Principles of Language and Learning and Teaching

Chapter V:
Styles and strategies
by: Dolcini Natalia, Gimenez Joana, Gimenez Martina, Maidana Denise, Molinaro Camila
and Ramirez Luciana.
Style and strategies
Cognitive variations in learning a second language
 Differences among:

Process Style
Everyone has some aptitude for Intellectual functioning and personality
learning a second language that may type that belong to you as an
be described by specified verbal individual and differentiate you from
learning processes someone else.

Strategies
Specific methods of approaching a
problem or task, modes of operation for
achieving a particular end.
 Learning styles

Left brain style Right brain style

practical and logical steps focusing only in empathize with the airport personnel and use
important things alternative communicative strategies
 Cognitive Style

link between

Personality Cognition
 Cognitive Style
Related to an educational context

affective and psychological factors mixed

Learning Styles
Reflective style Impulsive style
 Field Independence

The ability to perceive a particular, relevant item or

factor in a ‘field’ of distracting items.

Field independence = Field sensitivity

(+) (-)
distinguish parts from a whole, to too much of it it can result in ‘tunnel
concentrate on something or to vision’ you see only the parts and not their
analyze separate variables relationship to the whole
 FID
(The literature on field independence- dependence)

Field Independence Field Dependence

● Independent ● More socialized
● Competitive ● More emphatic and
● Self - confident perceptive of the feelings
and thoughts of others.
Left and Right brain Dominance
Various functions become lateralized to the left or right hemisphere.

Left Right
● Logical ● Visual
● Analytical ● Tactile
● Mathematical ● Auditory images
● Linear processing ● More efficient in processing
information integrative and emotional
information.
Left and Right brain characteristics
 Analysis

Left-brain-dominant Right-brain-dominant

❏ Preferred a deductive style ❏ More successful in a

of teaching.
❏ better at producing
separated words, carrying
out sequences of
operations and dealing with
abstraction.
inductive classroom
environment.
❏ Deal better with whole
images, metaphors,
emotional reactions and
artistic expressions.
 Ambiguity Tolerance
The degree to which you are cognitively willing to tolerate ideas and propositions
that run counter to your own belief system.

Ambiguity Ambiguity
Tolerance Intolerance

Open-minded: Close-minded:
innovative and Reject items that are
creative possibilities. contradictory with
their existing system

Too much tolerance of ambiguity can have a demetrial effect.

Reflectivity and Impulsivity
Personalities with cerian
tendencies.

More calculated Make a quick or

decision gambling guess
Systematic and intuitive styles.

Systematic Intuitive

Thinkers tend to weigh The person makes a

all the considerations in number of different
a problem and then gambles before the
venture a solution. solution is achieved.
Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic Style

Prefer reading and studying charts, drawing and other

Visual learners graphic information

Auditory learners Prefer listening to lectures and audiotapes.

Prefer demonstrations and physical activity

Kinesthetic learners involving bodily movement.
 “The 3 As”
Emphazises on learner-centered
language teaching

Awareness
01 The demand on 03
learners to become
aware of their
learning process
Autonomy Action
Encourage Take appropriate
learners to “take 02 action in the
charge” of their form of different
own learning strategies
 Strategies
Specific attacks that we make on a
given problem that vary in each
individual

Learning Communicative
strategies Strategies
Related to processing How we productively
storage and retrieval. express meaning, how we
Taking messages from deliver messages to
others others
 Learning strategies

Cognitive
01 Direct manipulation 03
of the learning
material itself

Metacognitive Socioaffective
Involve planning Have to do with
for learning, 02 social-mediating
monitoring one’s activity and
production interacting with
others
 Communication
strategies
● CS are related to the employment of verbal or
non-verbal mechanisms for the productive
communication of information

● Faerch and Kasper defined communication strategies as

“potentially conscious plans for solving what to an
individual presents itself as a problem in reaching a
particular communicative goal”
Avoidance strategies
Language difficulties:

● Message abandonment

● Topic avoidance

The most common type of avoidance strategy is SYNTACTIC or

LEXICAL avoidance within a semantic category
 Compensatory strategies
● CIRCUMLOCUTION (Describing or exemplifying the object in action - e.g.: the thing
you open bottles with)

● APPROXIMATION (Using an alternative term which expresses the meaning of the

target lexical item as closely as possible)

● USE OF ALL-PURPOSE WORDS (Extending a general, empty lexical item to contexts

where specific words are lacking - e.g.: the overuse of the words thing, stuff, etc.)

● WORD COINAGE

● PREFABRICATED PATTERNS

● NONLINGUISTIC SIGNALS

● LITERAL TRANSLATION
 Compensatory strategies
● FOREIGNIZING (Using a L1 word by adjusting it
to L2 phonology and/or morphology)

● CODE-SWITCHING (The use of L1 or L3 within

a stream of speech in the L2)

● APPEAL FOR HELP (Often termed “appeal to

authority”)

● STALLING OR TIME-GAINING STRATEGIES

Strategies-based instruction (SBI)
● Application of:
Learning strategies and Communication strategies
to Classroom learning

● Language classroom Effective milieu

● Teaching learners how to learn is crucial

● Learner strategies LEARNER AUTONOMY

 Direct Strategies
● MEMORY STRATEGIES

● COGNITIVE STRATEGIES

● COMPENSATION STRATEGIES
 Indirect Strategies

● METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES

● AFFECTIVE STRATEGIES

● SOCIAL STRATEGIES
 Communication strategies

Avoidance Strategies Compensatory Strategies

● Syntactic or Lexical ● Prefabricated patterns
avoidance ● Code-switching
● Phonological Avoidance ● Appeal to authority
● Topic Avoidance
 Strategy-based instruction (SBI)
Its effective implementation of SBI in language
classrooms involves several steps and
considerations:

1. Identifying learners’ styles and potential

strategies
2. Incorporating SBI in communicative
language courses and classrooms
3. Providing extra-class assistance for learners