Learning Strategy Instruction in the Language Classroom: Issues and Implementation 9781788923415

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Learning Strategy Instruction in the Language Classroom

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Series Editors: Professor David Singleton, University of Pannonia, Hungary and Fellow Emeritus, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and Associate Professor Simone E. Pfenninger, University of Salzburg, Austria This series brings together titles dealing with a variety of aspects of language acquisition and processing in situations where a language or languages other than the native language is involved. Second language is thus interpreted in its broadest possible sense. The volumes included in the series all offer in their different ways, on the one hand, exposition and discussion of empirical fi ndings and, on the other, some degree of theoretical reflection. In this latter connection, no particular theoretical stance is privileged in the series; nor is any relevant perspective – sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic, etc. – deemed out of place. The intended readership of the series includes fi nal-year undergraduates working on second language acquisition projects, postgraduate students involved in second language acquisition research, and researchers, teachers and policy makers in general whose interests include a second language acquisition component. All books in this series are externally peer-reviewed. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: 132

Learning Strategy Instruction in the Language Classroom Issues and Implementation Edited by

Anna Uhl Chamot and Vee Harris

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Blue Ridge Summit

DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/CHAMOT3408 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Names: Chamot, Anna Uhl, editor. | Harris, Vee - editor. Title: Learning Strategy Instruction in the Language Classroom: Issues and Implementation/Edited by Anna Uhl Chamot and Vee Harris. Description: Bristol; Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters, [2019] | Series: Second Language Acquisition: 132 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018055796| ISBN 9781788923408 (hbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781788923392 (pbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781788923415 (pdf) | ISBN 9781788923422 (epub) | ISBN 9781788923439 (kindle) Subjects: LCSH: Second language acquisition. Classification: LCC P118.2 .L425 2019 | DDC 401/.93—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018055796 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-340-8 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-339-2 (pbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: NBN, Blue Ridge Summit, PA, USA. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2019 Anna Uhl Chamot, Vee Harris and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Nova Techset Private Limited, Bengaluru and Chennai, India. Printed and bound in the UK by Short Run Press Ltd. Printed and bound in the US by Thomson-Shore, Inc.

Contents

Foreword Cynthia White Dedication to Anna Uhl Chamot Joan Rubin Acknowledgements Contributors Introduction Anna U. Chamot and Vee Harris

1

vii xi xiii xv xxi

Part 1 Issues: Models and Contexts

1

Language Learning Strategy Instruction: Recent Research and Future Directions Luke Plonsky

3

2

Approaches to Learning Strategy Instruction Peter Yongqi Gu

3

Diversity and Integration in Language Learning Strategy Instruction Vee Harris

38

Designing Strategic Classrooms: Self-assessment in Enabling Self-regulated Learning Do Coyle

53

4

5

Language Learner Strategies and Individual Differences Ernesto Macaro

6

Learning Strategy Instruction in Content and Language Integrated Learning Programs Marcella Menegale Part 2 Issues: Less Studied and Less Taught Groups of Strategies

7

Grammar Learning Strategies Instruction in the Foreign Language Classroom: The Case of Students in Degree Programs in English Mirosław Pawlak v

22

68

81

107

109

vi

8

9

Learning Strategy Instruction in the Language Classroom

Language Learning Strategy Instruction for Critical Cultural Awareness Anna Uhl Chamot and Vee Harris

123

Strategy Instruction for Learning and Performing Target Language Pragmatics Andrew D. Cohen

140

Part 3 Implementation: The Learners

153

10 Designing Effective Strategy Instruction: Approaches and Materials for Young Language Learners Pamela Gunning, Joanna White and Christine Busque

155

11 Guidelines and Materials for Integrating Language Learning Strategy Instruction into the Language Lesson Angeliki Psaltou-Joycey

171

12 Differentiation in Language Learning Strategy Instruction Anna Uhl Chamot

184

13 Teaching Language Learning Strategies Using Technology Jill Robbins

190

Part 4 Implementation: The Teachers 14 Teacher Education: Formative Assessment, Reflection and Affective Strategy Instruction Christina Gkonou and Rebecca L. Oxford 15 Empowering Teachers to Promote Learner Self-management Joan Rubin and Claudia Acero Rios 16 Teacher Education for Language Learning Strategy Instruction: Approaches and Activities Anna Uhl Chamot, Vee Harris, Carol Griffiths, Pamela Gunning, Martha Nyikos and Birsen Tutüniș 17 What We Still Need to Learn about Language Learning Strategies Instruction: Research Directions and Designs Christine Goh

211 213 227

243

262

Afterword Anna Uhl Chamot and Vee Harris

279

Index

283

Foreword

The mid-1970s was a significant period for research into language instruction as it marked the beginning of an interest in the language learner, captured in the title of James Oller and Jack Richards’ (1973) edited book Focus on the Language Learner, with the subtitle ‘Pragmatic Perspectives for the Language Teacher’. Up to that point researchers had tended to amplify language teaching methodology as key to language learning, with the contributions of individual learners as a relatively inert part of the process. It was the landmark studies by Joan Rubin and David Stern published in 1975 that shifted our attention even further towards seeing language learners as people who bring their own awareness, styles and strategies to the process of language learning. From this point on, the field of language learning and teaching became interested in the strategies learners use to develop proficiency in the target language, the range of variables that affect strategy use, the efficacy of particular strategies and/ or combinations of strategies, and approaches to Language Learning Strategy Instruction. As enquiry into strategy instruction developed, it addressed a number of fundamental questions using a range of conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches: What models are there for strategy instruction? How have they been implemented? What are the features and principles of strategy instruction? How can teachers be guided and supported to include strategy instruction in their language classes? What evidence do we have for the efficacy of strategy instruction? This edited collection gives analytical attention to these fundamental questions, responding to the challenge for more detailed evidence of the exact nature of the intervention, the theoretical and methodological underpinnings, and careful examination of key features such as the role of teacher feedback. While models of strategy instruction have become more complex and sophisticated over the past three decades or so as researchers and teachers have attempted to make strategy instruction both situated and relevant to the immediate needs and motives of language learners, the chapters here extend further this trajectory of enquiry; they consider how strategy instruction can relate to the diversity of student backgrounds and the complexity of their needs within and across different settings including interrelationships with language and content instruction, for example. The book also opens up new areas of strategy instruction relating to grammar, vii

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pragmatics and cultural awareness, areas which have hitherto received relatively little attention but which remain high-stakes areas in language use in a globalized world. Importantly, the book takes a multiperspectival view of strategy instruction, focusing not only on models and frameworks, learner needs and settings and particular language skills, but also in considering curricula, materials, teacher roles, the ways in which scaffolding is enacted in classrooms, and the potential of digital environments and mobile language learning. The chapters productively explore tensions between what researchers have come to know about strategies and strategy instruction, and what can usefully be applied in language classrooms by teachers who face competing demands on their classroom time and personal resources. This is achieved by a deep and empathetic understanding of teachers’ needs and classroom realities together with productive approaches to fi nding new ways for teachers to experience the value of strategy instruction – which teachers can then convey and re-enact in their settings as part of their everyday practices. This is an important and long-overdue book addressing significant questions about strategy instruction in relation to theory, research and practice and the interrelationships between them. In this it skilfully balances the twin concerns in Oller and Richards’ book, namely that theory and research focusing on the learner also need to address the realities of language teachers and to offer pragmatic perspectives that respond to those realities. The editors – Anna Uhl Chamot and Vee Harris – each pioneered approaches to strategy instruction, Anna in the United States and Vee in the UK, and led the way in inflecting those approaches for younger learners, adolescents, children in language immersion classrooms, and in content-based second language instruction, to give but a few examples. They both worked too to ensure that strategy instruction would not be eclipsed as a marginal activity and they did this by embedding it within teacher education programmes and by researching its wider relevance; one example is in Vee’s work on the interrelationships between fi rst and second language awareness among adolescents through crosscurricular collaborations. During the period that they as editors have both worked to bring this collection together, Anna’s life was drawing to a close, and on 2 November 2017 she passed away. Joan Rubin’s tribute to Anna is included in this volume together with a number of short personal reflections on her contribution to our work and our lives as researchers, language teacher educators and teachers, as well as to the lives of innumerable lifelong language learners. The editors and authors are to be commended for bringing together this volume at what is arguably a critical time for language teaching and strategy research: language teaching and strategy research have both been marked by a degree of precarity in terms of declining interest in languages in many instructional settings, and questions about whether strategies actually exist. At the same time, in other contexts, the relevance of

Foreword ix

language teaching and of strategy research is manifestly evident, as individuals continue to seek to learn languages (whether to improve their life chances or for important personal goals or for the sheer pleasure of being able to speak another language) and learners, teachers and researchers continue to seek ways of enhancing target language learning opportunities. It is my view that strategy instruction will continue to mediate our access to and understanding of a wide range of practices, contexts and settings for language learning and teaching; this volume gives us new ways of reappraising current approaches to strategy instruction. More importantly, it gives us a lens to examine our wider accountabilities at a time when, for many, language instruction is a high-stakes activity and when intergroup encounters and their outcomes raise worrying questions about the potential for coexistence in a shared world. Cynthia White Massey University, New Zealand Reference Oller, J.R. and Richards, J.C. (eds) (1973) Focus on the Language Learner: Pragmatic Perspectives for the Language Teacher. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

Dedication Anna Uhl Chamot

29 November 1934–2 November 2017 The authors wish to dedicate this book to Dr Anna Chamot, the co-editor. Dr Chamot’s impact on research and teaching in language education is immense. She was internationally recognized as a major contributor to the improvement of foreign language education. She was an invited keynote speaker at more than 150 conferences from Singapore to Scotland. She gave over 600 presentations at major conferences and lecture tours for the US Information Agency in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy and Argentina. The US State Department called on her frequently to speak to groups of education officials from other countries visiting the United States. Dr Chamot was an active member of IATFL, TESOL, ACTFL and NABE. For many summers she taught teacher education courses in Japan, Spain and China. She authored or co-authored 17 textbook series for foreign language, English as a second language or English as a foreign language. Her books include The CALLA Handbook: Implementing the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (2nd edn, 2009), The Learning Strategies Handbook (with S. Barnhardt, P.B. El-Dinary and J. Robbins, 1999) and Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition (with J.M. O’Malley, 1990). Dr Chamot published over 70 articles, book chapters and monographs on language instruction and numerous research reports. She was an editor for the series Studies in Second and Foreign Language Education from 2011 to 2015. xi

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Here are just a few of the sentiments from authors in this volume: ‘It is hard to imagine Language Learner Strategies without Anna; she has been a guiding light over many years, a wonderful colleague and a dear friend. Our field has lost a gentle giant.’ ‘She was a truly remarkable, dedicated scholar who was groundbreaking in her field. Dedicated to integrating theory and practice, she presented complex, theoretical ideas in such a clear and accessible way.’ ‘It was such a privilege to have known her – she was incredibly insightful and one of those role models that makes you feel happier and more comfortable that they are in this world. A great human being and professional.’ ‘She was so big and humble at the same time. She was a gracious colleague, a multifaceted, rare individual who is truly unforgettable.’ Compiled by her close friend and colleague, Dr Joan Rubin.

Acknowledgements

The editors are profoundly grateful to all the authors in this book for their willingness to embark with us on the journey and for the inspiration of their ideas. Each of them makes a unique contribution to our understanding. We also wish to express our heartfelt thanks to Laura Longworth, Commissioning Editor at Multilingual Matters, for her patience, advice and support. We wish to acknowledge Lidec Inc. for permission to reproduce an illustration from A New Twist to English, Cycle 2, Book 1. Montreal: Lidec.

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Contributors

Claudia Acero Rios is currently working in the Department of Languages and Cultures at the University of La Sabana where she teaches and tutors for the Masters’ programs. Her experience in education includes teaching at all language levels. Her research interests relate to educational management, technology in language learning, development of autonomy, online learning environments and teacher reflection. Christine Busque completed her Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics at Concordia University. Her main research interests are language immersion programs, crosslinguistic awareness and teacher collaboration. She is currently a project manager at the École d’Entrepreneurship de Beauce in Montreal where she has developed tailored and intensive training programmes for entrepreneurs. Anna Uhl Chamot died on 2 November 2017. She is co-editor of this book and was Professor Emerita of the Department of Teacher Preparation at George Washington University as well as Co-Director of the National Capital Language Resource Center. An invited keynote speaker at more than 150 conferences from Singapore to Scotland, she also gave over 600 presentations at major conferences and lecture tours in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy and Argentina. She gave extended summer courses in China, Japan and Spain. Her books include the seminal publication Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition (with her co-author J.M. O’Malley, Cambridge University Press, 1990) as well as the more practical The CALLA Handbook: Implementing the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (2nd edn, 2009). Dr Chamot published over 70 articles, book chapters and monographs on language instruction as well as numerous research reports, and was an editor for the series Studies in Second and Foreign Language Education from 2011 to 2015. Even just before her death, she continued working on her chapter for this volume. Andrew D. Cohen was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bolivia (1965–1967), Professor of ESL at UCLA (1972–1975), Professor of Language Education at the Hebrew University (1975–1991) with a year as Fulbright Lecturer and Researcher at the PUC in São Paulo, Brazil (1986–1987), and Professor of Second Language Studies at the University of Minnesota in 1991–2013, with a year as a Visiting Professor at Auckland University, New Zealand xv

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(2004–2005). He co-edited Language Learning Strategies (with E. Macaro, Oxford University Press, 2007), co-authored Teaching and Learning Pragmatics (with N. Ishihara, Routledge, 2014), and is author of Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language (Routledge, 2011) and Learning Pragmatics from Native and Nonnative Language Teachers (Multilingual Matters, 2018). He has also published many book chapters and journal articles. For the last nine years, he has been studying his 13th language, Mandarin, so he is constantly in need of language learner strategies and is also researching his efforts to fi ne-tune his understanding of Mandarin vocabulary. Do Coyle is Professor of Languages Education and Classroom Pedagogies and also Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange at the School of Education, University of Edinburgh. Over decades her work has focused on bilingual education, especially Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) – her 4Cs Framework has been adopted on a global scale. Do’s research focuses on classrooms where children are learning and using languages which are not their first and emphasizes empowering learners to take ownership of learning through using strategies in technologyenhanced and discourse-rich environments. Above all Do believes that language is our greatest learning (and teaching!) tool. Christina Gkonou is Associate Professor of TESOL and MA TESOL and Programme Leader in the Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Essex. She is also Deputy Director of Education in the same department. She convenes postgraduate modules on teacher education and development, and on psychological aspects surrounding the foreign language learning and teaching experience. She is co-editor of New Directions in Language Learning Psychology (with D. Tatzl and S. Mercer, Springer, 2016) and New Insights into Language Anxiety: Theory, Research and Educational Implications (with M. Daubney and J.-M. Dewaele, Multilingual Matters, 2017), and co-author of MYE: Managing Your Emotions Questionnaire (with R.L. Oxford, University of Essex, 2016). Christine Goh is Professor of Linguistics and Language Education at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her areas of interest and expertise are cognitive and metacognitive processes in second language listening and speaking, teaching and assessment of second language listening and speaking, and teacher cognition. She publishes extensively in these areas in books, book chapters and journal articles, and her work has been widely cited. Carol Griffiths has been a teacher, manager and teacher trainer of English language teaching for many years. She has taught in many places around the world, including New Zealand, Indonesia, Japan, China, North Korea, Turkey and the UK. She has also presented at numerous conferences and published widely, including her books Lessons from Good

Contributors xvii

Language Learners (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and The Strategy Factor in Successful Language Learning (Multilingual Matters, 2018). Her major areas of research interest are individual differences, teacher education and support, English as a medium of instruction, English as a lingua franca, action research, and using literature to teach language. Pamela Gunning lectures at Concordia University. She has considerable experience as an elementary English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher and has co-authored several ESL textbooks for children. Under the auspices of the Ministry of Education of Québec, she has also co-authored a strategy training module to help teachers incorporate learning strategy instruction into their ESL teaching. Her teaching and research publications focus on primary pedagogy, strategies and classroom-based assessment. Vee Harris is co-editor of this book and Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where she coordinated and taught the Modern Languages teacher education course for many years. Committed to bridging the gap between theory and practice, her research publications draw on classroom-based projects that she has undertaken with the help of practising teachers. She has written school textbooks as well as academic books on learning strategies with her co-author, Professor Michael Grenfell, the most recent being Language Learner Strategies: Contexts, Issues and Applications in Second Language Learning and Teaching (Bloomsbury, 2017). She is particularly interested in strategy instruction with the 12–13 years age range. Ernesto Macaro is Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics and a Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, University of Oxford. He is the founding Director of the Centre for Research and Development in English Medium Instruction (EMI) in the Department of Education. He was also the Director of the department from 2013 to 2016. His research focuses on second language learning strategies and on the interaction between teachers and learners in second language classrooms and in those where English is the medium of instruction. He has published widely on these topics. Marcella Menegale is a Research Fellow in the field of second language learning and teaching at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. She works as Adjunct Professor at the University of Padua, teaching the didactics of English language. Her research interest is mainly in issues related to plurilingualism, in particular Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), intercomprehension between languages of the same family, and learner autonomy in language learning. Since 2006 she has been coordinating and teaching courses on CLIL, intercomprehension and multilingual strategies for teachers of a range of ages and disciplines. Her publications include a monograph on her doctoral study on language

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learner autonomy, two edited volumes and several articles related to the results of her research so far. Martha Nyikos is Associate Professor and chairs the World Languages and ESL Teacher Education Program at Indiana University in Bloomington. Trilingual in Hungarian, German and English, she specializes in language learning strategies, with particular focus on metacognition and oral proficiency. Her current research is on sociocognitive factors used by learners in bilingual/dual language immersion classrooms and intergenerational heritage language maintenance. Since 2001 she has taught strategiesbased instruction for CARLA at the University of Minnesota, and she carries out teacher professional development internationally. She has received federal grants to train teachers in communicative, proficiencybased teaching focusing on accelerated oral language development. Rebecca L. Oxford, Distinguished Scholar-Teacher/Professor Emerita, University of Maryland, holds degrees in languages and psychology. Her Lifetime Achievement Award states, ‘Rebecca Oxford’s learning strategy research has changed the way the world teaches languages’. Of her 15 books, nine concern language learning strategies and related topics. Of the other six volumes, three involve peace (Peacebuilding in Language Education, The Language of Peace and Understanding Peace Cultures), and three concern positive educational, social, ecological and spiritual transformation. She has published 260 articles and chapters and has presented research in 43 countries. Mirosław Pawlak is Professor of English in the Faculty of Philology, State University of Applied Sciences, Konin, Poland and the Department of English Studies, Faculty of Pedagogy and Fine Arts in Kalisz, Adam Mickiewicz University, Kalisz, Poland. His main areas of interest are second language acquisition theory and research, form-focused instruction, corrective feedback, classroom discourse, learner autonomy, learning strategies, grammar learning strategies, motivation, willingness to communicate and pronunciation teaching. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journals Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching and Konin Language Studies, and the book series Second Language Learning and Teaching. Luke Plonsky is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at Northern Arizona University, where he teaches courses in second language acquisition and research methods. Recent and forthcoming publications in these and other areas can be found in Applied Linguistics, Language Learning and The Modern Language Journal, among other journals and volumes. He has also written and edited several books. Luke is Associate Editor of Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Managing Editor of Foreign Language Annals and Co-Director of the IRIS repository for instruments in language learning and teaching (iris-database.org). Luke held previous

Contributors xix

faculty appointments at Georgetown University and University College London. He has also taught in Japan, the Netherlands, Spain and Puerto Rico. Luke received his PhD in second language studies from Michigan State University. Angeliki Psaltou-Joycey (PhD) is Professor Emerita of the School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Her research interests and publications focus on second language acquisition, language learning strategies and styles, English/Greek as a second/foreign language, and multilingualism. She has authored, co-authored, co-edited and edited books and conference proceedings. She has published her research in Greek and international journals. She is the former elected Chair of the Greek Applied Linguistics Association (1998–2014) and former Editor-inChief of the Journal of Applied Linguistics (1998–2017). She sits on the editorial boards of several academic journals. Jill Robbins (PhD) has taught language learners and teachers in the United States, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and China. She is a lecturer and ESL program coordinator at Wenzhou-Kean University in Wenzhou, China. Her research explores language learning strategies, the use of technology for language learning and metacognition. She is the co-author of Integrating EFL Standards into Chinese Classroom Settings, Impact Listening 2, and the 1st edition of the Learning Strategies Handbook. She served on the Board of Trustees of The National Museum of Language, based in College Park, MD, for 10 years and is currently the Museum’s Chief Technical Officer. Joan Rubin pioneered the study of learning strategies used by language learners in her research identifying the strategies of expert learners. She followed that with two longitudinal research projects to determine whether the promotion of learning strategies would enhance learners’ listening skills. She has developed courses and given training workshops for student teachers and teachers around the world. Most recently she served as an action research mentor for students on a Master’s program in Colombia and as a Fulbright Scholar helping English university teachers in Ecuador promote learning to learn. Her book co-authored with Irene Thompson, How to Be a More Successful Language Learner (Heinle & Heinle, 1994), has been translated into several languages. Birsen Tütüniş has worked as an English instructor, lecturer and administrator for many years. Her academic research interests and publications are language learning strategies and styles, CALL and Teacher Training. Her recent interest lies in teachers’ professional development. She has served as the coordinator of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language Teacher Training and Education Special Interest Group for several years. She is currently events coordinator for the group. Professor Tütüniş holds a senior lecturer position in the Foreign

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Languages Department at Istanbul Kultur University. She is on the editorial board of the ELT Research Journal. Joanna White is a co-editor of the journal Language Awareness. She is retired from Concordia University, where she was a Professor in the Department of Education. In her research, she focuses on maximizing the benefits of instruction in second language classrooms for learners of different ages in a variety of instructional contexts. She is particularly interested in promoting collaboration between fi rst and second language teachers. Peter Yongqi Gu is Associate Professor in the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His main research interests include learner autonomy and learning strategies, language testing and assessment, and vocabulary acquisition.

