Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

Types of learning strategies
Extensive research that goes deeper into learning strategies has been carried out
by O’Malley and Chamot (1990) within an overall model of L2 learning based on
cognitive psychology. They have defined three main types of strategy used by L2
students:
1 Metacognitive strategies involve planning and thinking about learning, such as
planning one’s learning, monitoring one’s own speech or writing, and evaluat-
ing how well one has done.
2 Cognitive strategies involve conscious ways of tackling learning, such as note-
taking, resourcing (using dictionaries and other resources) and elaboration
(relating new information to old).
3 Social strategies mean learning by interacting with others, such as working with
fellow students or asking the teacher’s help.
They found that cognitive strategies accounted for the majority of those
reported by ESL students, namely 53 per cent, the most important being repetition
(14.8 per cent), note-taking (14.1 per cent) and questions for clarification (12.8 per
cent) (O’Malley et al., 1985). Metacognitive strategies accounted for 30 per cent,
Learning strategies 115

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the most important being self-management – as one student put it, ‘I sit in the front
of the class so I can see the teacher’s face clearly’ – and advance preparation – ‘You
review before you go into class’. Social strategies made up the remaining 17 per
cent, consisting about equally of cooperative efforts to work with other students
and of questions to check understanding. The type of strategy varies according to
the task the students are engaged in (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990). A vocabulary
task calls forth the metacognitive strategies of self-monitoring and self-evaluation,
and the cognitive strategies of resourcing and elaboration. A listening task leads to
the metacognitive strategies of selective attention and problem identification, as
well as self-monitoring, and to the cognitive strategies of note-taking, inferencing
and summarizing, as well as elaboration. The use of strategies also varied accord-
ing to level: intermediate students used slightly fewer strategies in total, but pro-
portionately more metacognitive strategies.
The most influential research on learning strategies is that carried out by
Rebecca Oxford. In 1990, she published a method for finding out the strategies
used by learners called the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). SILL
turned into a benchmark for strategies research for many years, was used in many
circumstances around the world, and still forms the basis for many an MA thesis.
SILL asks the student to rate 50 statements such as: ‘I think of relationships
between what I already know and new things I learn in English’ on a scale going
from (1) ‘Never true of me’, to (5) ‘Always true of me’. It includes between 6 and
18 items for six broad classes of strategies, divided into ‘Direct’ and ‘Indirect’.