Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

Box 6.5 Claims from learning strategy research 
(Macaro, 2006)
1 Strategy use appears to correlate with various aspects of language learning
success.
2 There are group differences and individual differences in learner strategy
use.
3 The methodology for eliciting learner strategy use, although imperfect, is at
an acceptable level of validity and reliability.
4 Despite some setbacks … and some reservations … learner strategy instruc-
tion (or ‘training’) appears to be successful if it is carried out over lengthy
periods of time and if it includes a focus on metacognition.
Box 6.6 Language learning strategies
The good language learner (GLL) strategies (Naiman et al., 1978/1995):
1 Find a learning style that suits you.
2 Involve yourself in the language learning process.
3 Develop an awareness of language both as system and as communication.
4 Pay constant attention to expanding your language.
5 Develop the second language as a separate system.
6 Take into account the demands that L2 learning imposes.
Learning strategies (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990):
1 Metacognitive strategies: planning learning, monitoring your own speech,
self-evaluation, etc.
2 Cognitive strategies: note-taking, resourcing, elaboration, etc.
3 Social strategies: working with fellow students or asking the teacher’s help.
Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) (Oxford, 1990):
1 Remembering more effectively.
2 Using all your mental processes.
3 Compensating for missing knowledge.
4 Organizing and evaluating your knowledge.
5 Managing your emotions.
6 Learning with others.

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achieved through ‘learner training’: equipping the students with the means to
guide themselves by explaining strategies to them. The idea of learner training
leads on to autonomous, self-directed learning, in which the students take on
responsibility for their own learning. They choose their goals; they control the
teaching methods and materials; they assess how well they are doing themselves.
This is dealt with further in Chapter 13.
It may simply not have occurred to students that they have a choice of strategies
for conducting their learning. Teaching can open up their options. My intermedi-
ate course Meeting People (Cook, 1982) asked students to discuss four GLL strategies.
The intention was to make them aware of different possibilities, rather than specif-
ically to train them in any strategy. A more thorough approach is seen in Learning
to Learn English (Ellis and Sinclair, 1989), which aims ‘to enable learners of English
to discover the learning strategies that suit them best’. One set of activities practises
metacognitive strategies. The opening questionnaire, for instance, asks the stu-
dents: ‘Do you hate making mistakes?’ ‘Do you like to learn new grammar rules,
words, etc. by heart?’ and so on. The results divide the students into ‘analytic’,
‘relaxed’ and ‘a mixture’. A second set of activities practises cognitive as well as
metacognitive strategies. Teaching speaking, for instance, starts with reflection
(‘How do you feel about speaking English?’), knowledge about language (‘What do
you know about speaking English?’), and self-evaluation (‘How well are you
doing?’). As a guide for teachers, Language Learning Strategies (Oxford, 1990) pro-
vides a wealth of activities to heighten the learners’ awareness of strategies and
their ability to use them; for example: ‘The old lady ahead of you in the bus is chas-
tising a young man in your new language; listen to their conversation to find out
exactly what she’s saying to him.’
Strategy training assumes that conscious attention to learning strategies is ben-
eficial and that the strategies are teachable. While the idea that GLLs need to
‘think’ in the second language may strike the students as a revelation, this does
not mean they can put it into practice. Indeed, they may find it impossible or dis-
turbing to try to think in the second language, and so feel guilty that they are not
living up to the image of the GLL. For example, the GLLs studied in Canadian aca-
demia clearly had above-average intelligence; less intelligent learners may not be
able to use the same GLL strategies. Many strategies cannot be changed by the
teacher or the learner, however good their intentions. Bialystok (1990) argues in
favour of training that helps the students to be aware of strategies in general,
rather than teaching specific strategies.
O’Malley and Chamot (1990) provide some encouragement for strategy train-
ing. They taught EFL students to listen to lectures using their three types of strat-
egy. One group was trained in cognitive strategies such as note-taking, and social
strategies such as giving practice reports to fellow students. A second group was
trained, in addition, in metacognitive strategies, for example, paying conscious
attention to discourse markers such as ‘first’, ‘second’, and so on. A third group
was not taught any strategies. The metacognitive group improved most for speak-
ing, and did better on some, but not all, listening tasks. The cognitive group was
better than the control group. Given that this experiment only lasted for eight 
50-minute lessons spread over eight days, this seems as dramatic an improvement
as could reasonably be expected. Training students to use particular learning
strategies indeed improves their language performance. But as O’Malley and
Chamot (1990) found, teachers may need to be convinced that strategy training is
important, and may themselves need to be trained in how to teach strategies.
However, to dampen excessive enthusiasm, it should be pointed out that there is
Strategies for communicating and learning
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still some doubt about how useful strategies really are: Oxford et al. (1990) found
that Asian students of English used fewer ‘good’ strategies than Hispanics, but
improved their English more!
Most of the learning strategies mentioned suit any academic subject. It is indeed
a good idea to prepare yourself for the class, to sit near the teacher and to take
notes, whether you are studying physics, cookery or French. Those who believe in
the uniqueness of language, however, feel language learning is handled by the
mind in ways that are different from other areas. Some consciously accessible
learning strategies that treat language as a thing of its own may be highly useful
for L2 learning, say, the social strategies. But metacognitive or cognitive strategies
treat language like any other part of the human mind. Hence they may benefit
students with academic leanings who want to treat language as a subject, but may
not help those who want to use it for its normal functions in society, that is
unless, of course, such knowledge translates into the practical ability to use the
language – one of the controversies discussed in Chapter 12.
A coursebook that relies on the SILL approach is Tapestry 1 Listening and Speaking
(Benz and Dworak, 2000). Some are language learning strategies – ‘Practice speak-
ing English with classmates as often as possible’. Some are called ‘Academic power
strategies’ – ‘Learn how to address your teachers’. As the level of the course is
claimed to be ‘high beginning’, there is a discrepancy between the level of the lan-
guage the students are supposed to be learning, namely greetings and polite forms
of address, and the level of language they are using for discussing it. This is a prob-
lem with any teaching that involves explicit discussion of strategies, unless it can
take place in the students’ first language. The other problem is the extent to which
the presentation of strategies in a class situation puts students in the position of
practising strategies that are inappropriate for their particular learning style and
which they would never choose voluntarily. Chapter 4 of Tapestry, for example,
emphasizes ‘graphic organisers’, that is to say associations of ideas in doodled net-
works, popular in the UK through the work of Tony Buzan books such as Use Your
Head (1995). Useful as these may be for some students, those who do not think
graphically and do not consciously store information through such mental net-
works are going to waste their time. Group teaching of strategies is inevitably in
conflict with the individual’s right to choose the best strategies for them.
Discussion topics 119