Introduction Anna Uhl Chamot and Vee Harris

This book arose from an informal conversation with four or five of our colleagues where we shared our concerns about Language Learning Strategy Instruction. Although we felt that we had come a long way in understanding learning strategies themselves, it seemed that there was less knowledge about how to go about teaching them. To our surprise, we discovered through contacting other colleagues that our concerns were common across a range of countries and teaching contexts. The result is this book with its unique focus on teaching students the strategies they need to learn languages. With practical teaching activities as well as indepth discussions of the theoretical issues raised, the book draws on the experiences of leading researchers and practitioners in the field. Why such concern about Language Learning Strategy Instruction (LLSI)? Studies in the two decades following the 1970s had discovered that what characterized good language learners was their ability to orchestrate a range of appropriate strategies to meet the demands of the task they faced. Subsequent interest in LLSI stemmed not only from an intuitive feeling that less successful learners might benefit from using the strategies of their more successful peers, but also reflected the general shift in educational thinking to a more learner centred pedagogy and the focus on autonomous, lifelong learning for the 21st century. Initial research into the effectiveness of LLSI was sometimes inconclusive, leading some to argue that the time would be better spent on the language itself. However recent studies have been more encouraging, suggesting that LLSI has the potential both to facilitate students’ linguistic progress and to foster their development as effective, independent students. This more promising evidence has been due in part to a greater understanding of how to design and carry out LLSI interventions. Recognizing that simply disseminating information about strategies to the learners may be no more useful than giving them a grammar book, a broad consensus has gradually emerged in favour of integrating LLSI into regular lessons rather than running it as a separate course. Nor can learners be expected to absorb strategies by osmosis if they are just embedded in the teacher’s own practice; they need to be made explicit. These principles were embodied in the widely adopted Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA). In spite of this progress, five questions concerned us and provided the impetus for xxi

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our book. Parts 1 and 2 of the book (‘Issues’) address the more theoretical of these questions; Parts 3 and 4 (‘Implementation’) discuss the more practical. The first issue concerns the design of the intervention itself. In contrast to detailed descriptions of the research methods used for LLSI interventions, journal articles failed to provide a clear rationale for the choice of strategies taught, for the length of the intervention or for the activities selected. Nor was any justification given for the particular model of LLSI adopted. As Luke Plonsky, whose chapter is the fi rst in this volume, commented: Very few studies have explicitly investigated the relative effects of different methods of LLSI. Unfortunately, the lack of theory in this has left researchers and practitioners to design studies of LLSI based largely on convenience, intuition and/or some level of idiosyncrasy. (Plonsky, 2011: 998)

It will remain hard to refute Plonsky’s claim until LLSI investigations systematically include a comprehensive explanation of their intervention. Part 1 of our book (‘Issues: Models and Contexts’) takes up the questions raised by his call for greater intentionality in reaching decisions about the design of the LLSI according to variables such as learning contexts and treatments. A key consideration is the overall model of LLSI to be adopted. Peter Gu in Chapter 2 weighs up a number of approaches to strategy instruction in first and second languages (L1, L2), contrasting ‘top down’, teacher-driven CALLA with ‘bottom up’ collaborative approaches such as the Strategic Content Learning (SCL), advocated within general educational psychology. This, he believes, has much to offer if we are to return to the roots of LLSI and go beyond the goal of simply improving performance on certain tasks to developing students as self-regulated learners and socially responsible citizens. Do Coyle’s ‘strategic classroom’, described in Chapter 4, again reflects an organic, non-sequential, responsive approach to LLSI and she argues that peer and self-assessment has a pivotal role in developing the self-regulation at the heart of learner autonomy. Ernesto Macaro’s Chapter 5 also has implications for assessment but the emphasis here is on the role of the teacher’s feedback on the learner’s strategic behaviour in improving their sense of self-efficacy and hence ultimately their autonomy. Our second question also concerns the nature of the LLSI. Rather than a ‘one size fits all’ approach, the LLSI should be designed to cater for the diversity of the students in our classrooms, not only in terms of individual characteristics such as attainment but also in terms of differences in social class, gender and monolingual or bilingual status. In Chapter 3, Vee Harris speculates as to how the two approaches to LLSI outlined by Gu might be reconciled in order to make the most of the rich multiplicity of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds in the classroom. She suggests that such a sociocultural perspective might also uncover why the environment of certain groups fosters the development of particular strategies. LLSI must

Introduction xxiii

not only adapt to different learners but also to different learning contexts, and the final chapter of Part 1 shifts the focus from the typical LLSI classroom to Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programmes. The question of transferability of strategies across L1 and L2 has been the subject of considerable debate and is taken up in Chapter 10 as well as in the Conclusion. Here Marcella Menegale’s chapter explores whether CLIL provides a positive learning environment for fostering the development of strategies and even for facilitating their transfer across language learning and CLIL contexts. In describing some of the CLIL teacher’s materials and tasks, the chapter marks a gradual shift from the more theoretical Part 1 to the more practical chapters in the rest of the book. Part 2 of the book (‘Issues: Less Studied and Less Taught Groups of Strategies’) reflects a third question raised during our informal conversation with colleagues, namely that the majority of LLSI interventions focus on the familiar metacognitive and cognitive strategies originally identified some 30 years ago. As a result, a number of groups of strategies have been overlooked both in terms of identifying what they are and in terms of exploring how to teach them. We know little, for example, about LLSI for grammar, affective and pragmatic strategies and those that foster intercultural competence. Yet strategic learning should include all aspects of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). It goes without saying that without an understanding of what these strategies are, even at a conceptual level, it remains difficult to set up LLSI interventions to develop them. Mirosław Pawlak in Chapter 7 offers his classification of grammar strategies and sets out key principles for teaching them, concluding with a call to review the way grammar is currently taught and assessed since students will always be influenced by the tasks and tests they are faced with. At the other end of the spectrum, intercultural competence is rarely assessed and, if it is taught at all to younger learners, it is often reduced to trivial facts. So Chapter 8 (written by Anna Uhl Chamot and Vee Harris) sets out to explore one aspect of intercultural competence, namely Critical Cultural Awareness, arguing for its relevance at a time of increasing global migration. It offers a series of LLSI lessons aimed at fostering strategies for challenging assumptions and stereotypes. Andrew Cohen in Chapter 9 discusses pragmatic strategies – another group of less studied and less taught strategies. Providing a link to Part 3, a wide range of LLSI tasks are illustrated, first for sharpening awareness of pragmatic strategies and then for using them. A further impetus for writing the book is addressed in Part 3: ‘Implementation: The Learners’. Our concern stemmed from the omission of detail in many intervention studies as to exactly how the learner was encouraged to engage with LLSI and how the strategies were presented and practised. The lack of such information almost inevitably meant that there were few readily available LLSI resources and indeed few clear principles for their design. It was unclear, for example, in what way LLSI tasks for

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children differ from LLSI for adults, or how LLSI could tie in with existing course material such as textbooks or online multimedia programmes. Taking up the challenge to adapt the LLSI according to age group, in Chapter 10 Gunning, White and Busque offer a further model of LLSI. Their Problem-Solving Strategy Intervention model highlights the degree of scaffolding necessary for LLSI with young language learners and illustrates activities to build up progression over time, including those designed to develop affective strategies, another overlooked strategy group. The concern to provide teachers with readily accessible materials is again addressed by Angeliki Psaltou-Joycey in Chapter 11. The Teachers’ LLSI Guide, which she planned and coordinated, is perhaps one of the first to relate suggestions for LLSI activities directly to course books – in this case those used in Greece for teaching English at primary and secondary level. In addition to differences in age and sociocultural background, LLSI must be geared to learners’ needs and interests. Anna Uhl Chamot began to outline the implications for differentiation before her death after a short illness in November 2017. In chapter 12, she highlights the importance of metacognitive strategies in enabling students to select the strategies that would suit them best in completing a task. Technology is one way of providing learners with just such an opportunity to work on the tasks they choose and at their own pace. Advances have been made in integrating LLSI into online language courses as Jill Robbins describes in the first part of Chapter 13, using illustrations from Voice of America’s Let’s Learn English. The growth of social media has faced learners with new demands yet we have only just begun to study the strategies they need in this new context and how they can be taught; this is the focus of the second part of her chapter. Access to relevant resources may be one way of encouraging teachers to engage in LLSI but pre- and in-service education programmes are important in laying the groundwork. Many of the authors of this book are teacher educators who have been obliged to design for themselves the LLSI aspects of their education courses and this was our fi nal concern, addressed in Part 4: ‘Implementation: The Teachers’. Each chapter highlights the importance of ‘putting the teacher in the learner’s shoes’ so that they can recognize their students’ needs and tailor the LLSI accordingly. In Chapter 14, Christina Gkonou and Rebecca Oxford argue that teachers’ self-assessment not only improves their teaching but enables them to understand how best to support students in evaluating their own learning. On a similar theme, Joan Rubin and Claudia Acero Rios contend, in Chapter 15, that teachers need to engage in their own self-management if they are to successfully teach it to their learners – for example, through problem identification/solving and goal setting. Chapter 16 by Anna Uhl Chamot, Vee Harris, Carol Griffiths, Pamela Gunning, Martha Nyikos and Birsen Tütüniş draws on the experiences of these contributors from Canada, Turkey, the USA and the UK to address the need for practical activities for pre- and in-service teacher education.

Introduction xxv

Our book is not intended to provide defi nitive solutions to the questions raised. Instead it hopes to offer a possible research agenda for the future. For this reason, the author of each chapter was invited to end their contribution with a short list of research questions that seemed to be the most important in their area. These are summarized in the fi nal chapter, where Christine Goh also adds her own suggestions, advocating a mixedmethods approach to address the challenges ahead. A key issue is the tension between making adjustments according to the language taught, the age and cultures of the learners and yet fi nding comparable ways to evaluate and synthesize results across diverse student profiles and instructional approaches. Another of her concerns is the need for greater dialogue between those engaged in SLA research and the learning strategies community. As Gu (2017) points out, if we believe that cognitive processes in addition to Universal Grammar play a role in SLA and that the learner’s own actions to maximize their progress can make a difference, then both communities have an interest in exploring strategic learning. Unsurprisingly, a number of the chapters in the book already draw on SLA theories since learning strategies cannot be separated from the mental processes underlying them. Nor can LLSI interventions be designed without understanding the nature of the learning intended – for example, by moving from declarative knowledge to procedural use of strategies. We return to the possible links between the two research fields in the Conclusion. Committed to bridging the gap between theory and practice so that teachers and researchers can share a common framework and a common language for classroom interventions, we have endeavoured to integrate theory and practice throughout the four parts of the book. Indeed many of the authors collaborate with practising primary and secondary school teachers for their research, sharing authorship of some of the chapters. That said, Part 1 deals more with general theoretical issues in relation to LLSI and although Part 2 includes suggestions for teaching activities, it also has a theoretical perspective in terms of defi ning a particular group of less studied and less taught strategies and why they matter. Part 3 is still informed by theory but it has more of a focus on activities and materials and the principles underlying them. The fi nal part of the book offers specific LLSI resources for teacher educators. That said, the book does not have to read from beginning to end. Rather, we invite the reader to fi nd their own way through it. Just as autonomy lies at the heart of learning strategies, so the reader is best placed to make the choices that match their needs, intentions and interests. Some teachers may wish to turn immediately to the practical materials in Part 3; others may be particularly interested in teaching grammar strategies to their students. Some may seek out quantitative evidence about LLSI such as in Plonsky’s chapter; others may be more interested in the qualitative fi ndings discussed by Coyle, for example.

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A Final Word …

In the course of editing the book, it was noted that the first drafts of many of the chapters followed one particular model of LLSI, namely the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA). This was developed by O’Malley and Chamot (1990) to meet the needs of immigrant children who had to tackle the curriculum in an unfamiliar language, often leading to under-performance in school. To avoid unnecessary repetition across the chapters, a brief summary of CALLA is provided in Table 0.1 below. The full model includes three components: first, topics from major content subjects; secondly, development of academic language skills; and thirdly, direct instruction in learning strategies for both content and language. The focus below is on the latter, moving from declarative to procedural knowledge and ending with automatic appropriate strategy use. The five phases are often recursive and teachers may wish to return to particular phases for clarification purposes or to provide additional instruction. The overall aim is gradually to shift responsibility from the teacher to the learner. Table 0.1 Summary of CALLA phases 1. Preparation/Awareness Raising Before presenting a new strategy, the teacher finds out what strategies students already use, often by presenting them with a concrete task and then brainstorming how they tackled it. This helps raise their metacognitive awareness of their own learning, as well as giving the teacher helpful information about the class or particular individuals in it. 2. Presentation/Modelling The brainstorm allows learners to share strategies that may be unfamiliar to their peers. The teacher may follow this up by modelling any strategies they have not mentioned, often by ‘thinking aloud’ how to tackle the task. 3. Practice Students engage in hands-on activities to practise new strategies, often collaborating in small groups to share their strategy choices and decisions about how to approach the task. The teacher may choose to scaffold initial activities, gradually withdrawing the support as students gain confidence and competence. 4. Evaluation When students have completed a task, the teacher helps them to evaluate not only their performance but how useful the strategy or strategy cluster was in completing it. Activities may range from follow-up discussions to completing learning logs or checklists. 5. Expansion/Transfer Since it cannot be assumed that transfer of the strategies happens automatically, students are encouraged finally to reflect on other tasks where they could use their newly acquired strategies including other areas of the curriculum. The final two stages are crucial in developing students’ metacognitive understanding and their ability to take on increasing responsibility for their learning.

References Gu, P.Y. (2017) Strategic language learning for the future: An action plan. Paper presented at the Second International Conference on Situating Strategy Use, Komotini, 28–30 September. O’Malley, M. and Chamot, A.U. (1990) Language Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Part 1 Issues: Models and Contexts Introduction to Part 1 In a learner-centred language classroom, teachers soon realize that their students are very different. Language learners differ from each other in multiple dimensions, ranging from obvious diff erences in motivation and ability to more subtle ones such as attribution and degree of selfefficacy. Other differences can be linked to individual learning approaches, social and cultural factors, psycholinguistic issues, and even mismatches between the teacher’s instructional methods and the students’ learning needs. (Anna Uhl Chamot, Chapter 12 in this volume)

Parts 1 and 2 of this book are concerned with the theoretical issues underlying language learning strategy instruction (LLSI). Our understanding of how, when and why learners use strategies has developed considerably over the last 40 years but we have made less headway in relation to LLSI. We have tended to content ourselves with the global question of whether LLSI interventions ‘work’ or not, rather than exploring in depth why that particular model of LLSI was chosen, what it looked like or how and why its impact varied according to the learners’ background, motivation, level and so on. The chapters in Part 1 set out to tackle these questions, with the opening chapter exploring in what contexts and with which groups of strategies LLSI seems to be more successful. Chapters 2 and 4 concentrate on the advantages and limitations of various frameworks of LLSI and their relationship to learner autonomy. Both highlight the value of an approach in which the tasks and the strategies to handle them are discussed and negotiated between students and teacher. The focus of Chapters 3 and 5 moves from the organisation of the classroom to the learners themselves. Chapter 3 studies the sociocultural factors that influence how different groups of learners develop particular groups of strategies and how the LLSI can be tailored to make the most of their specific strengths. Chapter 5 highlights how learners’ sense of self-efficacy can impact on their progress and how teacher feedback on their choice of strategies for a task can almost act as an intervention in itself since it helps them learn more effectively and more autonomously. Part 1 concludes by shifting the attention again – this time from the learner to what they are learning. A key debate

1

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Part 1: Issues: Models and Contexts

in the most recent literature has been the transferability of strategies, particularly between the fi rst and second language. Chapter 6, however, considers transferability from the language to curriculum areas such as geography, science or history.

1 Language Learning Strategy Instruction: Recent Research and Future Directions1 Luke Plonsky

A vast body of empirical research has been concerned with language learning strategy instruction (LLSI). To my knowledge, in fact, over 400 studies, reviews, book chapters, monographs and dissertations have addressed this topic (see previous reviews and discussions in Cohen & Macaro, 2007; Harris et al., 2001). Yet very few studies have explicitly investigated the relative effects of different methods of LLSI (Walters, 2006). Unfortunately, the lack of theory in this area has left researchers and practitioners to design studies of LLSI based largely on convenience, intuition and/or some level of idiosyncrasy. This chapter explores some of the issues to be considered. One major source of the interest in LLSI is very likely the intuitive appeal underlying work in this area: the idea that teachers can help students become more effective learners and users of the target language. Beyond its intuitive appeal, there are also a number of complementary – and very compelling – reasons, both theoretical and practical in nature, why such a longstanding, diverse and prolific line of studies has sought to test the effects of LLSI. In the realm of theory, for example, interest in LLSI was bolstered by the move towards learner centeredness in the language classroom and elsewhere in educational research (e.g. Nunan, 1988; Nyikos, 1996; Tudor, 1996; Wenden, 2002). This move also drew a theoretical link to autonomy and self-regulation (Nguyen & Gu, 2013; Tseng et al., 2006; Wenden, 1998) because, as A.D. Cohen (1998: 70) stated, the primary driving force behind LLSI is the aim to ‘empower students by allowing them to take control of the language learning process’. Beyond connecting to education and psychology through a common concern with learners on an individual level, strategies received increased attention in second language acquisition (SLA) as models of communicative competence began to include a component of strategic competence (Bachman & Palmer, 1996). 3

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Part 1: Issues: Models and Contexts

For many if not most researchers, however, the greatest strength of LLSI lies not in theory but in its potential for practical application. This was certainly what led me to this topic in the early 2000s. As a novice teacher and researcher, I was interested in exploring pedagogical techniques that might help my students become better learners, thereby making my efforts as well as theirs more efficient. The next step was obvious: to delve into the primary literature. I quickly came to understand that most studies of LLSI share a number of design features which are typical of (quantitative) research methods in the field of instructed SLA (see Hassan et al., 2005; Plonsky, 2017). For those who might not be familiar with designs in this domain, researchers generally work with two or more intact classes, at least one of which receives explicit instruction on how to use a set of strategies. Another group of students usually receives the same amount of instruction and teacher contact but without any explicit attention to strategies. The effectiveness of the intervention is then determined in terms of absolute gains made over time (that is, by comparing students’ pretest and posttest performance on language tasks or tests) as well relative to the control or comparison group. The effectiveness of LLSI is therefore defi ned as change (improvement) in learners’ ability to use the target language as a result of the intervention. The instruments used to measure that improvement are also designed in accordance with the skills being targeted. A study of speaking strategy instruction (SI), for instance, might test learners’ oral fluency, whereas a test of vocabulary learning strategies will assess learners’ ability to learn or use a given set of lexical items. My initial forays into LLSI research were quite encouraging. I found that studies in this area were numerous; more often than not, they also provided empirical justification for classroom implementations. In order to gain a comprehensive view of the literature in this area and its effects, I conducted a meta-analysis (Plonsky, 2011), building on the insights of previous reviews (e.g. Chamot, 2005; Hassan et al., 2005). The results of that study found stable evidence in favor of LLSI. Based on a sample of 61 primary studies, the mean effect size was d = 0.49, 95% CIs [0.44, 0.53]. This result can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Although not especially large compared to the effects found elsewhere in second language (L2) research (see Plonsky & Oswald, 2014), statistically speaking, the posttest scores of experimental groups described in the previous paragraph were found to score, on average, half of a standard deviation above their counterparts in the comparison groups. To put it another way, this fi nding indicates that about two-thirds of the learners who receive LLSI score higher than the average of the learners that receive no such treatment. This fi nding also showed that the effects of strategy instruction for language learners were comparable to what had been observed in strategy instruction implemented in other non-L2 educational contexts (Hattie et al., 1996).

