Педагогические науки/ 5.Современные методы преподавания.

Грибенюк М.А.

Таразский Государственный университет им М.Х Дулати.

Effective Language Learning Strategies

Students with English as a second language constitute a significant percentage of the population of our nation's schools. This population continues to increase more rapidly than that of native English speaking students. The language minority population has a high drop out rate. These students are also among the lowest ranking in academic achievement and expectations. They represent an at-risk population faced with a wide range of challenges.

This presents a unique challenge for teachers as we strive to help these students achieve in learning the English language and the academic material specified in our content area learning standards. Every teacher who teaches subject matter in English to ESL students is not only a teacher of the content area but is a teacher of English as well. As educators, we must continually reflect on our teaching and update our practice to address the needs of this population, placing a strong emphasis on the human side of teaching. We must continually focus on these students and find effective ways to arrange their learning to help them achieve.

Language learning and teaching have evolved from a teacher-centred to a more student-centred approach and as a result the interest to find out how the students themselves learn a language has become a crucial area of study. As students are responsible for their own learning, looking at the strategies they adopt in language learning could give insights into the importance of the different strategies used, the extent to which they are used, and the factors that influence strategy use.

Over time, students will develop their own learning strategies - which include the ways in which they learn and remember information, how they study for tests and how they make the best use of their learning strengths. Many students may not even be aware that they are using these strategies as it may have become a natural and automatic process for them. There are some strategies, on the other hand, that students may need to be taught, or at least brought to their attention. In this article we will discuss learning styles and strategies and how they apply to the language classroom.

The strategies a student uses to learn a second language depend greatly on their individual learning style. Some students are outgoing and will experiment freely and frequently while learning a new language. Other students are more introverted, preferring a more individual, private approach to the way they learn and practice the language. The strategies used by an outgoing student may vary significantly when compared with the strategies of a more reserved student.

The phrase ‘learning style’ refers to a person’s general approach to learning and is dependent upon that person’s cognitive, affective and behavioral characteristics (Oxford, “The Role of Styles and Strategies in Second Language Learning”, 1989).

     The phrase ‘learning strategies’ refers to the actions and behaviours a person uses to learn (Oxford, 1989.) All learners use strategies to help them succeed, but not all are aware of the strategies they use. As Rebecca Oxford states: “…the most successful learners tend to use learning strategies that are appropriate to the material, to the task, and to their own goals, needs, and stage of learning,” (Oxford, 1989).

For those students who make use of learning strategies without being aware of it, taking the SILL survey makes these strategies explicit to them and can therefore make these strategies more effective to their learning process. For teachers, having their students take the SILL survey at the start of a language course may help the teacher to understand what strategies are most effective for their students, and adjust their teaching to fit. As well, the results of such a survey can be useful for the teacher to see which strategies are being under-utilized by the students; with this information, the teacher can take the opportunity to teach these strategies to the students.

Based on the extensive research on learning strategies (Challot - O'Malley 1994 Rubin) successful second language learners use some common learning strategies effectively.  The high school second language learner has much in common with the "good" language learners described by Rubin (1975), i.e. they 

1. are willing guessers

2. are accurate guessers

3. have a strong drive to communicate

4. look for patterns in the language

5. try to classify language

6. analyze language

7. take advantage of all practice opportunities

8. monitor their own speech

9. pay attention to meaning

According to Naiman, Frohlich, and Todesco (1975) successful second language learners use the following six strategies:

1. select language situations that allow one's (learning) preferences to be used

2. actively involve themselves in language learning

3. see language as both a rule system and a communication tool

4. extend and revise one's understanding of the language

5. learn to think in the language

6. address the affective demands of language learning

Oxford (1989) identifies six broad categories of strategies:

1. metacognitive (e.g. self-monitoring, paying attention)

2. affective (e.g. self-encouragement, anxiety reduction)

3. social (e.g. ask questions, become culturally aware)

4. memory (e.g. grouping, imagery, associating)

5. cognitive (e.g. reasoning, analyzing, summarizing)

6. compensation (e.g. guessing meanings, using synonyms)

The teacher is expected to bring these strategies to the attention of learners regardless of the subject matter.  This includes encouraging students who already exhibit use of these strategies so that others might 'notice' and imitate them.