What are learner strategies? Different types of strategies for language learning

Rehearsal The rehearsal strategy involves saying or writing something over and over again. Learners often rehearse when they are trying to learn new vocabulary, or when they are preparing to make a phone call or give a talk in the target language.
Elaboration The elaboration strategy involves making links between new information and what you already know, or between different parts of new information. For example, when you learn how to say university in a foreign language, you will probably automatically link it with the word for a school or a kindergarten. You might also compare it with the words for a polytechnic and a teacher training college. (All of these are educational institutions and the last three are tertiary level institutions.) You may also want to find out if the word that you use to describe teachers who teach in a school can also be used to describe teaching staff at a university. In this way, the word “university” is linked both to “school” and also to other words like “lecturer”, “tutor”. The idea is that successful learning depends on the strength of the links between individual pieces of information.
You have probably realised by now that you already know many strategies which can be used in learning a language, and so do your students. But perhaps you know them by different names. Or maybe you don’t talk about strategies with your learners? In this booklet, we suggest that talking about strategies has many benefits.
b. Strategies for using the target language
Cognitive strategies for using the target language help learners bridge “gaps” between what they know and what they want to say, when they are communicating. These strategies are often called “communication strategies”. Let’s imagine you are speaking Spanish, and you don’t know how to say the word “hairdresser”. If you switch to your first language and say “Mañana tengo que ir al hairdresser” - you are using a communication strategy! If the person you are speaking to does not speak English, this won’t work. But if you use a gesture at the same time, you may well get your meaning across! Communication strategies benefit students in lots of ways, mostly because they keep them involved in the conversation.