LLSI: Recent Research and Future Directions

5

Despite the largely positive effects of LLSI research, the results of my study provided evidence of substantial variability across studies. As we might expect, the effectiveness of LLSI appeared to vary across different contexts (second or foreign language (FL)), learner demographics (age, attainment level, and so on), and outcomes (for example, the target skills of reading, writing, vocabulary, and so forth). At the same time, however, my 2011 study revealed widespread idiosyncrasy across studies in terms of different approaches to selecting strategies and implementing programs of LLSI. Further complicating – and limiting – our understanding of LLSI is a lack of detail provided in terms of the instructional procedures. The following three sections briefly outline the rationale for considering a number of variables as potential moderators of the effects of LLSI, including the design of the LLSI intervention (for example, the length of time). Following the narrative review of the literature, I provide an update on my 2011 meta-analysis. Specifically, the current version of the study provides a systematic synthesis of the effects of LLSI based on 77 individual studies with a total number of 7890 learners. I then discuss the results with an eye to practical implications and empirically grounded directions for extending and improving this body of research. Contexts and Learner Demographics

As Carrell (1998) pointed out, successful strategy use and, consequently, strategy instruction are context dependent. Research on the relationship between strategy use and proficiency, for example, has generally described their relationship as positive and linear (A.D. Cohen, 1998; Green & Oxford, 1995; Wharton, 2000); in other words, the higher the attainment level, the more strategies used. However, some studies have found a curvilinear relationship between the two, characterized by more frequent use of strategies by intermediate learners than either low- or high-proficiency learners (Corrales, 1989; Hong-Nam & Leavell, 2006; Phillips, 1991). With these fi ndings in mind, it would be useful for more studies of LLSI to explore its effects across a range of proficiency levels (Ikeda & Takeuchi, 2003), contexts (L2 versus FL; see Lee et al., 2015), ages, levels of education and experimental settings (such as classroom versus laboratory) which may also influence the effectiveness of LLSI. For instance, we might expect that the cognitive maturity of adult learners enables this population to benefit more from the often metacognitive functions involved in deploying strategies appropriate to the task at hand. LLSI Research Methods and Treatments

Although there is widespread agreement among language researchers and practitioners on the benefits of L2 strategies, there is much less agreement on how to foster a student’s ability to employ strategies for language

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learning and use. To be sure, there are many treatment-related variables to consider, yet, surprisingly, most studies seem to give sparse attention to the design of the SI itself, treating it as unproblematic. With this issue in mind, I lay out here some of the critical considerations that LLSI researchers face. Whether a program of LLSI is being carried out exclusively for research purposes or with more curricular goals in mind, decisions must be made regarding which and how many strategies to teach. There is certainly no shortage of choices. Existing classifications (for example, O’Malley & Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 1990) present an opportunity to organize and perhaps justify certain strategies over others, but the lack of theoretical and typological agreement can also represent an obstacle (Chaudron, 2006; Oxford, 1994; Wong, 2005). This decision is made more difficult by the lack of systematic evidence supporting the benefits of many strategies, which ought to be a prerequisite for implementation in LLSI (Chamot & Rubin, 1994; Rivera-Mills & Plonsky, 2007). However, even if teachers and researchers had strong evidence of the effectiveness of certain strategies, a program of LLSI would still require a rationale for the very practical matters of how many strategies to teach over how long a period of time in light of curricular goals, students’ needs, and so forth. These issues have been addressed only superficially and somewhat sporadically in the empirical literature, a point I return to below. Outcome Variables

The discussion so far has been centered on learner- and treatmentrelated features that might explain some of the heterogeneity in effects observed in LLSI research. However, it should be noted that studies in this domain also vary across a number of different skill areas. One skill frequently measured as an outcome or dependent variable in studies of LLSI is reading. Much of the work in this area draws on evidence from fi rst language (L1) educational contexts (see Walters, 2004). As shown in Taylor et al.’s (2006) and Chaury’s (2015) meta-analyses, the effects of LLSI in L2 reading appear quite strong as well (Hedges’ g = 0.54 and 0.60, respectively). LLSI for L2 vocabulary has also been examined somewhat extensively (for example, Fan, 2003; Graham, 1997; Griffiths, 2007). Still more studies have investigated the impact of LLSI on listening and writing, among other skills. Considering the complexity and varied cognitive demands involved in developing different L2 skills, there is no reason to believe that strategy interventions addressing them would result in uniform or homogeneous effects. Research Questions

The approach taken by the current study, a meta-analysis, aims to provides a bird’s-eye view of the multifaceted nature of effects observed in

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7

LLSI (Norris & Ortega, 2006; Oswald & Plonsky, 2010). Also central to the present study, an update on Plonsky (2011), is examining the extent to which these different features and variables have been scrutinized in this body of research and to thereby identify areas that need further empirical attention. Taking these goals into consideration, the present meta-analysis seeks to answer the following two research questions: (1) How effective is language learning strategy instruction? (2) What is the relationship between the effectiveness of LLSI and different learning contexts, treatments and outcome variables? Method

As an effort to build and expand upon Plonsky (2011), and for the sake of economy, I will not repeat the entire methodological process here. Rather, I will outline the procedures, which generally follow Plonsky and Oswald’s (2015) recommended approach to meta-analysis, providing additional information when relevant. Data collection and coding

This meta-analysis included all known studies that met the following criteria: (a) participants studying an L2; (b) treatment involving instruction in one or more strategies for L2 learning and/or use; (c) data collected and compared in a control-experimental (between-groups) design; (d) a quantitative measure of the effect of SI as a dependent variable; and (e) a reported effect size (or sufficient data reported to extract an effect size). The search for studies that met these criteria included keyword searches on four academic databases, ancestry searches and forward searches (see Plonsky & Brown, 2015). The present study adds to Plonsky’s (2011) data from 16 primary studies (17 experimental groups, because one study included two experimental groups). In Plonsky (2011), effect sizes were calculated from 95 experimental groups within 61 reports (N = 6791). Therefore, the entire dataset for the present study includes 77 unique reports, 112 samples and 7890 individual participants. All newly added studies were coded using a modified version of the scheme from the original study (see Table 1 in Plonsky, 2011), which extracted effect sizes as well as a number of substantive features related to study contexts/demographics, treatments and outcomes. The resulting data were aggregated with those of Plonsky (2011). Analysis

As is customary in meta-analysis, effect sizes (Cohen’s d) served as the basis for all quantitative analyses. The d value is used to express a standardized mean difference between experimental and comparison group scores. According to Plonsky and Oswald’s (2014) synthesis of effect sizes

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from 346 primary studies and 91 meta-analyses of L2 research, a d value of 0.7 can generally be considered moderate, with values of 0.4 and 1.0 representing fairly small and large effects, respectively. The effect sizes extracted for the presented study, as is typical in meta-analysis, were weighted based on individual sample sizes. Research Question 1 was addressed by calculating the weighted mean effect size (and other associated descriptives) across the sample. Research Question 2, which sought to explore any systematic variability among studies of LLSI, involved fi rst grouping studies according to the many features on which they were coded (for example, L2 versus FL context). The effect sizes in each subgroup were then aggregated and compared to determine the relative effectiveness of LLSI across designs/treatments, settings, target skills, and so forth. Results

The fi rst research question addressed the fi ndings from LLSI research by aggregating effects from 77 primary studies comprising 112 experimental samples. The overall weighted mean effect size is a d value of 0.66 (see Table 1.1). Statistically speaking, this result indicates that those experimental groups that receive LLSI score, on average, approximately two-thirds of a standard deviation higher than control groups. Put another way, we can expect approximately three-quarters of students receiving LLSI to perform above the average of those who do not receive any such treatment. This magnitude of an effect is also quite close to what Plonsky and Oswald (2014) observed to be the median effect size across a wide variety of instructed and non-instructed domains of L2 research. In terms of overall effects, it is also worth noting that the mean effect observed here (d = 0.66) is somewhat larger than that observed in Plonsky (2011; d = 0.49). This change, the result of the addition of 16 recent studies to the sample, indicates that studies of LLSI are producing stronger effects over time (see larger overall effects in Elahi Shirvan, 2014). Indeed, as shown in Figure 1.1, a comparison of the effects of studies carried out in the last decade with earlier studies reveals a stark difference between the Table 1.1 Overall effects (d) of LLSI (Ka = 112; N = 7890) M

SE

95% confidence interval Lower

Upper

Unweighted

0.69

0.08

0.53

0.86

Weighted

0.66

0.02

0.62

0.69

Note: aK = Total number of unique samples of experimental groups contributing to the dataset.

LLSI: Recent Research and Future Directions

9

Figure 1.1 The effects of LLSI in recent years compared to earlier studies (error bars represent 95% confidence intervals)

two. Recent studies of LLSI produce much larger effects, an intriguing fi nding; possible explanations will be discussed in the next section. In addition to obtaining a measure of the overall effect, Research Question 2 of this study was concerned with variation in the effects of LLSI across a number of dimensions (that is to say, moderator variables). To address this issue, average effect sizes were calculated for subgroups formed on the basis of different types of contexts/learner demographics, treatments and outcomes. A number of patterns emerge with respect to the effects of LLSI across learning contexts and demographics (see Figure 1.2). For example, the effects of LLSI appear stronger in L2 than in FL settings; the confidence intervals of the latter also indicate wide variability in scores for this domain. As we might expect, larger effects are evident for laboratory-based research, which can provide researchers with greater experimental control. The effects of LLSI are also larger in primary schools and universities than in

Figure 1.2 Mean effect sizes across contextual/demographic moderators of LLSI Note: Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.

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Part 1: Issues: Models and Contexts

Figure 1.3 Mean effect sizes across treatment-related moderators of LLSI Note: Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.

secondary settings. However, given the small number of studies carried out in primary schools (k = 11) and the relatively wide confidence intervals associated with this estimate, we should interpret this result cautiously. It also appears that the effects of LLSI can be expected to be much stronger with intermediate and advanced learners than with novices. As with learning contexts and demographics, variability in the effects of LLSI can also be explained in part as a function of different treatment types (see Figure 1.3). Although cognitive strategies are taught more often than metacognitive strategies, the effects of LLSI involving the latter yield much larger effects. A clear advantage for the effects of LLSI can be seen for interventions that are longer as well. Beyond the length and types of strategy interventions, I also coded studies for the number of strategies taught. In the 2011 meta-analysis, I divided studies according to whether they taught more or less than eight strategies; this number, although somewhat arbitrary, seemed to be the high end for studies teaching a small set of strategies (as opposed to those teaching in the dozens or beyond). Upon adding new studies to the sample and reconsidering the number of strategies taught, I found the distribution for this variable to exhibit a very strong positive skew with a modal value of 1. In fact, among studies that reported the number of strategies taught, almost half (41 out of 89, 46%) taught only a single strategy. It seemed most natural and appropriate, therefore, to compare the effects of LLSI based on this value, which turns out to be critical in explaining variability in study effects. Studies that teach a single strategy lead to much larger effects on posttests than those that teach multiple strategies. The fi nal set of moderator analyses for this study addresses the effects of LLSI across different outcomes and target skills. I have arranged the effects in Figure 1.4 from high to low; the results for three subgroups, however, were based on very small sample of primary studies and were therefore separated out and placed at the bottom of the figure. The strongest effects of LLSI, shown at the top of Figure 1.4, are found for students’ use of L2 strategies. This fi nding might appear intuitive or even obvious.

LLSI: Recent Research and Future Directions

11

Figure 1.4 Mean effect sizes across target skills in LLSI research Note: Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.

However, to me, this fi nding should be taken as critical evidence for the validity of LLSI programs. This result shows that LLSI not only leads to an advantage in L2 performance but that that performance is also linked to an increase in the use of L2 strategies. In other words, there is a direct causal relationship between strategy use and L2 performance. The results from this phase of the analysis also indicate that the effects of LLSI vary substantially across skill areas: experimental groups substantially and consistently outperform control groups when the target outcome involves speaking (d = 1.00), reading (0.82), vocabulary (0.63) and writing (0.59). In the case of listening and general proficiency, the effects are quite weak (d = 0.06 and d = 0.05, respectively) and unstable, as indicated by very wide confidence intervals. With respect to listening, we might explain this finding as a symptom of the difficulty and complexities inherent in aural performance, which is ephemeral and subject to subtle contextual and phonological cues that learners often miss (see Macaro & Erler, 2007; Macaro et al., 2007). Furthermore, unlike speaking, the rate at which learners must process the L2 is outside their control, possibly constraining the applicability of online strategies such as changing topic or stalling for time. The lack of effects for listening comprehension and for general proficiency may also be related to the difficulty in reliably measuring both of these constructs (see Plonsky & Derrick, 2016). Finally, although very few studies have examined the effects of instruction on L2 pronunciation strategies (k = 2), the results in this domain appear quite promising. As is often the case, the measures of pronunciation were quite constrained (for example, reading a word list), allowing for maximum availability of the cognitive resources needed to apply strategies and other explicit knowledge regarding accurate pronunciation. Discussion

The previous section presented results for the two research questions addressed in this study. Research Question 1 was answered with an estimate

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of the overall weighted effect of LLSI: d = 0.66; K = 112; N = 7890. As mentioned earlier, the magnitude of this result could generally be described as a medium effect in the field of L2 research (see Plonsky & Oswald, 2014). As another relevant source of comparison, the results of this study show that the effects of strategy instruction for L2 learners are generally somewhat stronger than what Hattie et al. (1996) observed in their meta-analysis of strategy instruction in (L1) education (d = 0.45). The difference in effects based on L1 and L2 strategy instruction might be attributed, in part, to the potential for growth in the latter, or the length of time since the L1 metaanalysis, or that L1 learners often feel that they ‘know’ their language already so there is no need for the LLSI (see Harris, 2008). Interestingly, the effects of LLSI in its own right have increased in recent years. The mean effect in the last decade is more than twice that of the previous 25 years. One explanation for this pattern is an increase in our understanding of how to design and carry out programs of LLSI. That is, perhaps more recent studies have come to understand and adhere to the value of interventions that are integrated, explicit and level appropriate, that diagnose learners’ pre-treatment strategy use, and that do not overwhelm learners (see Plonsky & Gass, 2011, for an alternate take on changes in effect sizes over time in the context of interactionist SLA research). In other words, the fact that the effects of LLSI have increased significantly over time is a change we might attribute to a variety of reasons both substantive, educational and methodological in nature. The greatest contributor to this trend is likely to be the heighted understanding of how to design and implement a program of LLSI. Whereas early research in this domain was necessarily inventing its own path, more recent studies have had some, albeit limited, theoretical, practical and empirical guidance to draw upon. With respect to theory, the overall results of this study imply that future models of instructed SLA should seek to include and explain the potential for an accelerated rate of acquisition when learners are taught to self-regulate using strategies. To date, such models of the language learning process have largely overlooked LLSI, yet this study has shown that it produces effects that are comparable to and, in many cases, larger than those of other target domains in the field such as vocabulary and grammar (see Plonsky, 2017). This study also carries a number of important and specific implications for language practitioners. First and foremost, the results provide strong empirical justification for the integration of learner training programs into L2 curricula. However, in doing so, caution must be exercised; there is no evidence that any and all forms of LLSI will be beneficial for any and all learners. On the contrary, this study found the effects of LLSI to vary across a variety of study features, treatment types and target skills. In the realm of contextual and demographic features, larger effects were observed for learners beyond the beginner level. Due to inconsistent

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reporting and the challenges inherent in identifying learner proficiency, this study only distinguished between beginners and intermediate/ advanced learners regardless of the age groups they belonged to. However, the language of instruction is likely to play a role here as well, if young learners are not sufficiently supported in understanding the L2. The reduced effect for novice learners may be due to the limited ability of such learners to engage in cognitive and metacognitive tasks beyond simply processing the language they are producing and/or being exposed to (see Linck et al., 2014; Nakatani & Go, 2007). This fi nding may be linked to Clarke’s (1980) hypothesis that a certain threshold level of language has to be reached for learners to be able to operationalize strategies (see Chamot, 2016). Instructors working with beginning learners might, therefore, fi nd more benefits from LLSI interventions that are implemented in the L1 and/or that enable learners to transfer L1 strategies (see Manchón et al., 2007), although it is important that L1 and L2 teachers have the necessary time to collaborate (see Gunning et al., 2016; Harris, 2008). Support for this point can be found elsewhere in the SLA literature. For instance, Won’s (2008) meta-analysis of the effectiveness of L2 vocabulary instruction found the effect of interventions that include L1 support to be approximately three times that of those that do not. These fi ndings also highlight the importance of designing programs of LLSI that are both level appropriate and that are based on pretreatment measures of strategy use (Chamot & Rubin, 1994; Grenfell & Harris, 1999; Harris, 2003). The advantage found for LLSI in L2 over FL contexts is perhaps not surprising (see Taylor et al., 2006). In addition to a different set of motivations, L2 learners are aided by increased exposure to the target language and greater opportunities to practice their strategies and skills (Dörnyei, 2005). It is also worth noting the substantial difference in the effects of LLSI obtained in secondary (d = 0.26) compared to postsecondary (d = 0.69) institutions. This result may reflect the drop in motivation that may occur during adolescence. It may also be partially explained by a statistical artifact, namely, range restriction. Post-secondary level students, especially those studying at university, are generally a more homogeneous group, cognitively and academically speaking, thus producing less group variance, which yields larger effect sizes. The large difference between effects from laboratory and classroom studies – the last of the contextual variables to be discussed – can be interpreted in a couple of ways. The data could be viewed in opposition to the claim that LLSI is most effective when integrated as part of the L2 curriculum (e.g. O’Malley & Chamot, 1990). However, the advantage of laboratory settings is more likely to be due to inherently greater control over the treatment and other potentially intervening variables. Similar findings have also been observed in meta-analyses of other domains of L2 research (e.g. Li, 2010; Mackey & Goo, 2007).

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Part 1: Issues: Models and Contexts

Turning now to the design of the LLSI itself, results from aggregated group effects across different treatment-related variables emphasize once again the importance of strategy selection. Although instruction on both cognitive and metacognitive strategies is beneficial, the general fi nding is that LLSI is most effective when a less-is-more approach is adopted – perhaps much less (Chamot, 1994). Studies that focused on a single strategy, which comprised nearly half of the sample, produced substantially larger effects than those that sought to teach multiple (or in some cases, many) strategies. The fi nding cannot be considered in isolation from the type of strategy and the length of study. For example, although such an investigation has yet to be undertaken, it seems likely that one strategy over a month, especially if it is a metacognitive one, is much more likely to be successful than 10 cognitive strategies over the same period of time, since it is not just a matter of length but also the intensity and depth of coverage and the potential for transfer. What is clear is that moderator analyses also revealed larger effects for longer treatments (see similar results in Elahi Shirvan, 2014; see also Hattie et al., 1996, for a discussion of the effects of length for strategy instruction in L1 contexts). Again, however, more detail is needed: rather than just specifying the number of weeks or indeed lessons, it might be useful to also indicate the number of hours of specific LLSI instruction. Taken together and from a pedagogical standpoint, these two findings may put into question whether the benefits of LLSI outweigh the costs. Several scholars have leveled such critiques, claiming that time in the classroom is better spent learning and using the language rather than learning how to learn and use the language (Kellerman, 1991; Rees-Miller, 1993). Alternatively, this fi nding reinforces the notion that the greatest gains result from LLSI when teachers and researchers refi ne LLSI and the way they evaluate it so that learners are allowed to develop their use of strategies over time and in a focused manner. With sizeable effect sizes for seven out of 10 dependent variables, the results for subgroups based on outcome variables are mixed but mostly very much in favor of LLSI. I would also note that further research is still greatly needed to increase the consistency of results for some outcome variables (e.g. writing, listening, grammar, pronunciation). It should also be recognized, of course, that each skill can be measured in a wide variety of ways, thus further complicating these fi ndings while also pointing to a need for further research. I return to several of these points below. Suggestions for Future Research

This chapter has attempted to provide a current review of LLSI as well as an indication of its theoretical and practical potential for instructed L2 development. Like all secondary reviews, however, the completeness of the present study is contingent on a population of primary studies that

LLSI: Recent Research and Future Directions

15

have yet to provide complete answers to many questions relating to LLSI. I have focused on quantitatively oriented studies, but useful contributions to this literature can certainly be made using qualitative approaches to examine, for example, learners’ perceptions of and challenges in applying L2 strategies and strategy instruction. The burden to fi ll these and other gaps rests largely on the community of L2 researchers. However, progress in this area – and in the field of SLA as a whole – will be obstructed unless more researchers choose to adopt a synthetically minded approach to their work (see Norris & Ortega, 2006). Although some decisions about study design in classroom-oriented research are necessarily based on convenience, other aspects of carrying out and reporting on studies are entirely within the control of individual researchers. With these sentiments in mind, this chapter will conclude by offering the following suggestions for LLSI research, many of which echo previous calls for more general reform of L2 research practices (see, for example, Norris & Ortega, 2000; Plonsky, 2013, 2014; Plonsky & Gass, 2011): (1) The value of LLSI depends greatly on whether and to what extent its effects last over time, yet only a small proportion of the studies reviewed here included delayed posttests. Additional measurements of the persisting effects of LLSI are sorely needed. (2) Our cumulative knowledge of the effects of LLSI would benefit from more thorough reporting of data, including basic descriptive statistics needed to aggregate and compare findings across studies, such as standard deviations, confidence intervals, effect sizes and reliability coefficients. In addition to aiding future reviews of LLSI, improved reporting practices will enable researchers and consumers of primary studies to contextualize and interpret fi ndings more accurately and informatively. Omitting standard deviations, for example, prevents consumers of research from understanding the extent to which the effects of a particular treatment were consistent (versus highly variable) across a sample or class of learners (see Larson-Hall & Plonsky, 2015). (3) More detailed explanations of treatment procedures are needed for fi ndings to be replicated, compared to other studies, and applied in classroom contexts. For example, although most of the studies in this sample reported providing opportunities for students to practice the strategies they were taught, many of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of that practice were unclear or omitted. Information regarding the amount of class time devoted to LLSI was also reported unevenly, thus obstructing more fi ne-grained analyses of the relationship between duration/intensity of instruction and outcomes. (4) Although the body of research on LLSI is now extensive, several substantive gaps remain. In terms of learner populations, additional studies are still needed with L2 (as opposed to FL), pre-adolescent and advanced

16

Part 1: Issues: Models and Contexts

learners. This study has also revealed an imbalance among outcome variables/skills, with further research needed especially on the effects of LLSI on writing, listening, pronunciation, grammar and overall proficiency. Future studies would do well to include multiple measures of the skills being targeted as well to provide researchers and teachers with a better understanding of the types of performance most amenable to LLSI. Unfortunately, the empirical literature has also exhibited little interest in the effects of strategies for test-taking, a topic we might expect to be received with great interest given the high stakes (and high cost/revenue) of tests in today’s educational environment (see Phakiti, 2016). Although the effects of instruction on certain strategies have been studied extensively (for example, the keyword method), scores of individual strategies remain untested. Before implementing LLSI with new strategies, however, it is critical that we engage in the basic task of exploring effective designs of LLSI in the more familiar strategy areas. Engaging in such efforts not only supports the validity of future LLSI research, it also supports teachers in their use of class time. Such additional studies will not only clarify the role of other variables that influence the effects of LLSI (that is to say, possible moderators), but they will also allow us to examine interactions between these moderators, which have yet to be systematically investigated. For example, whereas LLSI for oral skills such as listening and speaking may be much more beneficial in L2 environments, where there are more opportunities to employ such strategies, this difference may be less pronounced or even reversed in the case of reading and writing. It may also be that more advanced learners are able to integrate strategies into their language learning and use more quickly and in greater number than lower level participants. Yet another potentially fruitful – but as yet untapped – line of inquiry would be for LLSI researchers to investigate other individual differences (such as motivation, aptitude) and group differences (socio-economic background, bilingual or monolingual status) as participant-level moderators of treatment effects. Doing so would bridge a longstanding line of research within the strategies literature with a now-burgeoning agenda in mainstream SLA (namely aptitude-treatment interaction research). More generally, although not yet predicted by theory in this area, it is not unreasonable to expect the effectiveness of LLSI to be influenced by multiple variables simultaneously. It has not been possible in this study to look at interactions between skills/contexts/design and length of LLSI time, since it is hard to achieve stable results when the data for each subtype from existing studies are too small. Nevertheless, this may be an avenue for future research, whether quantitative or qualitative. The larger issues here with respect to the future of LLSI research are, in my view, intentionality and systematicity. In order to reliably determine relationships between the effectiveness of LLSI and those

LLSI: Recent Research and Future Directions

17

variables hypothesized to moderate its effectiveness, decisions about learners, outcomes, strategies, and so forth need to be made deliberately, with due consideration given not only to the predictions of relevant models but also to the extent to which the variables of interest have been studied or perhaps overlooked. (5) Finally, reliance on p-values for determining the significance of an effect presents a major barrier to progress in LLSI research. This practice, the object of over six decades of debate and controversy in other social sciences (see, for example, J. Cohen, 1994) as well as, more recently, in our own field (e.g. Norris, 2015; Plonsky, 2015), has been characterized as an uninformative, unreliable and arbitrary means of interpreting quantitative outcomes. Dogmatic adherence to null hypothesis significance testing and p-values has surely done the domain of LLSI research a disservice by ignoring the magnitude of effects and distilling continuous data into a crude yes/no dichotomy based on an arbitrary and fickle indicator (p). Conclusion

This chapter presents a meta-analysis of 112 samples from 77 studies of the effectiveness of LLSI. Several variables were found to moderate that effect, including context, age, proficiency, educational level, setting, type and number of strategies taught, outcome variable and treatment length. Although many of the results of this study would appear conclusive, the domain is nowhere near to having provided a conclusive answer to its many practical and theoretical questions. On the contrary, the retrospective contribution of the current study is perhaps no greater than its prospective contribution. In addition to summary results and interpretations of hypotheses both tested and untested in primary studies, this article has shown the interplay of variables that affect LLSI to be complex and in need of further study in order to fully understand the many implications of LLSI for both theory and practice. Looking forward, the chapters that make up this volume will provide the reader with a state-of-the-art understanding of these same variables and the roles they play in both theoretical and classroom contexts. Note (1) Parts of this chapter were borrowed or adapted from Plonsky (2011) in accordance with the author’s copyright agreement with Wiley, the publisher of Language Learning.

