Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research

Misurata University, Faculty of Art

English Department
Second Language Acquisition

Course Title: Learner Strategies

Presented by:Haifa F.Dermish

Course Tutor: Dr. Yaseen Ihmaid
Content
 Learner Strategy
 Types of 2L knowledge
 Learning strategies
 Formulaic speech
 Creative speech
 Hypothesis formation
 Simplification and inferencing
 Hypothesis testing
 Automatization process
 Production, planning and correcting strategies
 Empirical research
What is learner strategy
 Learner strategy considers the internal processes which account for how the learner handles input
data and how the learner utilizes L2 resources in the production of messages in the L2

 Different writers have defined learner strategies in different ways. For example, Rebecca Oxford’s
(1990, p.8) definition emphasises the benefits of learner strategies:
 specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-
directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations.
 Another way of looking at strategies is to focus on what happens when students use them. This is the
focus of Rebecca Oxford and Andrew Cohen’s (1992, p. 1) explanation:
 Steps or actions taken by the learners to improve the development of their language skills.
Types of 2L knowledge

 Rod Ellis identifies two types of L2 knowledge: declarative, consisting of internalized L2

rules and chunks of language
 and procedural, consisting of the learner’s strategies and procedures to process L2 data
for acquisition and for use (p.164).

 He divides this procedural knowledge into two types of processes and

strategies, social and cognitive. The latter type is split into cognitive processes
for learning L2 and cognitive processes for using L2. In Ellis’s typology the use of L2
entails a further distinction between production / reception processes and strategies,
and communication strategies (p.165)
 Procedural knowledge can be subdivided into social and Cognitive component

 The social component comprises the behavioral strategies used by the learner to manage
interactional opportunities(i.e. The use of the L2 in face-to-face contact or in contact with L2 texts).

 The Cognitive component of procedural knowledge comprises the various mental processes involved
in internalizing and automatizing new L2 knowledge in conjunction with other knowledge sources to
communicate in the L2.
Learning Strategy

 The proliferation of terms and concepts, so characteristic of accounts of every aspect of

procedural knowledge, is perhaps most evident in discussions of learning strategies
 Strategies as varied as memorization , overgeneralization, inferencing, and prefabricated
patterns have all been treated under the general heading of learning strategy
  learning strategy is an individual's approach to complete a task. More
specifically, a learning strategy is an individual's way of organizing and using
a particular set of skills in order to learn content or accomplish other tasks
more effectively and efficiently in school as well as in nonacademic settings
(Schumaker & Deshler, 1992).
 The techniques and processes selected by the learner by which to achieve a
specific learning objective.

 Instructional methods to help students attend, listen, read, comprehend, and

study more effectively by helping them organize and collect information
systematically. (California Dept. of Education, 1994)
Formulaic speech

 formulaic speech consists of “predictable utterance sequences that serve a. single or limited
role, and are restricted to particular positions or specialized. functions in respect to
conversation or interaction.

 Collocations, fixed expressions, lexical metaphors, idioms and situation-bound utterances

can all be considered as examples of formulaic language (Howarth 1998; Wray 1999, 2002,
2005; Kecskes 2000) 

 Formulaic speech (FS) “consists of expressions which are learned as unanalyzable wholes“
(Ellis 1986, 167),

 According Krashen (1982), these expression can have the form of whole utterances learned
as memorized chunks (e. g. I don’t know) and partially unanalyzed utterances with one or
more slots (e. g. Where are the______? ). The expressions can also consist of entire scripts
such as greetings (Ellis, 1994).
Creative Speech
 While formulaic speech is an important factor in early SLA, creative speech (CS) is what you're
after if learning a new language. In contrast to FS which provides only few variations of speech
CS is what we all use in our mother tongue. It clearly has the wider scope and enables a speaker
to produce entirely new sentences according to the situation, the topic and the communicative
goal. CS is “the product of L2 rules“ (Ellis 1986, 170) which “constitute the learner's
interlanguage system“ (ibid.)

