What do you think about strategy instruction?

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How do you deal with learner strategy instruction?

Every lesson! Chamot and Oxford are my idols...
0
No votes
If I see a need, I might try to help a student out...
4
57%
I know about it somewhat, but who cares!
0
No votes
Chamot who? I didn't go to Oxford...
1
14%
Sounds interesting, but I don't know anything about it...
2
29%
 
Total votes: 7

Atassi
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What do you think about strategy instruction?

Post by Atassi » Thu Apr 13, 2006 6:18 am

Okay. I know what the research says. And I know what teachers do in their classrooms. But I'm curious as to how many of you know about this area of SLA research.

Feel free to comment on anything you know about it, any way you incorporate it in your classrooms, and any questions you may have about it. If you don't know squat, feel free to say so and ask any questions you'd like. Also, information about where you teach would be helpful.

Look forward to your replies.

Atassi

fluffyhamster
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Post by fluffyhamster » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:32 pm

I came across those two names, among others, in N. Schmitt's survey of vocabulary learning strategies (in Schmitt & McCarthy's Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy (CUP 1997)).

Schmitt adds a fifth category (Determination Strategies) to (R.L.) Oxford's (1990) four (Social, Memory, Cognitive and Metacognitive) because there was no category to adequately describe 'strategies used by an individual when faced with discovering a new word's meaning without recourse to another person's expertise' (pg 205). Schmitt then transposes a more basic two-way division (based on Cook & Mayer 1983, and Nation 1990) over the five categories, that is, between 'activities useful for a) the initial discovery of a new word's meaning and b) remembering/consolidating that word once it has been encountered/introduced' (pg 206).

I voted for 'If I see a need, I might try to help a student out' as being the closest to how I rate this stuff - it's good to make learners aware of the range of possible strategies, but a lot could be built into well-designed materials (e.g. there is computer software that will prompt you when it's time to review vocab again, to help commit it from STM to LTM...maybe this could be incorporated into a book format, with study and recycling at regular times/intervals) rather than leaving it to students to implement on an ad-hoc basis, from generalizations and much hand-waving.
Last edited by fluffyhamster on Mon Jun 14, 2010 2:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

lolwhites
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Post by lolwhites » Thu Apr 13, 2006 4:04 pm

Like Fluff, I voted for "If I see a need", though my actual answer would be somewhere between that and the top one. I have been known to have an entire lesson on learning strategies at the start of the course and get students to test out strategies and report back. I see it as particularly important for the student who has learned lots of grammar and writing and is keen to improve speaking and listening. If the students don't know how to learn you won't get far!

Atassi
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Post by Atassi » Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:21 pm

It is encouraging to see that at least two teachers who frequent this forum are aware of this topic, and aware of how to incorporate some strategies-based instruction into their lessons. Thanks for your replies :)

Two questions:

What city or country are you teaching in if I may ask?

And do other teachers around you know as much as you do about the topic?

It would also be interesting to hear what level(s) or age group you teach, and whether you were trained to instruct students on strategy use (or if you started doing so indepently).

Anyone else who views this, please feel free to vote!

Thanks again,

Atassi

lolwhites
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Post by lolwhites » Fri Apr 14, 2006 1:20 pm

In answer to your questions, I teach first and second year university students in France. It's a young university, not very prestigious (and didn't get blockaded in the recent protests) and the students who attend are often the first in their families to enter higher education, so they need a lot of help and advice on how to study.

My training did mention learner strategies (the PGCE, not the Cert!), and I've attended sessions on Learning Styles, but I don't put much stock in the latter as it tends to categorise people and, used wrongly, can, IMO, actually do more harm than good.

fluffyhamster
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Post by fluffyhamster » Fri Apr 14, 2006 2:27 pm

I'm currently in Saitama prefecture, Japan, teaching (well, OK, assisting - gives me more time to study and prepare than I would have in an eikaiwa/private language school) in a junior high school and several elementary ones.

I suppose you could say there are learning strategies of a sort at work around here, but the form-meaning pairings that students encounter at high school level aren't so numerous or complex that they call for anything other than bland discrete item wordlists to memorize by rote learning/cramming (mainly into short-term memory for those always imminent "progress" tests); there certainly doesn't seem to be much depth to, or required from, the learning. Anyway, I don't really know if the Japanese teachers (or students!) might have more up their sleeves than this...