References

References for studies included in the meta-analysis but not cited in this chapter are not provided here but will be made available on the IRIS database (iris-database.org; see Marsden et al., 2016).

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Bachman, L.F. and Palmer, A.S. (1996) Language Testing in Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carrell, P.L. (1998) Can reading strategies be successfully taught. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 21, 1–20. Chamot, A.U. (1994) A model for language learning strategies in the foreign language classroom. In J.E. Alatis (ed.) Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1994: Educational Linguistics, Cross-cultural Communication, and Global Interdependence (pp. 323–336). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Chamot, A.U. (2005) Language learning strategy instruction: Current issues and research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 25, 112–130. Chamot, A.U. (2016) Teaching learning strategies in a fl ipped instruction model. In T.  Pattison (ed.) IATEFL 2015 Manchester Conference Selections (pp. 73–64). Faversham: International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL). Chamot, A.U. and Rubin, J. (1994) Comments on Janie Rees-Miller’s ‘A critical appraisal of learner training: Theoretical bases and teaching implications’: Two readers react. TESOL Quarterly 28, 771–776. Chaudron, C. (2006) Some reflections on the development of (meta-analytic) synthesis in second language research. In J.M. Norris and L. Ortega (eds) Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and Teaching (pp. 323–339). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Chaury, P. (2015) The effects of strategy instruction on reading comprehension in English as a foreign language. Concordia Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 6, 1–26. Clarke, M.A. (1980) The short circuit hypothesis of ESL reading – or when language competence interferes with reading performance. The Modern Language Journal 64, 203–209. Cohen, A.D. (1998) Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language. New York: Longman. Cohen, A.D. and Macaro, E. (eds) (2007) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cohen, J. (1994) The Earth is round (p < .05). American Psychologist 49, 997–1003. Corrales, O. (1989) At a loss for words: The use of communication strategies to convey lexical meaning. Foreign Language Annals 22, 227–240. Dörnyei, Z. (2005) The Psychology of the Language Learner: Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Elahi Shirvan, M. (2014) The Effectiveness of Strategy-based Instruction in Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language: A Meta-analysis of Experimental Studies. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. Fan, M.Y. (2003) Frequency of use, perceived usefulness, and actual usefulness of second language vocabulary strategies: A study of Hong Kong learners. The Modern Language Journal 87, 222–241. Graham, S. (1997) Effective Language Learning: Positive Strategies for Advanced Level Language Learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Green, J.M. and Oxford, R. (1995) A closer look at learning strategies, L2 proficiency, and gender. TESOL Quarterly 29, 261–297. Grenfell, M. and Harris, V. (1999) Modern Languages and Learning Strategies: In Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge. Griffiths, C. (2007) Language learning strategies: Students’ and teachers’ perceptions. ELT Journal 61, 91–99. Gunning, P., White, J. and Busque, C. (2016) Raising learners’ awareness through L1-L2 teacher collaboration. Language Awareness 25, 72–88. Harris, V. (2003) Adapting classroom-based strategy instruction to a distance learning context. TESL-EJ 7, 1–13.

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Harris, V. (2008) A cross-curricular approach to ‘learning to learn’ languages: Government policy and school practice. Curriculum Journal 19, 255–268. Harris, V., with Gaspar, A., Jones, B., Ingvadottir, H., Palos, I., Neuburg, R. and Schindler, L. (2001) Helping Learners Learn: Exploring Strategy Instruction in Language Classrooms across Europe. Graz: European Centre for Modern Languages. Hassan, X., Macaro, E., Mason, D., Nye, G., Smith, P. and Vanderplank, R. (2005) Strategy Training in Language Learning: A Systematic Review of Available Research. London: EPPI-Centre, University of London. See http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/Portals/0/ PDF%20reviews%20and%20summaries/mfl _rv1.pdf?ver=2006-03-02-124956-547. Hattie, J.A., Biggs, J. and Purdie, N. (1996) Effects of learning skills interventions on student learning: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research 66, 99–136. Hong-Nam, K. and Leavell, A.G. (2006) Language learning strategy use of ESL students in an intensive English learning context. System 34, 399–415. Ikeda, M. and Takeuchi, O. (2003) Can strategy instruction help EFL learners to improve their reading ability? An empirical study. JACET Bulletin 37, 49–60. Kellerman, E. (1991) Compensatory strategies in second language research: A critique, a revision, and some (non-)implications for the classroom. In R. Phillipson, E. Kellerman, L. Selinker, M. Sharwood Smith and M. Swain (eds) Foreign/second Language Pedagogy Research: A Commemorative Volume for Claus Faerch (pp. 142–161). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Larson-Hall, J. and Plonsky, L. (2015) Reporting and interpreting quantitative research fi ndings: What gets reported and recommendations for the field. Language Learning 65 (S1), 127–159. Lee, J., Jang, J. and Plonsky, L. (2015) The effectiveness of second language pronunciation instruction: A meta-analysis. Applied Linguistics 36, 345–366. Li, S. (2010) The effectiveness of corrective feedback in SLA: A meta-analysis. Language Learning 60, 309–365. Linck, J.A., Osthus, P., Koeth, J.T. and Bunting, M.F. (2014) Working memory and second language comprehension and production: A meta-analysis. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 21, 861–883. Macaro, E. and Erler, L. (2007) Raising the achievement of young-beginner readers of French through strategy instruction. Applied Linguistics 28, 1–30. Macaro, E., Graham, S. and Vanderplank, R. (2007) A review of listening strategies: Focus on sources of knowledge and on success. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 165–185). New York: Oxford University Press. Mackey, A. and Goo, J. (2007) Interaction research in SLA: A meta-analysis and research synthesis. In A. Mackey (ed.) Conversational Interaction in Second Language Acquisition: A Collection of Empirical Studies (pp. 407–451). New York: Oxford University Press. Manchón, R.M., Roca de Larios, J. and Murphy, L. (2007) A review of writing strategies: Focus on conceptualizations and impact of fi rst language. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 229–250). New York: Oxford University Press. Marsden, E., Mackey, A. and Plonsky, L. (2016) Breadth and depth: The IRIS repository. In A. Mackey and E. Marsden (eds) Advancing Methodology and Practice: The IRIS Repository of Instruments for Research into Second Languages (pp. 1–21). New York: Routledge. Nakatani, Y. and Goh, C. (2007) A review of oral communication strategies: Focus on interactionist and psycholinguistic perspectives. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 207–227). New York: Oxford University Press. Nguyen, L.T.C. and Gu, Y. (2013) Strategy-based instruction: A learner-focused approach to developing learner autonomy. Language Teaching Research 17, 9–30.

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Norris, J.M. (2015) Statistical significance testing in second language research: Basic problems and suggestions for reform. Language Learning 65, 97–126. Norris, J.M. and Ortega, L. (2000) Effectiveness of L2 instruction: A research synthesis and quantitative meta-analysis. Language Learning 50, 417–528. Norris, J.M. and Ortega, L. (2006) The value and practice of research synthesis for language learning and teaching. In J.M. Norris and L. Ortega (eds) Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and Teaching (pp. 3–50). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Nunan, D. (1988) The Learner-centred Curriculum: A Study in Second Language Teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press. Nyikos, M. (1996) The conceptual shift to learner-centered classrooms: Increasing teacher and student strategic awareness. In R.L. Oxford (ed.) Language Learning Strategies Around the World: Cross-cultural Perspectives (pp. 109–117). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center. O’Malley, J.M. and Chamot, A.U. (1990) Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oswald, F.L. and Plonsky, L. (2010) Meta-analysis in second language research: Choices and challenges. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 30, 85–110. Oxford, R.L. (1990) Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Oxford, R.L. (1994) Language Learning Strategies: An Update. Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED376707.). Phakiti, A. (2016) Test takers’ performance appraisals, appraisal calibration, and cognitive and metacognitive strategy use. Language Assessment Quarterly 13, 75–108. Phillips, V. (1991) A look at learner strategy use and ESL proficiency. CATESOL Journal 4, 57–67. Plonsky, L. (2011) The effectiveness of second language strategy instruction: A metaanalysis. Language Learning 61, 993–1038. Plonsky, L. (2013) Study quality in SLA: An assessment of designs, analyses, and reporting practices in quantitative L2 research. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 35, 655–687. Plonsky, L. (2014) Study quality in quantitative L2 research (1990–2010): A methodological synthesis and call for reform. The Modern Language Journal 98, 450–470. Plonsky, L. (2015) Statistical power, p values, descriptive statistics, and effect sizes: A ‘back-to-basics’ approach to advancing quantitative methods in L2 research. In L. Plonsky (ed.) Advancing Quantitative Methods in Second Language Research (pp. 23–45). New York: Routledge. Plonsky, L. (2017) Quantitative research methods. In S. Loewen and M. Sato (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Instructed Second Language Acquisition (pp. 505–521). New York: Routledge. Plonsky, L. and Brown, D. (2015) Domain defi nition and search techniques in meta-analyses of L2 research (Or why 18 meta-analyses of feedback have different results). Second Language Research 31, 267–278. Plonsky, L. and Derrick, D.J. (2016) A meta-analysis of reliability coefficients in second language research. The Modern Language Journal 100, 538–553. Plonsky, L. and Gass, S. (2011) Quantitative research methods, study quality, and outcomes: The case of interaction research. Language Learning 61, 325–366. Plonsky, L. and Oswald, F.L. (2014) How big is ‘big’? Interpreting eff ect sizes in L2 research. Language Learning 64, 878–912. Plonsky, L. and Oswald, F.L. (2015) Meta-analyzing second language research. In L. Plonsky (ed.) Advancing Quantitative Methods in Second Language Research (pp. 106–128). New York: Routledge.

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Rees-Miller, J. (1993) A critical appraisal of learner training: Theoretical bases and teaching implications. TESOL Quarterly 27, 679–689. Rivera-Mills, S.V. and Plonsky, L. (2007) Empowering students with language learning strategies: A critical review of current issues. Foreign Language Annals 40, 535–548. Taylor, A., Stevens, J.R. and Asher, J.W. (2006) The effects of explicit reading strategy training on L2 reading comprehension. In J. Norris and L. Ortega (eds) Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and Teaching (pp. 213–244). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Tseng, W.T., Dörnyei, Z. and Schmitt, N. (2006) A new approach to assessing strategic learning: The case of self-regulation in vocabulary acquisition. Applied Linguistics 27, 78–102. Tudor, I. (1996) Learner-centredness as Language Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walters, J.M. (2004) Teaching the use of context to infer meaning: A longitudinal survey of L1 and L2 vocabulary research. Language Teaching 37, 243–252. Walters, J.M. (2006) Methods of teaching inferring meaning from context. RELC Journal 37, 176–190. Wenden, A.L. (1998) Metacognitive knowledge and language learning. Applied Linguistics 19, 515–537. Wenden, A.L. (2002) Learner development in language learning. Applied Linguistics 23, 32–55. Wharton, G. (2000) Language learning strategy use of bilingual foreign language learners in Singapore. Language Learning 50, 203–243. Won, M. (2008) The Effects of Vocabulary Instruction on English Language Learners: A Meta-analysis. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Texas Tech University. Wong, M.S.L. (2005) Language learning strategies and language self-efficacy: Investigating the relationship in Malaysia. RELC Journal 36, 245–269.

2 Approaches to Learning Strategy Instruction Peter Yongqi Gu

Introduction

Strategic learning matters. There is more than enough evidence in our own (Oxford, 2017) and in neighbouring fields (Pressley & Harris, 2006) attesting to the usefulness of learning strategies. Human beings develop strategies naturally to help process information, remember facts and learn new things. In fact, children as early as two or three years old have been found to use strategies to remember hidden toys (DeLoache et al., 1985). However, despite a gradual increase in the use of strategies as children mature, we cannot assume that they will automatically discover and apply all the strategies they need on their own, not least because it may depend on the tasks with which they are faced and how they tackle them. In this regard, ‘there is one approach that works better than any other for ensuring that learners actually learn strategies: strategies instruction’ (Pressley & Harris, 2006: 270). That said, the language learning field was initially very prudent, and arguably overly so, in focusing simply on investigating learners’ existing strategy choices and mapping out the relationship between their strategy use and language learning outcomes, without any exposure to language learning strategies instruction (LLSI). However, a lot of experience in strategies instruction (SI) has been accumulated in adjacent fields of research such as the teaching of learning strategies (or study skills) in various education programmes (Hattie et al., 1996) and cognitive strategy intervention programmes in helping students with learning difficulties (Wong et al., 2003). This chapter introduces the major approaches to SI in both second and first language (L2, L1) acquisition. I will start by examining the nature of strategic competence and by outlining the purposes of strategic language learning, so that approaches to both LLSI and SI can be looked at in terms of what each approach aims at, and the extent to which they achieve these purposes.

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Approaches to Learning Strategy Instruction

23

The Nature of Strategic Competence

Strategic learning is a dynamic and iterative process for solving a learning problem, boosting the learning speed or making the learning process more efficient, effective and probably more enjoyable. It is triggered by a difficult or novel task being noticed. Strategic learners then quickly analyze the task demands, their own resources, the available tools, strengths and weaknesses in dealing with the task at hand, and the contextual environment that may support or hinder the completion of the task. This initial analysis can be very quick and incomplete, but it serves as a basis on which strategic decisions are made and plans formed. As the plan is executed, strategic learners monitor the success of this process and make adjustments when necessary. After the completion of the task, strategic learners reflect on the whole process and evaluate the usefulness of the strategies they have deployed, so that adjustments can be made for similar tasks in the future. The whole process happens in cycles with the identification and completion of each novel or difficult task. The initial process of strategic learning to tackle a new task can be deliberate and slow. With practice, strategic learners accumulate a large repertoire of strategies that can be quickly transferred to similar tasks. At the expert stage, strategy deployment is deliberate, but its execution, monitoring and fine-tuning can happen automatically with or without the learners’ own awareness. Examples of strategic processing abound. One does not need to go far to appreciate the strategic expertise around us in master sports players and chess players, as well as in the best learners in our language classes. Strategic competence involves declarative, procedural and conditional knowledge of the strategies being chosen and deployed (Paris et al., 1983; Weinstein et  al., 2000). Declarative knowledge of strategies is simply knowing about the strategies at one’s disposal, i.e. what strategies are in a learner’s repertoire for the task at hand and what exactly is meant by using the strategy. For example, in reading for pleasure, a new word that appears again and again may come to the attention of the language learner. Guessing may well be the most obvious strategy for this situation. Declarative knowledge of the guessing strategy would include generally knowing about what to guess, ways of guessing, what exactly is meant by guessing, and what happens after the guess, e.g. reading on to monitor whether it makes sense. Procedural knowledge is the knowhow, the ability to enact or execute a strategy in the context of a particular task. In the guessing example above, simply knowing about guessing or the procedures involved in guessing is not enough. Procedural knowledge enables the learner to make use of the specific lexical and contextual clues, his/her background knowledge and any other information present to make sense of the unknown word. Conditional knowledge of a strategy is the knowledge of when and why the strategy should best be used and when it is not suitable; it is

24

Part 1: Issues: Models and Contexts

knowing the strengths and limitations of a strategy and being flexible in deciding on the spot what to do. In addition to a single strategy, conditional knowledge also includes knowledge of which repertoire of strategies is suitable for what type of tasks, for whom, and in what contexts of use. It includes the ability to orchestrate a range of strategies for the intended purpose. Strategies may be task, person or context dependent. The same strategy appropriate for a task in one learning context may not be effective for another task or context. Without conditional knowledge, a learner can learn about what guessing is, and how to do guessing using a particular kind of clue. However, it is conditional knowledge that enables the learner to know why and when to guess and what clues to use, and what guessing options there are if the initial guess does not work out. To use Paris et al.’s (1983: 304) words, ‘conditional knowledge helps the agent to orchestrate and to modulate declarative and procedural knowledge by fitting that information to particular tasks and contexts’. At the highest level of conditional knowledge, the contextualized, contingent, flexible and smooth choreography of declarative and procedural knowledge becomes artistry (Eisner, 2002). Performance at this level is achieved when the declarative and procedural knowledge becomes tacit and instinctive, characterized by the natural free flow of action in achieving the purpose with ease. Observing this level of learner performance is an enjoyable experience similar to that in the appreciation of performing arts. Declarative, procedural and conditional knowledge of strategies is necessary but not sufficient for the successful use of learning strategies. It constitutes the essential knowledge base for strategic learning to be possible. Whether learners do the learning strategically, however, depends not just on what they are able to do (the skill) but also on whether they want to do it (the will) (Paris et al., 1983; Weinstein et al., 2000). At the core of successful strategic learning lies the agency of the learner which serves not just as the initial driving force for strategy use, but also to sustain continued strategy use when needed. It is the learner’s motivation, beliefs, volition and persistence that drive him/her to intentionally explore new strategies, choose existing strategies, and coordinate and continue the strategic learning behaviour. In addition, strategic learning involves the learner’s metacognitive management of the whole learning process, not just in aiming at the successful completion of any single individual learning task. Different aspects of strategic competence demand different types of SI. Direct and explicit instruction is most suited to declarative knowledge. Multiple practice opportunities would be ‘a must’ for the gradual development of procedural knowledge. For conditional knowledge of any strategy to develop, there has to be situated and contextualized instruction with ample exposure to the completion of the same task under a multitude of

Approaches to Learning Strategy Instruction 25

conditions, contingent upon the learner’s own background and the textual and environmental demands. Although only expert learners achieve an artistry level of strategic learning, and the development of that artistry rests mainly with the learner rather than the teacher, SI can still play a role, and it may best be done through continuous coaching and joint participation and reflection. All aspects of strategic competence can be addressed by instruction, although there may well be individual differences. It can be argued that a crucial part of differentiated SI entails the teacher knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each learner in terms of their needs in strategic learning. Some learners may have a narrow range of strategies for learning; others may tell you that they ‘know’ a decent repertoire of strategies, but in reality do not know how to use many of the strategies they ‘know’; still others may be able to use many strategies but are not flexible in extending these strategies to similar tasks or to different learning contexts. Similarly, it is not uncommon to fi nd students who have a range of learning strategies at their disposal, but prefer to use certain strategies due to various reasons such as lack of time, past learning experience or cultural values. In addition, we often fi nd learners who are able to use strategies to successfully complete a task at hand, but fail to make long-term plans for themselves to manage their own learning. All these potential scenarios add to the complexity of SI, and call for more customized approaches based on a careful assessment of the target individual or student group and their strategic learning needs. This is where formative assessment can be so useful (see Chamot, this volume, for more on differentiation). Models of Strategy Instruction: Focusing on Instructional Procedures

In many fields of enquiry, SI has had a long tradition of boosting performance and learning results. For the purpose of this article, I will move on to a quick and selective review of the major approaches to learning strategies instruction in second language acquisition (SLA), and then in educational psychology. In so doing, my focus will be placed on the ‘how’ of instruction, that is to say, the main approaches and procedures teachers/trainers go through in carrying out the instruction. Strategy instruction for second language acquisition

Right from the beginning of the research on language learning strategies, when most investigations were attempting to discover the authentic strategies language learners used (Naiman et  al., 1978), researchers mainly explored the strategy training of individual strategies, such as association strategies for vocabulary retention (Cohen & Aphek, 1980). In the 40 years that followed, our explorations have included the following

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Part 1: Issues: Models and Contexts

approaches to making language learning strategy research useful to our students: • • • •

• •

Strategy-based instruction (SBI): LLSI in the language classroom such as the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) (Chamot, 2009; O’Malley & Chamot, 1990). Stand-alone ‘learning to learn’ courses (e.g. Cohen & Weaver, 2005). Learner guidebooks (Brown, 2001). Language textbooks with built-in strategy training, including: the Heinle & Heinle Tapestry series (Oxford & Scarcella, 2001); the Cornerstone series for primary school students (Chamot et al., 2009a); the Keystone series for secondary school students (Chamot et  al., 2009b); and Keys to Learning (Chamot et al., 2009c). Learner guidance websites (Cohen et al., 2011). Self-access materials in the form of learning tips in many self-access centres around the world.

