually reducing this to encourage
autonomous use. Finally, students are helped to evaluate their success.
O’Malley and Chamot (1990:158, 190—204) devised their own strategy training procedure
for their ESL programme, the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA),
which is presented in Figure 25.

7.11 Conclusion

In this chapter we first discussed what is meant by skills and strategies, and the difference
between cognitive and metacognitive processes. We then outlined some different
categorisations of language learning strategies, showing how such classifications have
included not only cognitiv e processes, but also social and affectiv e factors. Following this,
we presented some different approaches taken by cognitiv e psychologists in the teaching of
thinking and of learning strategies. Finally , we provided a brief overview of work on learner
training in foreign language teaching.
In this section we aim to pull together the issues discussed so far, to consider
implications, future directions and further questions, and to attempt to shed some light on
the field by linking the discussion to the view of Learning presented in this book.
Underpinning much of the work on strategy training are a number of assumptions, some
of which we would question:

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 • that we can identify the strategies used by good language learners;
• that we can teach these processes to our learners;
• that there will be a resulting increase in the learners’ effectiveness if learning;
• that these are the right strategies to teach to all learners.

We have also indicated that evidence for the long-term effects of strategy training is as yet
limited, as also is our knowledge about the transferability of strategies learned to new and
different situations. Moreover, we have seen that strategy use is affected by context, culture
and differences between individuals. The issue is, therefore, far from simple.
In order to link the discussion to the social constructivist approach taken in this book, we
shall consider the implications under the headings learners, teachers, tasks and context (see
Figure 5 on page 43), though in reality the four headings inevitably overlap and the factors
interact with and affect one another.

1 Preparation: develop student awareness of different strategies through:

small group retrospective interviews about school tasks
modelling think-aloud, then having students think aloud in small groups
discussion of interviews and think-alouds

2 Presentation: develop student knowledge about strategies by:

providing rationale for strategy use
describing and naming strategy
modelling strategy

3 Practice: develop student skills in using strategies for academic learning through:
co-operative learning tasks
think-alouds while problem solving
peer tutoring in academic tasks
group discussions

4 Evaluation: develop student ability to evaluate own strategy use through:

writing strategies used immediately after task
discussing strategy use in class
keeping dialogue journals (with teacher) on strategy use

5 Expansion: develop transfer of strategies to new tasks by:

discussions on metacognitive and motivational aspects of strategy use
additional practice on similar academic tasks
assignments to use learning strategies on tasks related to cultural backgrounds of
students

Figure 25 Strategy training sequence used in CALLA (O’Malley and Chamot 1990:158)

Learners
We have already emphasised that learners bring to the task of learning different
characteristics such as age, gender, personality, motivation, self-concept, life experience and
cultural background, all of which influence the way in whic h they go about the task of
learning. It is, therefore, oversimplistic to assume that all learners will use or should be
taught the same strategies in the same way. W hat is apparent from a constructiv ist view of
learning is that individuals construct their own meaning from their learning; they make their
own personal sense of the skills and strategies they are taught, and the way in which they
do this will depend on the other influences that surround them. It may, therefore, be more
fruitful to consider the ways in which individuals perceive the importance of the strategies
which are introduced to them, and their attitudes towards learning these strategies. It may
also be more productive to consider the way in which learners construct their own
metacognitive awareness and their self-knowledge.

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 W e propose, therefore, that a crucial aspect of strategy training is that learners develop a
sense of personal relevance or personal authenticity. Rather than asking them to use
particular strategies simply because the teacher tell us/them to, we feel it is more beneficial
to help individuals to discover and develop those that are most significant and personally
relevant to them. Within this process, the learner’s metacognitive knowledge, in its broader
context of knowledge of the self, feelings and emotions, personal aims and motivation, will
be significant in discovering personal authenticity in how to learn.
Linked to this is the sense of purpose that we discussed in Chapter 4 on mediation, and
the notion of choice we considered when discussing motivation in Chapter 6. Individuals will
choose to use certain strategies if they have a clear purpose for using them and they feel
that accomplishing a particular task has value to them personally. In other words, they will
employ particular strategies if they have a sense of ownership or choice in the strategies
used, they are clear why they are using them, and they want to complete a task to achieve
a goal that they have identified as worthwhile. The teaching of learning strategies,
therefore, should reflect the first three aspects of mediation, whilst autonomy is gradually
transferred to the learners, so that they develop the ability to select strategies intelligently
and to use them in a focussed and self-directed way.

Teachers

We suggest that it may be of limited value merely to add strategy training as another
element of the syllabus without considering the implications for teachers. Simply adding
learner training tasks to the language syllabus may result in little more than yet another
curricular activ ity that learners perform because the teacher tell us/them to, resulting in
doubtful long-term gains and not necessarily leading to autonomy.
What is needed is a reorientation of teachers’ roles. First, teachers need to become
effective mediators. Second, they need to be able to take on such roles as advisors,
facilitators, consultants, co-communicators, partners and joint problem-solvers. Third,
teachers’ attitudes towards the value of learning strategies is crucial, as this will inform
everything that the teacher does and therefore pervade the delivery of the whole
curriculum.
W e propose, therefore, an alternative perspective on the issue of strategy training. The
successful teacher may not be one who merely provides specific learner training tasks, but
rather, one who is aware of the strategy implications of every language learning task that
they giv e. Teachers would then habitually draw the attention of their learners to the
processes they are going through in language learning, help them to develop an awareness
of how they go about their learning, and seek, through the process of mediation, to
gradually giv e control to their learners.
This of course raises the question of how teachers can be taught to provide strategy
training. Equipping teachers with procedures to follow is not likely to be sufficient. It may be
more important to help teachers to develop their own metacognitive awareness and to
consider the implications of this for their day-to-day teaching. Such a heightened awareness
should better inform teachers of the ways in which their learners can be helped to develop a
knowledge of their learning processes.

Tasks

There are a number of implic ations for the design of tasks, which we consider in more detail
in the next chapter. First, there is a need to start with simpler tasks with more control over
how they are solved, moving towards more complex activities requiring learners to select
their own strategies to achieve these goals, and to evaluate their own level of success. In
doing this, it is important to teach learners to ask themselves the fundamental questions
involved in mediation: What do 1 want to achieve? Do 1 know exactly what 1 am doing?
Why am 1 doing it? How will it be of value to me? Which strategies shall 1 use to achieve
my aim best? How do 1 tell when 1 have succeeded?
There is also a need to allow periodically for megacognitive reflection on the processes
used in carrying out tasks, as well as reflection on the fellings and emotions involved.

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Context

The use of strategies will be affected by the whole context of the learning situation,
including the classroom culture and ethos. A classroom where a competitive culture prevails
will encourage the use of different strategies to one with a co-operative environment. For
example, in the former, learners might develop strategies to assist speed, independence,
and measuring themselves against others, while the latter might encourage social strategies,
requesting help, and measuring themselves against their own goals. In addition, Learners
will be influenced by their home culture and that of the community surrounding them.
W e must re-emphasise in conclusion that the issue of strategy use is complex, and there
are no simple solutions to the questions of how to promote efficient employment of
strategies. W hat is more significant is teachers’ sensitivity to the ways in which their learners
learn, their attitudes towards teaching their learners to think and to learn, and an awareness
of the part the learners must play in taking control of their learning.

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