STRATEGIES

Applied Linguistics
Tatiana Becerra Posada.
What are strategies?
 They are ways, tools, or techniques that help
you to learn
Learning strategies
 “Learning strategies are special ways of
processing information that enhance
comprehension, learning, or retention of the
information.”(O´Malley & Chamot, 1990)
 There exist different learning strategies:
 Cognitive
 Metacognitive
 Social affective.
 Cognitive Learning Strategies: Manipulation
of learning material
 Meta-cognitive Learning Strategies: Involve

thinking about the learning process.

 Social affective Learning Strategies: Concerns

the influence of social and affective processes

on learning.
Communication Strategies
 Communication strategies are directed
toward maintaining communication.

 Some communication strategies are:

 Compensatory strategies
 Avoidance strategies.
 STRATEGY INSTRUCTION
 Strategy instruction is a highly creative, multi-
level process for teaching students to optimize
their learning strategies for themselves as
individuals.

 Why?
 The goal of strategy instruction is to explicitly
teach students how, when and why strategies
can be used to facilitate their efforts at learning
and using a foreign language. (Oxford, 1989)
EFFECTIVE STRATEGY INSTRUCTION
 It involves:
 Discovering and discussing strategies that

students already use for specific learning

tasks.
 Presenting new strategies by explicitly

naming them and describing them.

 Modelling the strategies
 Explaining why and when the strategies can

be used.
 Providing extensive practice.
ROLE OF THE TEACHER
 One potentially beneficial shift in teacher
roles is from that of being exclusively the
manager, controller, and instructor to that of
being a change agent- a facilitator of learning
whose role is to help students to become
more independent, more responsible for their
own learning. In this role the teachers
become partners in the learning process.
(Cohen, 1998)
 Teacher have new roles:
 Diagnostician
 Learner trainer
 Coah
 Coordinator
 Language learner
 researcher
 “The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid
you to enter the house of his wisdom but
rather leads you to the threshold of your
mind.”  Kahlil Gibran
Learner Autonomy
 “There is convincing evidence that people
who take the initiative in learning (pro- active
learners) learn more things and learn better,
than do people who sit at the feet of teachers
passively waiting to be taught (reactive
learners).” (Knowles, 1975)