Over the years, the CALLA model developed by Chamot and her colleagues has become the standard for LLSI in our field, so it is on this that I will mainly focus. The CALLA model was developed in response to the needs of immigrant children who experienced language problems that led to under-performance in school (Chamot & O’Malley, 1996). It is essentially a model for improving the academic achievement of learners who are learning through the medium of an L2. The instructional package normally integrates content, language and learning strategies. All three components are taught in a five-stage sequence which gradually shifts responsibility for the learning from the teacher to the students so they become more and more autonomous. In this sense, it was not specifically designed for the acquisition of an L2, and LLSI was only one integral part of the instruction. Strategy instruction in the L2 field has largely followed the five-stage CALLA procedures of preparation, presentation, practice, self-evaluation and expansion/transfer outlined in the Introduction to this volume. Strategy instruction models across SLA have developed along a surprisingly similar route to that of CALLA. Summarizing strategy intervention research, Rubin et al. (2007) listed the four essential steps shown in Table 2.1 as common to all LLSI models in SLA. These four steps overlap with Macaro’s (2001) model, although his has seven steps. They also formed the basis for Grenfell and Harris’ (1994, 1999) studies when they turned to LLSI once they discovered that their pupils were unable to take advantage of opportunities to work autonomously in groups because they lacked the strategies to cope on their own. Teachers fi nd this model comfortable to work with, partly because of its resemblance to the traditional presentation-practice-production (PPP) model which has been a major instructional approach in language teaching. In moving from declarative knowledge to procedural knowledge and

Approaches to Learning Strategy Instruction

27

Table 2.1 Four essential steps in strategy instruction Step 1

Raising awareness of the strategies learners are already using

Step 2

Teacher presentation and modelling of strategies so that students become increasingly aware of their own thinking and learning processes

Step 3

Multiple practice opportunities to help students move towards autonomous use of the strategies through gradual withdrawal of the scaffolding

Step 4

Self-evaluation of the effectiveness of the strategies used and transfer of strategies to fresh tasks

Source: Based on Rubin et al. (2007).

fi nally reaching automatic expertise of strategy use, the model is well grounded within John Anderson’s (1982) skill acquisition theory. It should be noted that most published LLSI studies in SLA employing the CALLA model have reported positive, sometimes even dramatic results on the usefulness of LLSI (e.g. Gu, 2007; Nguyen & Gu, 2013; Plonsky, this volume). This, of course, does not rule out the possibility that less encouraging findings have less of a chance of being published (Hu et al., 2009). In addition, evidence for the usefulness of this model does not mean that other models do not work, such as more individualized strategy instruction that is triggered by a specific diagnosed learning problem as described below. Strategy instruction in neighbouring fields

Strategy instruction for learning support has a long history in educational psychology. As early as 1989, Pressley et al. (1989) talked about the ‘coming of age’ of SI research. A large body of research exists on topics related to ‘study skills’ (Hattie et al., 1996). Another strong tradition of research has focused on the instruction of ‘cognitive strategies’ (Pressley & Harris, 2006). These terms and research traditions overlap, although ‘study skills’ usually focus on regular students, whereas the SI of ‘cognitive strategies’ tends to zoom in on specific strategies, and for students with special learning needs. In fact, as will be discussed later, SI has remained a major intervention model for students with learning difficulties (Swanson et al., 2003). Interestingly, the overwhelming approach for SI in the study skills tradition has been the explicit teaching of preconceived packages of various study skills to whole classes of students, similar to the CALLA procedures introduced earlier. Most intervention studies employed a standalone learning strategy curriculum ‘detached’ from the learning of subject matter, although some studies provided ‘embedded’ strategy training within the existing curriculum and subject matter goals. This theorydriven, top-down approach can be found in Derry and Murphy (1986), in which they intentionally attempted to meet Bloom’s (1984) challenge

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for high-impact instruction by designing instructional methods to ‘improve students’ learning abilities’, so that entire classes could attain the same level of achievement as that in one-to-one tutoring. This is done through the training of ‘learning strategies’, ‘the collection of mental tactics employed by an individual in a particular learning situation to facilitate acquisition of knowledge or skill’ (Derry & Murphy, 1986: 2). In addition to the choice of embedded versus detached instruction, intervention research in the study skills tradition varies in terms of which strategies are taught. Just like in the field of SLA, these strategy intervention studies focus on one of the following: cognitive, metacognitive and affective interventions. Cognitive interventions focus on developing or enhancing particular task-related skills, such as note taking. Metacognitive interventions focus on the management of learning, such as planning and self-regulatory skills. Affective interventions aim at improving the students’ emotional wellbeing, such as motivation, self-concept or attributions for success. Hattie et  al. (1996) meta-analyzed 51 studies and concluded that, in order to really improve learning, SI has to: (a) be situated in context; (b) use domain-specific tasks; and (c) involve a high degree of the learners’ metacognitive awareness (Hattie et al., 1996: 131) (see also Plonsky, this volume). Cognitive strategies instruction for students with learning difficulties as well as mainstream students forms another long tradition. Strategies for the improvement of word recognition, reading comprehension, writing and problem-solving have been the main areas of focus (Pressley & Harris, 2006). As far as training procedures are concerned, again, the majority of these studies share much in common with the CALLA model in terms of instructional sequences. For example, Deshler and his colleagues developed comprehensive instructional packages for a range of strategies (Deshler & Schumaker, 1986). Their procedures clearly resemble what we do in SLA, except for the more explicitly stated pretest and posttest stages. The strategies taught and the instructional model follow a clear top-down procedure; in other words, researchers decide on both the strategies and the way of instruction. However, there is another distinctive tradition of SI different from the majority. This took the form of blind training (as opposed to ‘informed training’; Brown et al., 1983), when students were instructed or induced to employ task-appropriate strategies without being told why. These studies constituted the main thrust of SI efforts before the 1980s. Blind training was found to be very effective in boosting the performance of the task in focus. However, the effect did not go beyond the task. To use Brown et al.’s (1983) words, despite their usefulness for ‘learning’, there was no indication that blind training was useful for ‘learning to learn’. Overall, we can conclude then that explicit SI is likely to be more effective than implicit SI, and embedded, context-specific more useful than separate, detached instruction.

Approaches to Learning Strategy Instruction

29

Top-down and bottom-up models of strategy instruction

The benefit of being close to the task and the relative ease of implementation among children means that a bottom-up approach to SI has its merits. Indeed, recent versions of the indirect, bottom-up and interactive approach to SI has seen great success. In this section, I focus on one such model, Strategic Content Learning (SCL), an SI model from general educational psychology developed by Butler and her colleagues (Butler, 2002), and compare it with the CALLA model to illustrate its potential for LLSI in SLA. A starting point of SCL is the assumption that ‘if instruction focuses primarily on the direct explanation of predefined strategies, students may be inadvertently excluded from the problem-solving process central to selfregulation’ (Butler, 2002: 84). In SCL, the researcher or the teacher does not start by selecting a task, anticipating potential problems and identifying the strategies to be taught. Instead, the teacher works with the students to do a content-based task analysis together (see Rubin & Acero Rios, this volume), and to co-construct the potential strategies for assisting the completion of the task. Indeed, ‘the central SCL instructional guideline is for teachers to support students’ reflective engagement in cycles of selfregulated learning’ (Butler, 2002: 84). Another defining feature of SCL is that it places explicit attention on how students adapt strategies reflectively and flexibly within recursive cycles of task analysis, strategy use and monitoring. In this interactive process of collaborative problem solving, the teacher diagnoses on the spot the potential problems in learning, and engages the learners in on-task discussions, so that they become actively involved in the selection, use and evaluation of strategic processing. In encouraging the students to talk about the thinking behind their decisions, the seed of transfer is sown in the process of reflection (Table 2.2). At fi rst sight, SCL seems to be very demanding and time consuming for the busy classroom teacher. However, Butler (2002) described in detail how SCL can be adapted to one-on-one, small-group and whole-class instruction. With this level of situated, contextualized and task-specific help, and with the embedded opportunities for student reflection, I have no doubt about the effectiveness of the SCL approach to SI. Indeed, Butler and her colleagues have produced a number of empirical reports (e.g. Butler, 1998; Butler et al., 2013) showing the effectiveness of this model. If we compare CALLA, one of the most representative and well-articulated top-down models, to SCL, one of the most representative bottomup models, we might get some insights into the potential usefulness of the bottom-up model for future SI research in SLA (Table 2.3). As can be seen from the table, CALLA is a ‘cognitive-social model’ (Chamot, 2009: 7), based on sociocultural theory as well as constructivist theories and Anderson’s skill acquisition theory. SCL also has theoretical roots in constructivism and sociocultural theories of learning. CALLA’s minimalist

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Part 1: Issues: Models and Contexts

Table 2.2 Butler’s strategic content learning Instructional targets

General instructional principles

Stage 1

Analyzing tasks and metacognitive knowledge about academic work

• Teacher supports students to identify cues that define task demands. • Teacher facilitates discussions in which students: (a) analyze task demands; (b) articulate performance criteria; (c) consider why analyzing tasks is helpful; (d) articulate personalized strategies for analyzing tasks.

Stage 2

Personalized approaches to learning and metacognitive knowledge about strategies

• Teacher guides students to: (a) think through tasks successfully; (b) reflect on the process of learning; (c) articulate and evaluate strategies; (d) recognize successes; (e) revise ineffective methods. • Students record personalized strategies in own words for reference and ongoing strategy development.

Stage 3

Self-monitoring, self-evaluation • Teacher assists students to: (a) compare outcomes and positive self-perceptions to task criteria; (b) interpret and use instructor feedback; (c) revise ineffective approaches; (d) link success to effortful strategy use; (e) articulate personalized strategies for monitoring. • Students record revisions to strategies in their own words for reference and ongoing strategy development.

Source: Based on Butler (2002).

beauty means that it has immediate appeal to teachers in terms of its relative ease in implementation. Teachers new to SI might fi nd it helpful to have such clear guidelines. This should not prevent them, however, from moving on once they are confident about using SI with their students. SCL, on the other hand, demands not just theoretical grounding in Table 2.3 Comparing CALLA with SCL Chamot’s CALLA

Butler’s SCL

Starting point

Useful strategies for both content and language tasks

Content learning tasks

What strategies should be taught?

Predetermined

As they arise in problem solving

Who selects the strategies to be taught?

Expert/teacher

Teacher–learner joint problem solving

Instructional approach

Deductive teaching of useful strategies

Inductive discovery of useful strategies

Nature of strategies being taught

More generalized and task independent

More specific and task embedded

Immediacy of effect

Slow gratification

Quick gratification

Potential transfer to new tasks

Easier

Harder

Approaches to Learning Strategy Instruction

31

self-regulation and strategic learning, but also practical experience and flexibility in contextualized, task-specific and even customized orchestration of the necessary background knowledge, within the contingencies of the classroom. Some suggestions for integrating the two approaches are explored in Harris (this volume). Discussion and Areas for Development

Research into language learning strategies has reached the ripe old age of 40. It is high time that new efforts are directed from the exploratory and descriptive research of strategy use to undertaking and researching different approaches to LLSI, with the aim of both enhancing our theoretical understanding and also being of practical use to teachers. To this end, this chapter has focused on the models of SI, especially on the options of implementation. Many issues deserve attention. I draw the readers’ attention to three of these that I believe to be fundamental: (1) the desired outcomes of SI; (2) deficit- versus strength-based models of SI; and (3) the research-to-practice pathway. What is strategy instruction for?

Strategy instruction programmes need evaluation, whichever model we decide to use. In this sense, I have been deliberately vague so far when I talk about the effectiveness of LLSI. The question is: Effective in what? To put it another way, what should be our desired outcomes of LLSI? Most intervention studies evaluate whether students’ performance on a single task is improved at the end of the instruction, such as retention of a list of words, comprehending a text or organizing a piece of writing in a logical way. If this is the aim, these instruction studies have been found unanimously effective, and to an admirable extent, with average effect sizes well over 1.0 (Hattie et al., 1996; see also Plonsky, 2011, this volume). This stands out from the overall combined average effect size of 0.45 based on 270 effect sizes from 51 studies (Hattie et al., 1996). When the effects of intervention are separated into performance, study skills and affect, Hattie et al.’s (1996) meta-analysis also found that strategy intervention programmes in general work well for performance (with an average effect size of 0.57), affect (e.g. improved motivation, self-confidence and selfefficacy, positive attitude to learning, positive attribution to success), with a moderate combined effect size of 0.48. However, the combined effect size for study skills is only 0.16, meaning that learning strategies training improves performance and enhances affect, but does not significantly improve the use of learning strategies. This should not come as a surprise. The simpler the strategy training task, the more effective it is. And when students see the effect immediately after the training, they feel good about it. However, test-tube strategies rarely go beyond lab tasks. Being able to

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Part 1: Issues: Models and Contexts

learn, practise and use a single strategy is only a tiny enhancement of a learner’s overall strategic learning ability. The next step in improving the learner’s strategic competence is to make sure that the taught strategy is transferred to new learning tasks and contexts – a complex cognitive and metacognitive skill that needs a long time to develop. In SLA, most studies reporting the instruction of language learning strategies focus on a measure of improvement in language learning, such as listening comprehension. Some report a certain degree of enhancement in strategic learning. Not many studies reveal how students feel after the LLSI programme. If we follow the argument that SI is meant not only to improve the learning task in focus but also to extend beyond that, so that our students become self-regulated learners, our vision for LLSI should go beyond individual and decontextualized learning tasks and aim for learner autonomy. Littlewood (1996) defi ned learner autonomy as the willingness and ability to make and carry out choices in language learning, language use and life in general. If our LLSI should extend beyond the completion of a language learning task and the L2 classroom, its ultimate aims should include better learners, better communicators and better citizens of the future, with more self-driven and self-regulated behaviours balanced by a keen awareness of social responsibilities. In other words, in addition to learning to learn, the desired outcomes of LLSI should openly embrace transformative goals such as ‘learning to communicate’ and ‘learning to be’. Aiming at ‘learning to communicate’ would see LLSI going into the neglected area of cultural awareness strategies and affective strategies. ‘Learning to be’ would see us in educator as well as instructor roles, activating and nurturing the agency of our learners, so that they grow up to be proactive self-regulators, while at the same time learning to collaborate with others, to take an active role in society and to adapt to a changing world. This would not only enhance our students’ ‘capacity and willingness to act independently and in cooperation with others, as a social, responsible person’ (Dam et al., 1990: 102), but would also avoid jumping into the trap of being seen as a ‘narrow’ or ‘weak’ version of pedagogy (Smith, 2003), or an ‘individualistic’ and ‘psychologized’ vision for education that is limited to producing just a ‘successful’ language learner (Pennycook, 1997). It is perhaps time to return to the roots of LLSI which for many of us are in learner autonomy, which the bottom-up model of LLSI seems more likely to foster. Deficit-based versus strength-based strategy instruction

In SI, the basic premise is that both learners with learning difficulties and successful learners can improve their learning, if the ‘zone of proximal development’ is explored, the gap to the next step of learning is identified and more and more appropriate strategies are learned. In other words,

Approaches to Learning Strategy Instruction

33

it assumes a deficit model of strategic learning. The deficit model is so deeply engrained not only in LLSI studies but also in education in general that we may well take it as the sine qua non of education. I have to admit that I have always brushed aside any challenges to it as another form of political over-correctness. However, it is worth noting that after Hattie et al. (1996) meta-analyzed SI studies in the study skills tradition, they concluded that: improving learning is less likely to be achieved by targeting the individual in terms of a deficit model, which presupposes that the individual is lacking the right strategies and needs to be taught them or is using the wrong strategies and needs to have them removed. (Hattie et al., 1996: 131)

There are largely two types of learning strategies: proactive and reactive strategies. The latter are activated after learning problems or new tasks are diagnosed and identified, whereas the former would be the kind of strategies that come from the exercise of our agency in proactively managing our learning. Perhaps by sticking to the deficit model, we have been overemphasizing the cold-cognition side of learning, and have not given human agency and affect their rightful places in the empowerment of the learner? This should especially be an issue if we accept the ‘will’ plus ‘skill’ nature of strategic learning discussed earlier in this chapter (Paris et  al., 1983). Interestingly, a recent study (Hiemstra & Van Yperen, 2015) did focus on ‘strength-based SRL strategies’ to ‘enhance students’ motivation to put effort into professional self-development activities’. The findings gave the authors enough confidence to claim that ‘strength-based SRL strategies may make a valuable complement to the common deficit-based SRL strategies’ (Hiemstra & Van Yperen, 2015: 666). More research along these lines should provide further insights into the enhancement of the ‘will’ in LLSI. Bridging research and practice

Strategy instruction so far has been undertaken using a basic research paradigm, in that researchers have been more concerned with outcomes than with the practicalities of implementing LLSI in the classroom with different learners at different stages in their development. Most research in LLSI has been done by researchers or at best under the guidance of researchers, and has rarely been initiated by teachers. For LLSI to really make a difference, it would be useful if we plan a feasible research-topractice pathway. Schneider (2014: 31) analyzed a handful of research ideas that have ‘made the long leap from the ivory tower to the schoolhouse’ and found four simple tricks: the ideas have to be visible, believable, practical and sharable. Schneider went on to claim that ‘most scholarship – however potentially useful – lacks the traits needed to penetrate practice’ (Schneider, 2014: 34). If we place these criteria against LLSI research,

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Part 1: Issues: Models and Contexts

I have to admit that we do not look good, especially in terms of visibility, practicality and sharability. Of course the teacher has an important role to play in this equation. In fact, Butler and Schnellert (2010) insist on the practitioner’s agency in self- and co-regulated professional development. In other words, instead of the traditional unidirectional workshops for teachers, teachers need to be provided with sustained opportunities to set their goals, access resources, situate research-based knowledge within their own contexts of work, monitor and reflect on the outcomes and be given contextualized support. In this sense, I see a great deal of possibility in a collaborative action research model for LLSI. This entails a shift from seeing LLSI as a ‘oneoff ’ intervention or experiment to placing it squarely inside the L2 classroom, where the teacher takes the initiative in using this tool to improve student learning. The researcher serves a collaborative and facilitative role, while the teacher and students work together in planning, implementing and assessing LLSI, followed by new rounds of adjustment and fi ne-tuning. The field is beginning to see action research in LLSI (e.g. Siegel, 2015), and Chapter 16 in this book offers some interesting examples of teachers and researchers working together. More research along similar lines could see LLSI research being more fully integrated with classroom teaching. Although the areas that teachers may wish to explore are suggested below, the key point I am making here is that LLSI must arise from the learners’ needs. Research Questions that Still Need to be Investigated

(1) To what extent does LLSI enhance strategic learning and affect, in addition to language learning outcomes? (2) How can a strength-based model of LLSI complement a deficit model? (3) Does an action-based research approach to LLSI provide a teacherfriendly way of integrating LLSI research with classroom practice?