 Creative speech is the product of L2 rules. These are creative in the Chomskian sense that they
permit the L2 learner to produce entirely novel sentences . :

 Faerch and Kasper (1980; consider these strategies1983b) provide a framework which can be
used to consider these strategies systematically .
 They distinguish strategies involved in establishing interlanguage rules, and strategies involved
in automatizing interlanguage knowledge .
 Faerch and Kasper also distinguish two basic and related processes: hypothesis formation and
hypothesis testing
 HYPOTHESIS FORMATION
 Hypotheses about interlanguage rules are formed in three
ways:

 1. Using prior linguistic knowledge

 2. Inducing new rules from the input data
 3. A combination of (1) and (2) Summary
   SIMPLIFICATION and inferencing
 “attempts by the leaners to control the range of hypotheses he attempts to build… by
restricting hypothesis formation to those hypotheses which are relatively easy to form
and will facilitate communication.” (Ellis 1985)
 INFERENCING Learners attempt to “induce the rule from the input”. (Ellis 1985
Hypotheses Testing

  HYPOTHESIS TESTING Hypotheses can be tested out in a number of ways:

 1. Receptively (comparing hypotheses with L2 data)
 2. Productively (making utterances containing the hypothesized rules to check their
correctness in terms of feedbacks)
 3. Metalingually (consulting teachers, natives, dictionaries)
 4. Interactionally (elicit a repair from interlocutor) (Faerch & Kasper 1983b)
 Automatization process

 AUTOMATIZATION Learners try to consolidate hypotheses about L2 by accumulating

confirmatory evidence. (Ellis 1985)

 Automatization process involves both the practicing of L2 rules which enter interlanguage at the
formal end of the stylistic continuum and the practicing of rules which already in use in the ‘
vernacular’
Production Strategies

 KEY ISSUES
 Models of L2 production
 Planning & monitoring strategies
 Communication strategies
A MODEL BY CLARK & CLARK (1977) 
 Learning programme

 Articulatory programme

 Motor programme
LITTLEWOOD’S MODEL

 Minimal strategies: simplification is preferred (due to lack of L2

knowledge or conversational conditions)
 Maximal strategies: full realization and control over L2 knowledge
Planning Strategies

 The skeleton and constituent model also provides a framework for interpreting Seliger’s
(1980) distinction between planners and correctors

 Planners: hesitant but correct

 Correctors: fewer pauses in speech

 Semantic simplification: certain lexical elements are deleted

 Linguistic simplification: certain syntactic elements are deleted

Correcting Strategies: Monitoring

 The principle strategy for correcting is monitoring .

 This has received considerable prominence in the form of Krashen’s (1981) Monitor
Model of language performance .
 Krashen argues that the learner possesses two kinds of knowledge ,which are implicit or
intuitive knowledge (acquisition) and explicit or metalinquistic knowledge (learning)

 According to Krashen , the learner initiates utterances using only implicit knowledge, but
is able to monitor his performance using explicit knowledge either before or after
articulation
What are Communication Strategies

 The concept of "communication strategies" (CS) reflects the idea of communicative

competence proposed by Canale and Swain (1980), who viewed it as comprised of three
specific types: grammatical, sociolinguistic, and strategic. Strategic competence is the
ability of a speaker to manage a breakdown in communication.
 strategic competence has been considered largely a matter of a speaker's ability to use CS
(Swain, 1984, p. 189).
 Faerch and Kasper noted that all previous definitions contained two key elements:
consciousness and problem-solving.
 CS are….mutual attempts of two interlocutors to agree on meaning in situations where the
requisting meaning structure do not seem to be shared” (Tharone,1980)
DIFFERENT APPROACHES IN EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

 Comparison between learners’ storytelling ability in their L1 and L2

 Comparison between native and non-native speakers on the same task

 The use of specific lexical items
 RESULTS FROM EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

 Effects of proficiency level

 Effects of the problem-source
 Effects of personality
 Effects of the learning situation
References

 Canale, M. & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language

teaching and testing

 Understanding second language acquisition: Ellis, Rod, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985, 327 pp

 Seliger, H. (1984). Processing universals in second language acquisition. In F. Eckman, L. Bell, and D.
Nelson, (Eds.), Universals of Second Language Acquisition, Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.
 Faerch, C. and G. Kasper. (1980). Processes in foreign language learning and communication.
Interlanguage Studies Bulletin, 5: 47-118