As for your average native foreign teacher, I suspect he or she is perhaps aware of books such as G. Ellis & B. Sinclair's Learning to Learn English: A Course in Learner Training (CUP 1989) (this was mentioned during my CTEFLA, perhaps because it contained questionnaire-type stuff - a quick way for the trainee to become informed and in turn inform their future students...however, explicit training in the strategies described probably doesn't happen, for the main part - it didn't on my CTEFLA at least - but then, perhaps such training beyond the read-through isn't necessary for most strategies one could describe!); but real teacher familiarity with, and belief in, learner strategies will only really come through engaging with the area in more depth through further reading and, ideally, some genuine long-term foreign language study on the teacher's part wherein strategies might prove useful, and even then, there's probably the feeling that a lot of this is ultimately the learner's responsibility (who can really say or tell how another will like to and therefore should study).

Before I did the CTEFLA I read a little book called 'Yes! You Can Learn a Foreign Language' that I recall had some sound advice in it (by Marjory Brown-Azarowicz; Passport Books/NTC/McGraw-Hill, 1989).

Googling to find the name of the Ellis & Sinclair title, I came across this (haven't done more than look through it briefly):
http://iteslj.org/Articles/Lessard-Clou ... ategy.html

By the way, the software that I mentioned above, I first read about it on antimoon.com about four years ago...maybe it's still featured on the site (I hope so, 'cos it sounded pretty good).

I guess the one thing that I really think people should make an effort to become familiar with, try and explicitly develop is some form of vocabulary notebook (see various of Lewis's suggestions; 'wordsurfing' here on Dave's; N. and D. Schmitt (1995), 'Vocabulary notebooks: theoretical underpinnings and practical suggestions.' ELTJ 49 (2): 133-43 (alluded to in aforementioned Schmitt & McCarthy 1997).
Last edited by fluffyhamster on Sat Apr 15, 2006 3:42 am, edited 3 times in total.

Metamorfose
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Post by Metamorfose » Fri Apr 14, 2006 2:47 pm

I'm just reading the posts here, at least it's a start for me and I'll surely go for it to learn more.

I'm in my homecountry in São Paulo state, I teach in a small language institute and I doubt that many around here would care about Learning Strategies, the Lexical Approach and the like for most of the English teachers here are only working to fill in some gap, you know, they've been abroad, speak the language pretty well and the school owners hire them for they are a kind of cheap workforce (normally they come from wealthy families and wouldn't struggle that much for their rights) and they know they won't be living on teaching, as they go to univeristy another takes their place.

I just got Brown's Principles of Language and Teaching at university and it has something on the matter.

José

fluffyhamster
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Post by fluffyhamster » Fri Apr 14, 2006 3:09 pm

I just checked by antimoon.com again, and they do indeed still have the article about the programme (called 'SuperMemo'). Click on the 'How to Learn English' link on their homepage and you'll soon see the SuperMemo article link.

BTW, the Macmillan English Dictionary's CD-ROM has a flashcard program that is like a very simple SM, but without fancy stuff like the automatic recycling at intervals, based on the grade you award yourself for your recall ability, of the actual SM programme.

Atassi
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Post by Atassi » Fri Apr 14, 2006 9:37 pm

Thanks to all for the thoughtful posts...

In Korea I realized that most of the students I had, and the students other teachers had, really didn't know what they needed to do to study language. The teachers either didn't realize it, or allowed the students to be completely dependent on them. This bothered me quite a bit at the time, as the students were for the most part completely incapable of doing anything on their own.

I think Korea may be a special case in a way, as many of the teachers there really know nothing about SLA. They get a job at a small language school and are told just to "teach" and use the text as a guide. Many of the teachers in Korea now had their start years ago in this way.

I am by no means saying that the teachers there are incapable of doing a good job, but I believe that many of them have never been shown how to teach, or how languages are learned. Although I believe this problem exists elsewhere, Korea maybe has the most untrained western language teachers of any country.