Conclusion

In a rapidly changing world, ‘learning to learn’ and the flexibility to adapt are becoming arguably as important as, if not more important than, regular school learning. Moreover, these skills are not just important to schoolchildren, but also crucial for adult lifelong learning. The ability to learn strategically is not a skill that we necessarily know automatically how to foster in ourselves. Left alone, most of us learn it with various degrees of success, and in our own domains of expertise only. For students at various levels of education, SI is one of the best tools available for

Approaches to Learning Strategy Instruction 35

teachers to enhance their process of learning, cultivate facilitative learning behaviours and, hopefully, prepare the next generation of autonomous problem solvers. References Anderson, J.R. (1982) Acquisition of cognitive skill. Psychological Review 89, 369–406. Bloom, B.S. (1984) The 2 sigma problem: The search for methods of group instruction as effective as one-to-one tutoring. Educational Researcher 13 (6), 4–16. doi. org/10.2307/1175554 Brown, A.L., Bransford, J.D., Ferrara, R.A. and Campione, J.C. (1983) Learning, remembering, and understanding. In P.H. Mussen (ed.) Handbook of Child Psychology, Vol 3. Cognitive Development (pp. 77–166). New York: Wiley. Brown, H.D. (2001) Strategies for Success: A Practical Guide to Learning English. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson ESL. Butler, D.L. (1998) The strategic content learning approach to promoting self-regulated learning: A report of three studies. Journal of Educational Psychology 90 (4), 682–697. Butler, D.L. (2002) Individualizing instruction in self-regulated learning. Theory Into Practice 41 (2), 81–92. Butler, D.L. and Schnellert, L. (2010) Bridging the research-to-practice divide: Improving outcomes for students. Education Canada 48 (5), 36–40. Butler, D.L., Schnellert, L. and Cartier, S.C. (2013) Layers of self- and co-regulation: Teachers working collaboratively to support adolescents’ self-regulated learning through reading. Education Research International 2013, e845694. doi. org/10.1155/2013/845694 Chamot, A.U. (2009) The CALLA Handbook: Implementing the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (2nd edn). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education. Chamot, A.U. and O’Malley, J.M. (1996) The cognitive academic language learning approach: A model for linguistically diverse classrooms. Elementary School Journal 96 (3), 259–273. Chamot, A.U., Barnhardt, S., El-Dinary, P.B. and Robbins, J. (1999) The Learning Strategies Handbook. White Plains, NY: Longman. Chamot, A.U., Cummins, J. and Hollie, S. (2009a) Cornerstone, Books 1, 2, 3. White Plains, NY: Pearson Longman. Chamot, A.U., De Mado, J. and Hollie, S. (2009b) Keystone, Books A, B, C, D, E, F. White Plains, NY: Pearson Longman. Chamot, A.U., Keatley, C.W. and Anstrom, K. (2009c) Keys to Learning: Skills and Strategies for Newcomers (2nd edn). White Plains, NY: Longman. Cohen, A.D. and Aphek, E. (1980) Retention of second-language vocabulary over time: Investigating the role of mnemonic associations. System 8, 221–235. Cohen, A.D. and Weaver, S.J. (2005) Styles and Strategies-based Instruction: A Teacher’s Guide. Minnesota, MN: Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, University of Minnesota. Cohen, A.D., Pinilla-Herrera, A., Thompson, J.R. and Witzig, L.E. (2011) Communicating grammatically: Evaluating a learner strategy website for Spanish grammar. CALICO Journal 29 (1), 145–172. Dam, L., Eriksson, R., Gabrielsen, G., Little, D., Miliander, J. and Trebbi, T. (1990) Autonomy: Steps towards a defi nition. In T. Trebbi (ed.) Third Nordic Workshop on Developing Autonomous Learning in the FL Classroom (pp. 96–103). Bergen: University of Bergen. DeLoache, J.S., Cassidy, D.J. and Brown, A.L. (1985) Precursors of mnemonic strategies in very young children’s memory. Child Development 56 (1), 125–137.

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Derry, S.J. and Murphy, D.A. (1986) Designing systems that train learning ability: From theory to practice. Review of Educational Research 56 (1), 1–39. Deshler, D.D. and Schumaker, J.B. (1986) Learning strategies: An instructional alternative for low-achieving adolescents. Exceptional Children 52 (6), 583–590. doi. org/10.1177/001440298605200611 Eisner, E.W. (2002) From episteme to phronesis to artistry in the study and improvement of teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education 18 (4), 375–385. doi.org/10.1016/ S0742-051X(02)00004-5 Grenfell, M. and Harris, V. (1994) How do Pupils Learn? (Part 2). Language Learning Journal 9, 7–11. Grenfell, M. and Harris, V. (1999) Modern Languages and Learning Strategies. In Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Gu, Y. (2007) Strategy-based instruction. In T. Yashima and T. Nabei (eds) Proceedings of the International Symposium on English Education in Japan: Exploring New Frontiers (pp. 21–38). Osaka: Yubunsha. Hattie, J., Biggs, J. and Purdie, N. (1996) Effects of learning skills interventions on student learning: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research 66 (2), 99–136. Hiemstra, D. and Van Yperen, N.W. (2015) The effects of strength-based versus deficitbased self-regulated learning strategies on students’ effort intentions. Motivation and Emotion 39 (5), 656–668. doi.org/10.1007/s11031-015-9488-8 Hu, G., Gu, P.Y., Zhang, L.J. and Bai, R. (2009) English Language Learning Strategies in Singapore Primary School. CRPP Research Report No. CRP 3/03 GYQ. Singapore: National Institute of Education. See https://repository.nie.edu.sg//handle/10497/4173. Littlewood, W. (1996) ‘Autonomy’: An anatomy and a framework. System 24 (4), 427–435. Macaro, E. (2001) Learning Strategies in Second and Foreign Language Classrooms. London: Continuum. Naiman, N., Frohlich, M., Stern, H.H. and Todesco, A. (1978) The Good Language Learner. Toronto: Institute for Studies in Education. Nguyen, L.T.C. and Gu, Y. (2013) Strategy-based instruction: A learner-focused approach to developing learner autonomy. Language Teaching Research 17 (1), 9–30. O’Malley, J.M. and Chamot, A.U. (1990) Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oxford, R.L. (2017) Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies: SelfRegulation in Context (2nd edn). New York: Routledge. Oxford, R.L. and Scarcella, R.C. (2001) The Tapestry of Language Learning (2nd edn). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Paris, S.G., Lipson, M.Y. and Wixson, K.K. (1983) Becoming a strategic reader. Contemporary Educational Psychology 8, 293–316. Pennycook, A. (1997) Cultural alternatives and autonomy. In P. Benson and P. Voller (eds) Autonomy and Independence in Language Learning (pp. 35–53). New York: Longman. Plonsky, L. (2011) The effectiveness of second language strategy instruction: A metaanalysis. Language Learning 61, 993–1038. Pressley, M. and Harris, K.R. (2006) Cognitive strategies instruction: From basic research to classroom instruction. In P.A. Alexander and P.H. Winne (eds) Handbook of Educational Psychology (pp. 265–286). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Pressley, M., Symons, S., Snyder, B.L. and Cariglia-Bull, T. (1989) Strategy instruction research comes of age. Learning Disability Quarterly 12 (1), 16–30. doi. org/10.2307/1510249 Rubin, J., Chamot, A.U., Harris, V. and Anderson, N.J. (2007) Intervening in the use of strategies. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 141–160). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Schneider, J. (2014) Closing the gap … between the university and schoolhouse. Phi Delta Kappan 96 (1), 30–35. doi.org/10.1177/0031721714547859 Siegel, J. (2015) Exploring Listening Strategy Instruction through Action Research. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Smith, R.C. (2003) Pedagogy for autonomy as (becoming-) appropriate methodology. In D. Palfreyman and R.C. Smith (eds) Learner Autonomy Across Cultures: Language Education Perspectives (pp. 129–146). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Swanson, H.L., Harris, K.R. and Graham, S. (eds) (2003) Handbook of Learning Disabilities. New York: Guilford Press. Weinstein, C.E., Husman, J. and Dierking, D.R. (2000) Self-regulation interventions with a focus on learning strategies. In M. Boekaerts, P.R. Pintrich and M. Zeidner (eds) Handbook of Self-Regulation (pp. 727–747). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Wong, B.Y.L., Harris, K.R., Graham, S. and Butler, D.L. (2003) Cognitive strategies instruction research in learning disabilities. In H.L. Swanson, K.R. Harris and S.  Graham (eds) Handbook of Learning Disabilities (pp. 383–402). New York: Guilford Press.

3 Diversity and Integration in Language Learning Strategy Instruction Vee Harris

Introduction

The language learning journey is unique for each of us. We travel on the road, carrying our belongings full of reasons for learning a new language and skills for coping with the challenges ahead. And we interact with the language in an equally individual way, whether it is our response to the teacher or to the environment where it is spoken. Yet some of us find the journey easier and more enjoyable than others. There is nothing new about this. Indeed, the whole area of language learner strategy (LLS) research was opened up by investigating what it was that distinguished the ‘good language learner’ from their less successful peers (Rubin, 1975). More recent studies have seen a shift away from this idealized image of the perfect learner towards recognizing the influence of such variables as age, personality type and proficiency on strategy use (see Takeuchi et al., 2007, for an overview). So it is somewhat surprising that we have not, as yet, fully considered if and how learners’ socioeconomic and sociocultural environments influence the strategies that they develop and use. One of the few studies to do so was Norton’s (2000) investigation into immigrants to Canada. This suggested that it is not enough to be a ‘good language learner’ since the sociocultural context in which learners fi nd themselves has a profound influence on their progress – in this case the unfriendly local neighbours’ response to the immigrants’ attempts to engage them in conversation. This chapter seeks to adopt a similar socioeconomic and sociocultural perspective, but by looking at how Language Learning Strategy Instruction (LLSI) can take account of the diversity in students’ backgrounds. In an exploratory discussion, it brings together fi ndings from a number of other publications with my colleague Michael Grenfell, and considers their implications for LLSI. Drawing on the work of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the fi rst part of the chapter begins by reflecting on the

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39

complex and unique connection between the learner, their background and language. It moves on to use background research to speculate about possible differences in response to LLSI according to students’ social class, gender and bilingual or monolingual status. These were investigated in a study in two London schools and its main fi ndings are summarized. The first part of the chapter concludes by going beyond the diversity of student backgrounds to briefly consider the implications for LLSI of diversity in languages, for example those with an unfamiliar script. The second part of the chapter considers the question of whether and how two different models of LLSI, discussed by Gu in the previous chapter, can be integrated. It is argued that such a move would make the most of the rich diversity of students’ social backgrounds. I make no apologies for focusing primarily, although not exclusively, on school-age pupils learning a European language. This is partly because it is simply not possible in a short chapter to do justice to a wide body of research across a range of ages and contexts. It is also where the bulk of my personal experience lies and it has, in my view, been somewhat neglected in the LLSI literature in favour of a focus on adults learning English. Part 1: Diversity in the LLSI Classroom Learners and their backgrounds

The next section focuses on how the learner’s background, gender or bilingual status may influence the strategies they develop and their response to LLSI. That is not to say that individual differences such as age, reasons for study, attainment level and personality are unimportant. Rather, it is to highlight that instead of just a cognitive process located within the mind of the individual student, learning a language is also shaped in interaction with the world around them. As Oxford and Schramm (2007) argue, it is time for LLS research to explore how a sociocultural and a psychological perspective can complement each other. Using the lens of the influential French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, offers us insights into the relationship between the learner, their language and the world in which they grow up and operate (see Grenfell, 2011, 2012, for a discussion of Bourdieu’s work). The personal characteristics of the individual’s life create the habitus. However, habitus does not exist in a vacuum; it develops within social space, composed of a number of influential fields such as education, politics, the media, etc. The language: that is picked up through social structural relationships to the world and their consequent linguistic representation cannot be value free, and identical for all. Rather that language, and that world, and those relationships, all carry values indicative of a particular representation of society as set out across the spectrum of the social hierarchy. This hierarchy is preordained to structure itself according to values inherent in such social

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characteristics as class, gender, race, and a host of regional and local microcosms. In other words, language itself always carries values, and those values will in some ways express and defi ne the linguistic profi le of any one user. (Grenfell & Harris, 2017: 41–42)

We have only to think of the social and academic advantages of a middle-class accent in England (Mahony & Zmroczek, 1997) to understand Bourdieu’s notion of capital – in this case linguistic capital. Capital refers to advantages that buy individuals position in the social hierarchy. In the fi eld of education, for example, a student’s parents may have the economic capital to afford private tuition for them and trips abroad. They may have cultural capital (regular trips to the theatre and museums) and social capital (aspirations for their children to attend university). So rather than simply being the result of some kind of innate talent, progress in language learning is significantly affected by the sociopolitical conditions that impact on a student’s ability to succeed in the education system. The STIR study

The reason for our initial interest in students’ backgrounds stemmed from the bleak state of Modern Languages (ML) teaching in Britain (see Grenfell & Harris, 2013, 2015a, for a full account). Of the many pupils opting out of language learning at the age of 14, the majority were likely to be boys (DfES, 2007) and to come from inner-city schools (Chitty, 2002). So we set up the STIR (STrategy Instruction Research) project to explore the extent to which LLSI could combat powerful factors such as social class, gender, and bilingual or monolingual status which we know impact on students’ educational achievement and motivation. A second aim was to investigate whether such factors influence the learner’s response to the LLSI; if girls respond more positively to it than boys, for example, since they are often more motivated. To date, the majority of LLSI interventions focus on overall changes in performance or strategy deployment of the class as a whole as a result of the strategy instruction. Where they do investigate differences in response, it is usually according to students’ attainment level, rather than the sociocultural factors that we were keen to explore. The project took place in two London schools with 124 pupils aged 12–13 years studying French and a control and experimental class in each school. Moreton School is located in a comfortable suburb; West School is in an area of considerable social deprivation with a large population of bilingual pupils. The experimental classes received explicit strategy instruction in reading and listening comprehension during 25 lessons over nine months; the control classes merely engaged in the same number of reading and listening activities. The impact of the LLSI was explored using pre- and post-intervention tests and questionnaires. Think alouds and interviews were conducted with 27 control and experimental students, including bilingual students.

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The following section begins by summarizing some research into individual and sociocultural differences in language learning success that informed the STIR project, reflecting on their possible weight compared to LLSI. It goes without saying that fi ndings will be different in different countries, with different age groups, and indeed according to the language being studied and the context. Nevertheless it is hoped that some of the evidence may be relevant elsewhere, as issues of social class, gender and bilingual status are likely to play a role in many educational contexts. The following cannot do justice to the wealth of studies in each research field. Indeed, one of the difficulties in adopting a sociocultural perspective to LLSI is to bridge the gaps across, for example, bilingualism, trilingualism, language and gender, and language and class, each of which has its own rich research tradition. Research background: Socioeconomic and sociocultural differences in the language learning progress

Under each of the headings below (‘social class’, for example) we discuss how that factor influences progress and also speculate as to whether it will or will not have a role to play in determining students’ response to the LLSI itself. Inevitably there is some overlap between the factors. Social class

In England, social class is still the strongest indicator of educational success (see Bynner & Joshi, 2002; Gillborn & Mirza, 2000) and, as Whitty (2012) points out, social class inequalities in education have generally been a constant feature of English education research. In America, a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute (Garcia & Weiss, 2015) suggests that social class is the single factor with the most influence on how ready to learn a child is when they fi rst walk through the school’s kindergarten door. Looking specifically at language learning, parental attitudes are likely to be influential (Bartram, 2006), as are the fi nancial resources to afford holidays in the country whose language is being studied. So, in relation to their possible response to LLSI, we might speculate that school pupils from a middle- or upper-class background are likely to be more motivated than their less privileged peers to study French or Spanish and therefore more likely to see the relevance of the LLSI as an important source of support. In Bourdieusian terms, we could think of them as having greater economic and cultural capital. Bilingualism

In England, as in the United States, bilingual learners have been considered problematic for the ‘special needs’ they represent since their home language was thought to interfere with the development of English and thus restrict their access to the curriculum. Uncovering the reasons for

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some groups’ underperformance is particularly complex. The studies above by Gillborn and Mirza (2000) and Bynner and Joshi (2002) both show that there is considerable variation in educational achievement between ethnic groups which can largely be attributed to relative social status. In relation to language learning, there is a growing body of evidence that bilingualism facilitates the acquisition of a third language (see Jessner, 2008, for an overview of current fi ndings). There is some suggestion that this is because bilinguals have already developed useful approaches for tackling another language such as heightened metalinguistic awareness and flexibility of thought (Hamers & Blanc, 2000). However, such observations remain rather vague and the strategies themselves have not been identified in any detail. Nor have the features of the home environment that foster them been investigated, so we neither know which specific strategies bilingual learners are more likely to develop nor why. Yet it seems unlikely that bilinguals’ advantageous approach to learning languages is innate or developed in a sociocultural vacuum. And in terms of their response to LLSI, do bilingual students make more progress than their monolingual classmates because, as the research suggests, they have already developed some strategies? Or, for that very reason, do they perceive the LLSI as an unnecessary ‘waste of time’? Gender

Turning to gender, without wishing to stereotype, it is nevertheless clear that the last 20 years have witnessed an increasing preoccupation with the educational underachievement of certain groups of boys in England (Rodiero, 2009), Australia (Carr & Pauwels, 2005), Canada (Kissau, 2006) and four Asia-Pacific countries (UNGEI, 2012). In relation specifically to language learning, Murphy (2010) notes how boys’ underachievement appears to be more marked in the language and literacy areas and there is some indication that women make greater use of social, communicative and interactional strategies than some men (see Takeuchi et al., 2007, for an overview). This would certainly be in line with studies into the way men and women differ in their use of the L1. These suggest that men use language more for the instrumental purpose of conveying information whereas for women it is for social purposes with verbal communication serving as an end in itself (see, for example, Brownlow et al., 2003; Colley et al., 2004). Just as bilingual learners’ strategies do not develop in a sociocultural vacuum, we could speculate that women’s mediating, collaborative role within the home and the workplace (see, for example, Kuhn & Villeval, 2013; Tannen, 1994; Weatherall, 2002) shapes the development of these interactional strategies that they share. To date, studies have not investigated at what age some boys’ disenchantment with learning a new language begins, nor whether LLSI can

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contribute to reversing the process. It could be argued that, given girls tend to be the more successful language learners, they might be more motivated and so more receptive to LLSI. On the other hand, as I have suggested elsewhere (Harris et al., 2001), high attainers of either gender can become complacent, believing that their existing use of strategies already guarantees them success. A further possibility is that boys, in particular, might benefit from the LLSI, given the fi ndings from a study by Jones and Jones (2001) which indicates that boys value explicit discussion of what and why they are learning and how to tackle it. So it simply is not clear if there are gender differences in response to LLSI nor at what point they start. These, then, were the questions the small-scale STIR study sought to examine: (1) What is the impact of LLSI relative to social class, gender and bilingual status? (2) Within the group exposed to LLSI, what role do such factors play, if any? An unexpected fi nding from the study was how bilingual students’ strategies are shaped by their environment and this, along with the other fi ndings, is now summarized. Findings from the STIR study Quantitative

It was encouraging to fi nd that all the students in the experimental classes, regardless of their background, benefited from the LLSI, the intervention being a small but significant factor in contributing to progress both in listening and reading comprehension (Harris, 2007). As is often the case in England, the attitudes of all the students towards their language learning were already declining at the end of their second year of language learning. However, the attitudes of students in the experimental classes were less likely to become negative than those in the control classes, regardless of their socioeconomic background, gender or bilingual status. Nor did a more privileged social background with holidays abroad mean that students in the experimental classes at Moreton School were more receptive to the LLSI. Furthermore, at this early stage in their language learning, both boys and girls and bilingual and monolingual students appeared equally receptive to the LLSI. There appears, then, to be all to play for in incorporating LLSI into the curriculum from the outset, since it may be able to reverse the downward trend for school-age pupils, and particularly boys, in learning an ML in England. Finally, although there was no difference in responsiveness to the LLSI in terms of bilingual and monolingual pupils, bilingual pupils across the control and experimental classes made greater progress in their listening comprehension. In the next

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section, we examine the social context that perhaps is responsible for fostering the development of their listening strategies. Qualitative

Although interesting fi ndings emerged in terms of affective strategies (Grenfell & Harris, 2017), the focus here is on the bilingual pupils’ greater listening progress and what it is about their backgrounds that facilitated it. Purdie and Oliver concluded from their study of nine- to 12-year-old students in Australia, with a home language alongside English, that: the home environment is important in helping students to develop a strategic approach to second language learning and in feeling positive about their ability to be successful second language learners. (Purdie & Oliver, 1999: 382)

They did not, however, identify the specific features of the home environment that foster the development of individual strategies: the context in which their habitus changed and grew. The qualitative data from the bilingual pupils in our study (Grenfell & Harris, 2015a) gave us some insight into this. For example, they become adept at inferring meanings since, unlike their monolingual peers, they are regularly faced with unfamiliar words used by their parents and extended family members. The ability to tolerate uncertainty appears to be a further feature of bilingual students such as Yetunde (Harris, 2004). Because she understands English better than Yoruba and since her mother frequently code-switches between the two languages within one sentence, Yetunde simply waits until her mother reverts to English and then uses the context to work out the meaning of any unfamiliar Yoruba words. In spite of these advantages, the bilingual students in the STIR study had different attitudes to their linguistic and cultural capital. Cummins (2001, 2005) has pointed out that school ethos can impact positively or negatively on students’ perception of their bilingualism, and school is a key social space in which they operate. One Vietnamese student almost disowned his bilingual identity in his concern to excel in the literacy skills in English that would facilitate his entrance to university. Reflecting on the implications for LLSI, it may be important to exploit the rich language learning experiences bilingual students can bring to their monolingual peers and in the process to raise their status. A further interesting avenue to pursue is if there are implications for LLSI on the concept of ‘intersectionality’ – that is to say, the way social identities such as gender, race and class intersect as reciprocally constructing phenomena (Hill Collins & Bilge, 2016). Mitits and Gavriilidou (2016), for example, found that multilingual adolescent girls reported higher frequency of strategy use than multilingual boys and speculated as to the reasons. I will discuss shortly in more detail ways of exploiting the

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rich diversity of students’ backgrounds. The discussion of diversity is not complete, however, without considering how LLSI can take into account diversity in the languages to be learned. If we are considering everything that makes up a student’s linguistic capital, we must include the script of the language with which they are familiar. Learning a language with a Roman script is a very different proposition for a student whose L1 is English from one who is only literate in a language like Urdu or Korean with a very different script. A short chapter such as this cannot cover all the consequences of language diversity for LLSI, but in a study based in a different London school (Grenfell & Harris, 2015b), we explored how LLSI could be adapted to take account of the strategies monolingual English-speaking students use to memorize the characters of Mandarin Chinese. Of particular relevance for the second part of this chapter is a fi nding by Wang and Leland (2011) that learners believed that practising characters through cooperative learning was particularly effective. The value of working together will be the key theme when we move on to consider the integration of models of LLSI. To summarize this fi rst part of the chapter, we have suggested that strategies do not develop in a sociocultural and socioeconomic vacuum but are fostered by the home environment and beyond – whether bilingual students’ listening strategies or women’s interactive and collaborative strategies. We have speculated that introducing LLSI early on in students’ language learning careers might be beneficial in terms of preventing the development of negative attitudes later, for example from some boys or from some students whose background means that they have less cultural and economic capital than their more privileged peers. We have also indicated that LLSI should be adapted to take account of languages with an unfamiliar script. How it might be adapted to exploit the rich diversity of students’ sociocultural and socioeconomic’ capital is just as complex a matter, as we shall see. Part 2: Integrating Models of LLSI

In Chapter 2, Gu contrasts the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) with the Strategic Content Learning (SCL) model outlined by Butler (2002) to foster self-regulated learning across the curriculum. Whereas CALLA is ‘top-down’ with the teacher often selecting the strategies to be taught, SCL is a ‘bottom-up’ approach where teacher and learners collaborate in joint problem solving to identify the demands of the task and the most appropriate strategies to meet them. This is in line with the strategic classroom described by Coyle in Chapter 4. While SCL is valuable in the way it develops organically and is constantly responsive to the learners, it might be daunting for a teacher new to LLSI, who may be more comfortable with the step-by-step organization of the CALLA framework. I want to propose that it may be more a

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question of emphasis than contrast between the two models and that they can be integrated to the benefit of all the students in our classrooms. Butler explains how SCL instructional principles seek to integrate constructivist and sociocultural theories. It could be argued that CALLA already incorporates constructivist principles such as the emphasis on activating prior knowledge in the awareness-raising phase. There are, however, four features in SCL that, although perhaps already present in CALLA, are highlighted in SCL and which, if they were given a more prominent place in CALLA, would heighten the emphasis on learning as a social rather than an individual process and the student as a self-directional, reflective, autonomous learner. The first and perhaps most significant aspect of SCL for us is the value placed on collaboration both with peers and with the teacher. As Butler explains: teachers and students connect to create learning opportunities when they establish a common context and language for shared experiences (e.g. working collaboratively to complete a common task). (Butler, 2002: 85)

Although not ignored in CALLA and indeed underlined in Grenfell and Harris (1999), pair and group collaboration has recently been given additional recognition for its value in providing students with greater control of their learning. In addition to SCL, L1 research has witnessed a growing interest in Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) for students with reading difficulties (see Karabuga & Kaya, 2013; Klingner et  al., 2012; Koukourikou et al., 2017). And in L2, Naughton (2006) describes how LLSI in cooperative strategies enhances interactional sequences. How then can this first feature of collaboration be used to integrate CALLA and SCL and to foster self-regulated learning? At each CALLA phase, students could work together first, getting as far as they can independently and then entering into dialogue with the teacher. This gives the teacher a far clearer picture of the students’ strengths and difficulties, frees them up to offer individual or group support and promotes the development of the students’ independence and sense of self-efficacy. It also makes it possible, as we shall see, for different groups of students to share their strengths according to their backgrounds. It is interesting that whereas there is a rich tradition of studying the interaction between learners in terms of their linguistic development, we know relatively little about their interaction when students share and discuss strategies in mixed gender and sociocultural groupings. Table 3.1 summarizes three other features of SCL which enable learners to become increasingly self-directional by planning, monitoring and assessing their own learning. They are set out alongside the CALLA phases and we discuss below the potential benefits of student collaboration at each stage. The second significant feature of SCL for us is that learners are encouraged to identify their goals for themselves as part of raising

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awareness of their own learning (see also Rubin & Acero Rios, this volume). Holliday (2003) warns teachers against imposing an imperialist LLSI based on their own values and aims. Mixed learner groupings to discuss goals from the outset may help avert this and provide an opportunity to address negative attitudes. For example, recent conclusions by the Psycholinguistics Research Group at the University of York have found that the social relevance of learning a language is vital for sustaining motivation (Ravazi, 2014). Mixed gender groupings may allow women to share how verbal interaction can be an end in itself, rather than for instrumental purposes. It would be interesting to know what bilinguals bring to such a discussion since they too may readily perceive the social benefits of language learning. The third feature of SCL is the emphasis on enabling students to identify exactly what the task requires them to do, which strategies will help them and crucially what they themselves think are the criteria for successful performance of the task. Of course, this does not preclude a follow-up discussion with the teacher about the demands of any examination students have to prepare for. However, understanding what is involved in a task gives the learner ownership, facilitates transfer to other tasks and allows them to see why it might be valuable to learn how to use certain unfamiliar strategies if they are to meet their own criteria. If Jones and Jones (2001) are right, boys in particular may benefit from making criteria explicit. Discussing task demands and criteria in mixed groupings also means that the students themselves rather than the teacher can model unfamiliar strategies. For example, bilingual students can come into their own in terms of modelling listening strategies and perhaps women can contribute in terms of their greater awareness of communication strategies. Students are more likely to be convinced by their peers of the value of a strategy than if they feel it is imposed by the teacher. The organization and make-up of pairs and groups in the classroom during the practice phase provides further opportunities for sharing approaches. The sense of panic many monolingual students experience when faced with a listening comprehension activity could be lessened by working alongside a bilingual student who is better at tolerating uncertainty and more skilled at inferencing. In terms of a language with a different script such as Mandarin Chinese, even though they may not be Table 3.1 CALLA phases matched to SCL features CALLA phases

SCL features. Student collaboration in:

Raising awareness

Goal setting

Modelling

Identifying task demands, criteria and strategies needed

Practice

Shared approaches to task

Evaluation and transfer

Compare outcomes to criteria and feedback on strategy use

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biliterate, many bilingual students are already used to seeing unfamiliar writing through movies, food packaging and the like. For a speaking task, risk takers who are prepared to ‘have a go’ can be paired with perfectionists who tend to be held back by their anxiety about making grammatical mistakes. CSR offers a particularly helpful approach to the practice phase as students work in small groups with each member assigned a particular role, including responsibility for the implementation of a particular strategy, so that they learn to select and orchestrate strategies properly (Hedgcock & Ferris, 2009). Other roles include an ‘announcer’ who ensures that everyone participates and only one person talks at a time, and an ‘encourager’ who evaluates how well the group has worked together and gives suggestions for improvement (Klingner & Vaughn, 1998). The fi nal SCL feature relates to the CALLA phase of evaluation. Macaro in Chapter 5 argues for the importance of detailed teacher feedback task by task so that students understand how using more effective strategies can help them improve their performance, preventing a downward spiral of anxiety in relation to the language learning process. Coyle, however, provides several examples in the next chapter of how such feedback can come from peers, too, so that prior to any discussion with the teacher, students compare their performance to the criteria they have identified. Taking responsibility for assessing for themselves the strengths and weaknesses of their work may be particularly helpful for boys. Graham (1998) suggests that boys may be more likely than girls to attribute their success or failure to factors outside their control such as lack of ability, and consequently give up. They may be more inclined to persist if they understand that it is more a matter of knowing which strategies can help overcome their problems. In a sense, these three features of learners selecting their own goals and strategies, identifying task demands and criteria and assessing their own performance simply reflect the metacognitive strategies of planning and evaluating learning that CALLA has always aimed to develop over time. However, if the two models of CALLA and SCL are integrated, then from the outset students can be offered opportunities to work with their peers to share their own ideas for goals, strategies and criteria before negotiating them with their teacher. Such a proposal assumes that students know how to collaborate. As long ago as 1990, O’Malley and Chamot described ‘co-operation’ as: working together with one or more peers to solve a problem, pool information, check a learning task, model a language activity or get feedback on oral or written performance. (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990: 120, italics added)

Yet, like affective strategies, LLSI in collaborative strategies has been somewhat neglected to date, even though working together productively is crucial in today’s pluricultural workplace. I outlined some initial ideas

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in Harris (1992), but it may be time to explore in greater depth how LLSI can draw on CSR to foster the growth of such strategies. Conclusion

Learner strategy research has come a long way. From simply investigating what characterizes the ‘good language learner’, we moved on to explore how LLSI can allow us to share such strategies with their less successful peers. The CALLA model provided an important framework, but if LLSI is constantly to evolve it needs to draw on research from other sources. First, studies into bilingualism or into language and gender, for example, can offer insights into students’ socioeconomic and sociocultural backgrounds and the particular strategies they can share. Secondly, research into L1 strategy instruction encourages a more learner-centred, ‘bottom-up’ approach. I have suggested that merging CALLA and SCL has several advantages. For teachers new to LLSI, it retains a reassuring organizational framework but still shifts the emphasis towards greater student ownership. And just as importantly, it draws on the rich resources students bring to the classroom. Students embark on their language learning journey with their own unique personal characteristics and background. It is for us to adapt our LLSI to give them a sense that they can achieve and the tools to do so. This is very much an exploratory chapter and some possible focal points for further studies are suggested below. Research Questions

(1) As students progress in their language learning, are differences more apparent in response to LLSI according to their gender, socioeconomic background, and bilingual and monolingual status? Does the way these factors ‘intersect’ impact on strategy use? (2) How can activities and materials for LLSI be adapted to make the most of the diversity of students’ socioeconomic and sociocultural backgrounds? (3) What is the nature of the interaction when students work together in mixed groupings to share strategies? (4) How can LLSI foster the development of collaborative strategies?

Acknowledgements

The STIR project would not have been possible without the invaluable insights and creative ideas of the teachers involved: Maureen Barnshaw, Sue Pritchard, Jennie Prescott and Kate Scappaticci. I am also indebted to Mike Griffiths, Goldsmiths London University, for his considerable expertise in the field of statistics.

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References Bartram, B. (2006) An examination of perceptions of parental influence on attitudes to language learning. Educational Research 48 (2), 211–221. Brownlow, S., Rosamon, J.A. and Parker, J.A. (2003) Gender-linked linguistic behavior in television interviews. Sex Roles 49, 121–132. Butler, D.L. (2002) Individualizing instruction in self-regulated learning. Theory Into Practice 41 (2), 81–92. Bynner, J. and Joshi, H. (2002) Equality and opportunity in education: Evidence from the 1958 and 1970 birth cohort studies. Oxford Review of Education 28 (4), 405–425. Carr, J. and Pauwels, A. (2005) Boys and Foreign Language Learning: Real Boys Don’t do Languages. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Chitty, C. (2002) The inclusive curriculum: An education for the benefit of all young people? Forum 44 (3), 99–102. Colley, A., Todd, Z., Bland, M., Holmes, M., Khanom, M. and Pike, H. (2004) Style and content in emails and letters to male and female friends. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 23, 369–378. Cummins, J. (2001) Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment in a Diverse Society (2nd edn). Ontario, CA: California Association for Bilingual Education; Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books. Cummins, J. (2005) A proposal for action: Strategies for recognizing heritage language competence as a learning resource within the mainstream classroom. The Modern Language Journal 89, 585–592. DfES (Department for Education and Skills) (2007) Gender in Education: The Evidence on Pupils in England. London: HMSO. Garcia, E. and Weiss, E. (2015) Early Education Gaps by Social Class and Race Start U.S. Children out on Unequal Footing: A Summary of the Major Findings in Inequalities at the Starting Gate. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute. See http://www.epi. org/publication/early-education-gaps-by-social-class-and-race-start-u-s-children-outon-unequal-footing-a-summary-of-the-major-fi ndings-in-inequalities-at-the-startinggate/ (accessed 4 December 2016). Gillborn, D. and Mirza, H.S. (2000) Educational Inequality: Mapping Race, Class and Gender. London: Ofsted. See www.ofsted.gov.uk (accessed 6 December 2016). Graham, S. (1998) Effective Language Learning: Positive Strategies for Advanced Language Learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Grenfell, M. (2011) Bourdieu, Language and Linguistics. London: Bloomsbury. Grenfell, M. (2012) Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts (2nd edn). Stockfield: Acumen. Grenfell, M. and Harris, V. (1999) Modern Languages and Learning Strategies in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Grenfell, M. and Harris, V. (2013) Making a difference in language learning: The role of sociocultural factors and learner strategy instruction. Curriculum Journal 24, 121–152. Grenfell, M and Harris, V (2015a) Learning a third language: What strategies do bilingual students bring? Journal of Curriculum Studies 47 (4), 553–576. Grenfell, M. and Harris, V. (2015b) Memorisation strategies and the adolescent learner of Mandarin Chinese as a foreign language. Linguistics and Education 31, 1–13. Grenfell, M. and Harris, V. (2017) Language Learner Strategies: Contexts, Issues and Applications in Second Language Learning and Teaching. London: Bloomsbury. Hamers, J. and Blanc, M. (2000) Bilinguality and Bilingualism (2nd edn). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harris, V. (1992) Fair Enough: Equal Opportunities and Modern Languages. London: Centre for Information on Language Teaching (CILT). Harris, V. (2004) Language learning strategies: A case for cross-curricular collaboration. Paper presented at American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Conference, San Diego, CA, 12–17 April.

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Harris, V. (2007) Exploring progression: Reading and listening strategy instruction with near-beginner learners of French. Language Learning Journal 35 (2), 189–204. Harris, V., with Ingvadottir, H., Jones, B., Neuburg, R., Palos, I. and Schindler, I. (2001) Helping Learners Learn: Exploring Strategy Instruction in Languages Classrooms across Europe. Graz: European Council for Modern Languages. Hedgcock, J.S. and Ferris, D.R. (2009) Teaching Readers of English: Students, Texts, and Contexts. New York: Routledge. Hill Collins, P. and Bilge, S. (2016) Intersectionality. Cambridge: Polity Press. Holliday, A. (2003) Social autonomy: Addressing the dangers of culturalism in TESOL. In D. Palfreyman and R. Smith (eds) Learner Autonomy across Cultures (pp. 110– 126). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Jessner, U. (2008) Teaching third languages: Findings, trends and challenges. Language Teaching 41 (1), 15–56. Jones, J. and Jones, G. (2001) Boys’ Performance in Modern Foreign Languages: Listening to Learners. London: CILT. Karabuga, F. and Kaya, E.S. (2013) Collaborative strategic reading practice with adult EFL learners: A collaborative and reflective approach to reading. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 106, 621–630. Kissau, S. (2006) Gender differences in motivation to learn French. Canadian Modern Languages Review 62 (3), 401–422. Klingner, J.K. and Vaughn, S. (1998) Reading Rockets: Using Collaborative Strategic Reading. See https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237520752 _Using _ Collaborative_Strategic_Reading (accessed 15 November 2017). Klingner, J.K., Vaughn, S., Boardman, A. and Swanson, E. (2012) Now We Get It! Boosting Comprehension with Collaborative Strategic Reading. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Koukourikou, M., Manoli, P. and Griva, E. (2017) Explicit collaborative reading strategy instruction: A pilot intervention in the EFL context. Paper presented at the Second International Conference on Situating Strategy Use, Komotini, Greece, 28–30 September. Kuhn, P. and Villeval, M. (2013) Are Women More Attracted to Co-operation than Men? Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Mahony, P. and Zmroczek, C. (eds) (1997) Class Matters: ‘Working-Class’ Women’s Perspectives on Social Class. London: Taylor & Francis. Mitits, L. and Gavriilidou, Z. (2016) Exploring language learning transfer between Greek L2 and English FL in case of early adolescent multilinguals. International Journal of Multilingualism 13 (3), 292–314. Murphy, B. (2010) Foreign language learning in Irish second level schools: Gender very much on the agenda! Irish Educational Studies 29 (1), 81–95. Naughton, D. (2006) Cooperative strategy training and oral interaction: Enhancing small group communication in the language classroom. The Modern Language Journal 90 (2), 169–184. Norton, B. (2000) Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change. London: Longman/Pearson Education. O’Malley, J.M. and Chamot, A.U. (1990) Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oxford, R.L. and Schramm, K. (2007) Bridging the gap between psychological and sociocultural perspectives on L2 learner strategies. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 47–68). Oxford: Blackwell. Purdie, N. and Oliver, R. (1999) Language learning strategies used by bilingual schoolaged children. System 27 (3), 375–388. Ravazi, L. (2014) Language learning: What motivates us? The Guardian, 19 March. See https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/mar/19/language-learning-motivationbrain-teaching (accessed 10 February 2015).

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Rodeiro, C.L.V. (2009) Some Issues on the Uptake of Modern Foreign Languages at GCSE. Statistics Report Series 10. Cambridge: Cambridge Assessment. Rubin, J (1975) What the ‘good language learner’ can teach us. TESOL Quarterly 9, 41–51. Takeuchi, O., Griffiths, C. and Coyle, D. (2007) Applying strategies to contexts: The role of individual, situational and group differences. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 69–92). Oxford: Blackwell. Tannen, D. (1994) Gender and Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. UNGEI (United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative) (2012) Why are Boys Underperforming in Education: Gender Analysis of Four Asia-Pacifi c Countries. See https://www.unicef.org/eapro/report_why_are_boys_underperforming_FINAL.pdf (accessed 15 June 2015). Wang, J. and Leland, C.H. (2011) Beginning students’ perceptions of effective activities of Chinese character recognition. Reading in a Foreign Language 23 (2), 208–224. Weatherall, A. (2002) Gender, Language and Discourse. Hove: Routledge. Whitty, G. (2012) A life with the sociology of education. British Journal of Educational Studies 60 (1), 65–75.

4 Designing Strategic Classrooms: Selfassessment in Enabling Self-regulated Learning Do Coyle

Shifting Contexts for Learning

The past two decades have brought with them significant shifts in educational contexts on a global scale which involve complex sociocultural, economic, technological, political and pedagogic phenomena. Classrooms have irreversibly changed in terms of the nature of learners, their linguistic profiles and cultural roots and the social and economic goals identified by governments. Measuring what is learned in ways that allow for global comparisons has led to a predominance of prescriptive attitudes and procedures for the assessment of learners’ progress which guide national policies, define professional development and dominate school practices (Black & Wiliam, 2009; Broadfoot, 2008). At the same time, alternative ways of seeing the world are increasingly challenging neoliberal interpretations of the demands of 21st century education and the future needs of young citizens. It is not by chance that policies for more integrated approaches to transdisciplinary curricula are emerging. Finland’s phenomenon-based learning, for example, sets out to break curricular boundaries by enabling students to experience holistic real-world phenomena in real-world contexts. Learners are actively involved not only in the selection, planning and studying of such topics as climate change, but also in the assessment of their own learning – all of which are fundamental to developing a creative, problem-solving, selfregulated learning community. Increasingly, interest in other ‘alternative’ approaches such as task-based learning and interdisciplinary enquiry-based learning is gaining momentum, founded on the premise that building learner–teacher ‘partnerships’ (Fullan & Langworthy, 2014) and ‘connectedness’ (Stoll & Louis, 2007) are fundamental. Yet these require significant pedagogic change for teachers to enable learners to ‘become their own teachers’ (Hattie, 2012: 2). From this perspective, the successful achievement of 53

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learning goals is not conceptualized as the product of learning but as an evolving process which prioritizes learners in regulating their own learning. The importance of learners monitoring, reflecting on and articulating their learning through goal setting, activating transparent indicators for success and engaging in self-assessment has been emphasized for several decades in the field of language learning (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990). Building on Holec’s (1981: 3) seminal defi nition of learner autonomy in language learning, namely, ‘To take charge of one’s learning is to have […] the responsibility for all the decisions concerning all aspects of this learning’, the strategy movement for language learning emphasizes the need for learners to develop cognitive and metacognitive strategies for planning, monitoring and evaluating their learning. However, the role of selfassessment within the processes of self-regulated learning has been somewhat neglected. A word of caution here: there are many examples of planning and assessing learning which involve target setting each lesson based on a range of learning outcomes displayed by the teacher on a board against which learners are meant to check their progress at the end of each lesson. This is a top-down measure which is time consuming and is seldom ‘owned’ by or meaningful for learners. Neither am I referring to the add-on elements which typically come at the end of a unit of work to assess the individual performance of teacher-directed goals. Rather, my focus is on how learners can be effectively and appropriately empowered to engage in developing and adapting their environment and behaviours to become increasingly self-directional by planning, supporting, regulating, monitoring and assessing their own learning (Osamu et al., 2007). A great deal has been written and researched over decades which details the role of so-called ‘self-directional skills’ and their impact on learning in general and language learning in particular. It is not my intention to go over such well-documented and at times contentious ground. However, in 2010 Gu called for new questions to be posed concerning learner involvement and the way strategies can influence learning ability and proficiency, as well as learner identity as a self-initiating, reflective, responsible social agent. I shall respond to Gu’s call by selecting and focusing on interrelated strands which, given the complexities of learning contexts, I believe are fundamental for generating new insights into the growth of more holistic learner-oriented ‘self-directional’ skills in plurilingual language-rich settings. Three ‘alternative’ questions which impact on self-directional skills can be framed as follows: • • •

How can ‘strategic’ learning spaces develop self-monitoring and self-assessment? What is the nature and role of dialogic episodes for learning in that process? How can task design for progression support learner–teacher partnerships?