I am currently completing my MA TESOL in Orlando, Florida. One of my main research interests has been in the area of learner strategies. I plan to do what I can to spread awareness on the issue, and to start I am to present on the topic at a conference this May.

Again, I appreciate the replies. I hope this topic will be interesting to more who frequent this forum.

Atassi

Atassi
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Post by Atassi » Fri Apr 14, 2006 9:47 pm

José, thanks for the post. I have known others from South America who have done just that: taught English back in their home countries while on break from school. I applaud you for trying to learn more about topics in SLA as you have indicated.

Brown has some good books out. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching does have a good chapter on learning strategies, but you will find other books more helpful for the teacher (although he lays out the principles pretty well).

In Brown's text, he includes a taxonomy of learner strategies by Oxford. Oxford to date has been the most complete in listing different strategies.

Also, I recommend that you find The Learning Strategies Handbook by Chamot and others. I think this book has proven itself to be very useful to teachers in explaining concepts and providing reproducible handouts to use in class. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Regards,

Atassi

fluffyhamster
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Post by fluffyhamster » Sat Sep 27, 2008 4:03 pm

http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Language- ... 0521718147

Was made aware of the above book by a recent post that alexcase made on the Japan forum (offering to give away free books - review copies - in exchange for reviews. And no, I haven't offered to do so, but maybe those of you who are also members of the International/Job Discussion forums should!).

The other, linked books on Amazon ('Frequently bought together with...' or 'Customers who bought this book also bought...') look interesting too.

fluffyhamster
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Post by fluffyhamster » Wed Jul 08, 2009 2:11 pm

It seems the CD-ROM that accompanies the new 5th edition of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English has got something like the SuperMemo software mentioned above, in the form of a feature called the 'Longman Vocabulary Trainer'. Click on the second, lowermost 'More' button on the following webpage for details:
http://eltcatalogue.pearsoned-ema.com/C ... ourseID=GM

J.M.A.
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Post by J.M.A. » Thu Jul 16, 2009 2:54 pm

I'm currently reading Macaro's (he is a co-editor of the volume) 2007 Language Learner Strategies in OUP's Applied Linguistics series.

I don't like LLS in general and don't think it is a particularly useful construct or way of approaching SLA, unless you are doing exam preparation (I certainly use LLS in my IELTS preparatory classes, for example). Of course, students do need to learn to use appropriate strategies in general, but I remained somewhat unconvinced of LLS's ultimate relevance as a cutting edge sub-field of Applied Linguistics.

I think Dornyei's criticism of LLS holds, that it is too difficult to separate strategy and its effects from acquisition itself and that there are more interesting constructs in SLA (I'm paraphrasing wildly here). I'm getting this distinct impression as I work my way through the above mentioned volume. In general terms of SLA, there are more insightful ways of analyzing, working with and interpreting acquisition and learning. But this is just my momentary impression, maybe things will change by the time I finish the book.

fluffyhamster
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Post by fluffyhamster » Sat Mar 13, 2010 2:41 am

I've realized, having browsed forums like Chinese-forums.com, that the software I was trying to describe above is nowadays (and perhaps all along has been) called SRS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition_software . Students of Chinese use programmes like Anki to generate virtual as opposed to (rather wasteful) paper flashcards - apparently useful for memorizing Chinese characters (hanzi) and related info (I myself didn't use flashcards much when originally learning Chinese, but I might try electronic ones at some point now that I am hoping to take my Chinese up a level). I'm not sure however exactly how much SRS is used for less orthographically-burdensome languages, though I can see how it would be useful for vocabulary generally.

Heath
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Oxford's a slog of a read.

Post by Heath » Wed Mar 17, 2010 3:56 am

Just a couple of comments on Oxford's book, for people who are considering what books to get on strategy training:
* It has loads of ideas, but...
* It is flooded with asides and distractions.
* Has about a thousand foot notes in addition to the in text asides.
* Repeats the same things about 10 times over as many pages.
* Has 'quotes' from other texts that are very misleading.
* Just generally doesn't read well.

I gave up on trying to 'read' it, and am now just going through and isolating the strategies with clear practical implications - and for that it is a really good book.

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