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Strategic Learning Spaces

The National Research Council’s (2012) report Learning for the 21st Century identifies three broad areas of learning-related skills needed by learners: information and communication skills, thinking and problemsolving, and interpersonal and self-directional skills. As an umbrella term, self-direction is the ability to set one’s own learning goals, plan for the achievement of those goals in appropriately social, cognitive and metacognitive ways, independently manage time and effort and assess the quality of the outcomes. Self-directional skills include agency, self-regulation and self-efficacy. Lantolf and Pevlenko (2001: 145) remind us that learners are individuals with human agency who ‘actively engage in constructing the terms and conditions of their learning’. However, active engagement requires self-regulation – the multidimensional processes through which ‘learners direct their efforts, thoughts and feelings towards the attainment of their personal goals’ (Brown, 2009: 57). The development of self-directed learning is well known in languageoriented contexts. For example, in the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) approach to self-regulated learning (Chamot, 2009), developing metacognitive strategies requires learners to increasingly understand how to self-manage their own learning in socially supportive contexts alongside their teachers and peers. I would argue that to do so requires the co-creation of strategic learning spaces, where learners and teachers work in partnership to enable successful learning to take place (Fullan & Langworthy, 2014). These spaces are ‘owned’ and valued by the learners themselves (Claxton et al., 2011). They involve both learners and teachers in co-constructing learning goals, developing transparent and shared recognition of the extent to which those goals are achieved and acknowledging how enhancing learning for further development might be accomplished. Such ‘plurilingual’ spaces, where language and languages are used and learned, do not just happen. From an ecological perspective, they evolve over time, designed and guided by both the teachers and learners who inhabit them. In other words, they are spaces which seek to enhance the ‘quality of learning opportunities, of classroom interaction and educational experiences’ (van Lier, 2010: 3), where cultural norms are based on the premise that the social and individual processes involved in learning are interdependent, rather than separate, and the development of self- directional skills is fundamental (Coyle, 2013). There are four key components which, taken together, represent the processes involved in creating strategic spaces. I have represented these in Figure 4.1. In this chapter, the focus is mainly on the fi rst three components for learner involvement and self-direction – goal-orientation, taskorientation, progression and refi ning learning – although some reference will be made to making connections.

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Figure 4.1 Integrated processes involved in growing strategic spaces for selfregulated learning

Explicit strategies for encouraging self-regulation associated with ‘goal-orientation’ and ‘task-orientation’ can be encouraged, taught and learned, adapted and refi ned. They are accessible and open to reflection and subsequent modifi cation (to build progression). This means they can be used deliberately and purposefully and thus become part of a learner’s repertoire (Schmenk, 2009: 84). If strategies are those activities ‘consciously chosen by learners for the purpose of regulating their own language learning’ (Cohen, 1998: 70), then self-monitoring as a contributor to self-regulation involves self-assessment and the development of ways of knowing, doing and being which enable learners ‘to take control of the language learning process’ (Cohen, 1998: 70). It might be helpful here to briefly diff erentiate between self-monitoring and selfassessment. According to Eva and Regehr (2010), self-assessment is more of a cumulative evaluation of overall learning, whereas selfmonitoring is learning ‘in the moment’. Similarly, Wilson and Conyers (2016) defi ne self-monitoring as the ‘ability to track one’s thoughts and actions in learning’, using a range of questions such as How well do I understand this task? What more do I need to learn? How does this new knowledge fit with what I already know? Self-assessment triggers could include Is this what I am satisfi ed with? How useful is the feedback I got from my friend? How does this compare to what I thought I might achieve? What might help me in the future with such tasks?, with a focus on self-efficacy so that peers and the teacher encourage positive

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beliefs and a commitment to realizing task assessment in benefi cial ways. Thus, a strategic classroom is one where learners develop a range of strategies and self-directed skills which enable them to expect to, and indeed actively participate in, their learning. While it could be argued that such participation is part of any learning, what is less familiar is the extent of self-direction by learners. The ELICIT study (Coyle, 2012) reported that strategic behaviour grows out of the culture of the learning context where: Individuals share goals, where strategic learning both implicit and explicit is created by and with members of the group so that the social context supports effective learning on an inter- and intra-personal level. (Coyle, 2007)

In other words, the study highlighted the role of explicit strategy instruction involving spontaneous and planned learning conversations between teachers and learners. This raises the question about how such skills can be encouraged and refi ned over time. Mediation is not a prescribed set of processes and procedures but a ‘dynamic process’ (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014: 172) which is non-linear, unpredictable, and which involves different learners (and teachers) and different resources at different times. After all, monitoring learning is neither sequential nor temporal. However, for these skills to be developed and strategic actions to become regularized, a significant reconceptualization of the ‘ownership’ of learning needs to develop, so that teaching shifts from a focus on covering the syllabus within given curricula to enabling learners to lead their own learning and do things with that learning. The ‘new pedagogies’ (Fullan & Langworthy, 2014) suggest the teacher’s role demands ‘sophisticated pedagogic capacities’, using a range of teaching strategies and continuous evaluation of student learning so that ‘everyone becomes a teacher in the new pedagogies and everyone becomes a learner’ (Fullan & Langworthy, 2014: 8). The role of teacher as ‘facilitator’ of learning is not enough. Instead, the teacher has to take ‘a highly proactive role in driving the learning process forward’ (Fullan & Langworthy, 2014: 20) and together with learners become ‘activators’ of learning. Drawing on the work of Hattie (2012), Fullan and Langworthy (2014) summarize this as follows: Teachers who play dynamic, interactive roles with students – pushing [them] to clearly define their own learning goals, helping them gain the learning muscle to effectively pursue those goals and supporting them in monitoring how they are doing in achieving those goals – have extremely strong impacts on their students’ learning. (Fullan & Langworthy, 2014: 20)

From this perspective, the concept of ‘strategic instruction’ changes to ‘strategic interaction’ determined by the learning spaces, goals, learner aspirations and interactivity.

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I would argue that self-assessment and the associated strategies that underpin it have not received enough attention in language learning strategies (LLS) research given its critical role in self-directed learning. While the role of assessment is often highlighted in curriculum reform, little attention is paid to enabling leaners to choose their own goals rather than working with those provided by the teacher (see also Rubin & Acero Rios, this volume). Supporting learners to engage in goal setting also involves them in understanding and contributing to the range of success criteria they can use to benchmark their achievements and provide and respond to feedback. By monitoring and reflecting on their own and their peers’ learning, they can redefi ne their goals and choose appropriate tasks and activities to enable them to optimize their progress. Such a complex development process – easy to say but difficult to achieve – requires teachers to engage in strategic short-term and longer term planning to teach students how to appropriately select and construct goals, criteria and tasks, to develop increasingly more self-monitoring opportunities and to explicitly make visible the kinds of learner strategies that will encourage this growth and progression over time. A one-year study in Switzerland (Taveau, 2018) with a mixed ability class of 12-year-old learners of French as a foreign language explored the use of student learning logs to encourage self-monitoring and self-assessment during topic work. Together with their teacher, learners co-constructed rubrics to build a shared understanding of what successful creative literary texts look like through an analysis of model texts – thereby developing an explicit understanding of goal-orientation. The learning principles upon which the student log is based resonates with Butler’s (2002: 9) notion of Strategic Content Learning (SCL) for self-regulation, discussed by Gu, which involves engaging students in iterative cycles of task analysis, strategy development and monitoring. The topic selected by the teacher and learners does not feature on regular grammar-oriented language curricula for 12-year-old learners who only have limited levels of French – Introduction à la literature gothique (Introduction to gothic literature). The learning goal was to extend second language (L2) literacy skills by constructing an evocative written narrative text describing a ‘gothic landscape’. So how did the learners eventually manage to create texts using relatively sophisticated language typical of learners two years in advance? They engaged in: constant clarification and discussion of shared learning goals and success criteria (goal-orientation); peer- and self-monitoring and assessing of various drafts (task-orientation and progression); assessing fi nal learning outputs through self, peer and collaborative assessment; and fi nally evaluating the learning episode by making connections between their own writing and other more current stories. Figure 4.2 provides an illustration of a prioritization activity used to negotiate goals and success criteria. Students worked in groups of three to order into a diamond shape ‘good’ text ideas

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Figure 4.2 A Diamond Nine format for negotiating and prioritizing

which evoked ‘darkness’ and ‘fear’ according to the most and least popular ideas, with the most popular in Positions 1 and 2. Grammatical functions were ‘made visible’, discussed and practised involving increasingly sophisticated and confident versions of individual stories being read and commented on by peers and the teacher and prompted by the question: How can we make this better? Text construction started with two simple sentences describing a gothic scene, progressing by Draft 6 to the use of grammatical features (not yet covered by the traditional syllabus) such as the imperfect tense and adjectives. The fi nal version (Draft 10) contained over 200 words composed by individuals with guidance from their teacher (often explaining the appropriate form) and peers (referring to exemplar texts which they agreed contained creative, evocative features they wished not only to model but personalize). Below is an illustration charting progression in student understanding of drafting literary text. • •

Draft 1 : Il y a un arbre. Il y a une maison. [There is a tree. There is a house.] Draft 6 : On remarquait un arbre solitaire et mort et le hululement d’une chouette brisait le silence de la nuit. [We noticed one solitary dead tree and the hooting of an owl broke the silence of the night.]

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•

Draft 10 (the full text was 200 words long and included the sentence above): Derrière l’arbre, au deuxième plan à l’est, on remarquait une maison qui avait l’air d’être hantée et on sentait l’odeur du bois pourri. [Behind the tree, further away towards the East, we could see a house which looked haunted and we could smell the odour of rotten wood.]

Key in this task sequence was drafting and redrafting, which promoted confidence and enjoyment. Moreover, the constant determination to draft and redraft as an ‘expected’ part of learning was embedded in supportive dialogue by peers and the teacher. Dialogic Episodes

The critical role of classroom dialogue for learning in a wide range of contexts is well documented (Alexander, 2014; Coyle, 2012; Llinares & Whittaker, 2010; Swain, 2006; Wells, 2009). In this section, I wish to focus on the kind of dialogic episodes required in plurilingual and language learning contexts which enable learners to develop self-monitoring and self-assessment strategies for learning. When learners monitor and assess their learning and refi ne pathways for further improvements, they engage in metacognitive discourse which enables them to talk about their learning and develop the skills of giving and receiving appropriate feedback from peers as well as the teacher. This kind of discourse has to be factored into learning events in order to extend individual repertoires across languages (including the L1) and beyond more traditional language learning experiences. It enables learners to talk about learning, articulate what has been learned and how this might be refi ned and make recommendations about how others’ work might be improved. It emphasizes the importance for all teachers of inputting and modelling academic literacy demands across themes, topics and subjects, as well as making visible the related metacognitive demands involved in thinking about learning. In other words, learners will not only need to learn how to talk about their learning (the content) but also to be scaffolded in ways of doing this in another language (academic discourse), the latter being a contentious issue I return to below. Tillema et al. (2015) include languaging and translanguaging in their defi nition of ‘mentoring for learning’ in the quest for ‘exploring joint goals, actions and evaluations through conversations that construct and reconstruct meaningful conceptualizations and communication that … shape unique episodes of knowledge productive interaction’ (Tillema et al., 2015: 16). This raises the issue of the choice of language used by learners when developing academic discourse (Macaro, 2006). Research over several decades provides evidence that when learners strategically use all the linguistic resources at their disposal (translanguaging and using more than

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one language including their first language), learning is enhanced (Auger, 2005; Cummins, 2003; Sneddon, 2008). Given that linguistic backgrounds of classrooms and learners differ according to individual plurilingual contexts, the point to emphasize is that learners need to understand how to use the language and languages they already have, including their first, for strategic purposes. Using the L1 for strategic purposes is not about constant code-switching or translation, reducing opportunities for developing L2 skills, but rather enabling learners to access a linguistic resource to support self-regulation and progression. In this sense, it acts as a deliberate transitory means to express and monitor what individuals have understood in order to reveal the extent of their conceptual and linguistic understanding to their teacher and peers. It may be a goal that languaging learning (both cognitively and metacognitively) should happen increasingly in the language of instruction, but it is worth noting that a recent study (San Isidro, 2017) reported that even when learners had become more advanced users of the L2, they continued to use and in some cases slightly increased their use of the L1 to monitor their own speech errors and check the ‘correct’ form as they became increasingly sensitized to success criteria. This exemplifies the strategic use of linguistic resources. Dialogic episodes, therefore, involve careful scaffolding by the teacher in order to enable students to develop increasingly sophisticated ways in the target language to assess their performance against their own and others’ criteria, to discuss how their work could be improved and to ask about errors. Developing such language does not feature in curriculum documents or syllabi but it is part of the teacher’s role in modelling and planning opportunities to make transparent the learning focus and encourage a wide range of discourse in different languages. An illustration of the importance of dialogic episodes for monitoring learning can be drawn from the ELICIT study (Coyle, 2007), which focuses on a class of 11-year-old beginner learners towards the end of their first year of learning German in the UK. These episodes, although planned by the teacher, grew out of explicit, collaborative reflections on tasks, increasingly expressed in German. ‘Learners had a “voice” by expressing their understanding of their own learner strategies through scaffolded tasks in the target language’ (Coyle, 2007: 69). When asked to reflect on their own learning, students used simple German, modelled by the teacher and their peers, to express some of the strategies they used. L1: L2: L4:

Ich verglieche das Worte mit eine Worte das ist Englisch oder Fransosish [I compare the word with a word that is English or French] Ich lernst deutsch beste wann ich Vortrag mit eninen Partner [I learn German best, when I ‘lecture’ {do a presentation} with my partner] X helfen mir von erklaeren [X helps me – explains]

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Ich lernst am liebsten in einer Gruppe, wiels as Spass ist, aber wir kanst ‘under Gedanken’ sagen [I learn best in a group, because it’s fun, but we can say ‘under thoughts’ {what we think}]

These examples illustrate how beginner learners are developing a target language repertoire – albeit with grammatical errors – to express their strategic learning: both how they learn and how they learn best. This not only encourages confidence to dialogue in German but also provides the teacher with opportunities to work on what is being offered by learners – both collectively through whole-class examples and discussion as well as individually – and improve it both linguistically and conceptually. Exploring with peers how language can be ‘improved’ acknowledges the shared ownership of classroom learning and holds significant meaning for learners. The need for ongoing learning dialogue between teacher and learners and between peers is therefore a fundamental requirement. Capturing and analyzing together ‘lived-through’ dialogic episodes by those involved is a powerful tool, although rarely accomplished, for raising awareness of teacher and learner understanding of the potential and realities of strategic learning spaces. Task Design within ‘New’ Learning Partnerships

The need to co-create dialogic episodes highlights the importance of learner–teacher collaboration in building a dynamic learning partnership where ‘mediation is negotiated to enable both the learners to optimally contribute to activities’ (Lantolf & Poehner, 2014: 171). It also helps mediators to gain necessary insights into learners’ abilities so they can appropriately guide their progression. The design of the learning space is therefore critical for constructing clear trajectories towards learner independence in line with Chamot’s recommendation that strategy instruction in classrooms must be adapted to the needs of ‘particular learners, situations and goals’ (Ruiz de Zarobe & Coyle, 2013). I would argue, however, that this is difficult to achieve in practice, since it places increasing responsibility on teachers to become mediators and ‘learning mentors’, yet without the customary pedagogic repertoire of familiar activities and lesson plans on which to draw. Eerikainen (2015) states: Task design and sequencing are meaningless concepts unless they are embedded in conditions for learning – metacognitive strategies for selfregulation, evaluation and scaffolding. (Eerikainen, 2015: 112)

Ensuring that those strategies lie at the heart of tasks demands a radical rethink about the ways in which classroom learning is organized.

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Increasingly, the concept of ‘planning’ is being replaced by ‘designing’ (CAST, 2011), which takes greater account of technological advances and the ‘here-and-now’ needs of our learners. Traditional lesson planning, using temporal and linear structures such as teacher target setting and end-of-unit tests, is no longer appropriate for designing learning sequences – some of which may be short and others of which may evolve over a period of time, but all of are which dependent on dynamic learner– teacher partnerships. Here learners are actively involved in the design process, for example, through identifying success criteria and constructing meaningful rubrics. The evolution of classroom norms, particular structures and collaboration requires ‘new learning partnerships’ built on principles of ‘equity, transparency, reciprocal accountability and mutual benefit’ (Fullan & Langworthy, 2014: 12). The example below illustrates how over a period of time the co-design of a digital tasks engaged learners in being active mediators of their own and each other’s learning. In an action research study documenting learner progression (Eerikainen, 2015), 11-year-old ‘newly arrived’ students were learning English as a second language with a focus on science taught in English. The concept of ‘note-booking’ using an iPad was used to design the locus of learning in two ways. First it provided a ‘quick and easy’ learning log to document progression and encourage self-monitoring and assessment, for example through reviewing previous work, collating feedback and accessing ‘tangible’ triggers for reflection. Secondly, it served as a tool for writing, discussing and co-creating representations of new learning such as videos, graphs or imaging of scientific concepts. Using the Book Creator application, learners took pictures of their work in progress and selfdirected their own creative representations. They wrote drafts and experiment notes more frequently than before and gave feedback to one another. Over the period of six months, they showed increasing complexity both in the self-directed production of tasks (such as mini reports or experiment notes) and in language use (such as their writing and talking during the tasks). They engaged with ease in ‘during-task’ discussions using their initially limited English repertoire. This was constantly expanded through explicit teacher input, as well as self-accessed digital resources and peer collaboration while audio-reporting their work. Hence the iPad was not only an instructional tool but evolved into a strategic space which enabled the teacher and learners to co-create a dynamic learning partnership. It fostered transparent self- and peer-assessment of learning through constant exploratory talk with each other and the teacher during and after tasks, digitally documented. It provided individuals with a sense of achievement through capturing progressive iterations and ‘drafts’ of knowledge construction and meaning-making needed to signpost their progression. Appendix 1 provides further examples of the tasks used and designed by the teacher and learners.

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Implications

Extensive research has been carried out on different approaches to selfassessment which seek to make transparent how learners can better monitor and assess themselves and others, such as Assessment for Learning (AfL) in England (Assessment Reform Group, 2010). It could be argued that AfL shares many of the principles highlighted. I contend that it does not go far enough in terms of realizing partnerships for learning and moving towards learner autonomy in terms of goal setting, criteria for success and targets for learning. In this chapter, I have positioned self-assessment as an integral and interdependent part of self-regulated learning within an ecological framework specifically seeking to foster learner autonomy. I hold that unless the notion of self-assessment is understood and actioned as a component of self-regulated learning which involves learner goal- and task-orientation, progression and connectedness, then self-monitoring and self-assessment as part of regular classroom practices will not happen. Based on the principles outlined, I have identified three key areas as fundamental triggers for exploring self-monitoring and self-assessment which will require the building of partnerships for self-regulated learning: strategic learning spaces, dialogic episodes and task design. Such a shift implies teachers reconceptualizing classroom learning in terms of designing dynamic learning spaces. Questions regarding the ‘either-or’ – for example, concerning teacher-led versus student-led goals, explicit versus implicit strategy instruction – become irrelevant. All are likely to be deployed at appropriate times in the learning and teaching repertoire. Finding the balance between structure and independence is part of working towards successful learning partnerships that enable students to master their own learning. Learning to learn requires that students begin to defi ne their own learning goals and success criteria; monitor their own learning; critically examine their own work; incorporate feedback from peers, teachers …; and use all of this to deepen their awareness of how they function in the learning process. (Fullan & Langworthy, 2014: 17)

How this can realistically be played out presents a difficult challenge for teachers, which is picked up in Part 4 of this book. But it must include teacher support to construct and articulate personal theories of practice, to understand the role of language and languages in learning, to experiment with self-regulated approaches for monitoring and assessing learning, to develop confidence in ‘how to do things differently’ and to engage in co-designing alternative learning spaces with learners. It is with this in mind that I offer the following questions for further reflection: (1) Given the ‘ecological’ holistic approach to self-assessment presented in this chapter, how might it provide a ‘way in’ to develop autonomy (for teachers and learners) as compared to strategy instruction of specific strategies?

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(2) What would be the starting point for developing self-assessment practices in the classroom given the role of goal- and task-orientation, progression (refi ning learning) and making connections? (3) What are the potential barriers to developing self-assessment processes in classrooms? How might these be addressed? (4) What support do teachers need for this kind of change? References Alexander, R.J. (2014) Triumphs and dilemmas of dialogue. In A. Lefstein and J. Snell (eds) Better than Best Practice: Developing Teaching and Learning Through Dialogue (pp. 72–74). New York: Routledge. Assessment Reform Group (2010) The Role of Teachers in the Assessment of Learning. London: Assessment Reform Group supported by the Nuffield Foundation. See https:// www.aaia.org.uk/content/uploads/2010/06/The-role-of-teachers-in-the-assessmentof-learning.pdf. Auger, N. (2005) Comparons nos langues. Démarche d’apprentissage du français auprès d’enfants nouvellement arrivés. Editions CNDP, collection Ressources Formation Multimédia. Montpellier: CRDP LanguedocRoussillon. Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (2009) Developing the theory of formative assessment. Educational Assessment Evaluation and Accountability 21 (1), 5–31. Broadfoot, P. (2008) Comparative perspectives on the changing role of teachers. In D. Johnson and R. Maclean (eds) Teaching: Professionalisation, Development and Leadership (pp. 263–271). Berlin: Springer Science. Brown, A.V. (2009) Students’ and teachers’ perceptions of eff ective foreign language teaching: A comparison of ideals. The Modern Language Journal 93 (1), 46–60. Butler, D.L. (2002) Individualizing instruction in self-regulated learning. Theory into Practice 41 (2), 81–92. CAST (2011) Universal Design for Learning Guidelines, Version 2.0. Wakefield, MA: CAST. Chamot, A.U. (2009) The CALLA Handbook: Implementing the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (2nd edn). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education/ Longman. Claxton, G., Chambers, M., Powell, G. and Lucas, B. (2011) The Learning Powered School: Pioneering 21st Century Education. Bristol: TLO. Cohen, A.D. (1998) Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language (1st edn). Essex: Longman. Coyle, D. (2007) Strategic classrooms: Learning communities which nurture the development of learner strategies. Language Learning Journal 35 (1), 65–79. Coyle, D. (2012) Investigating enactments of a focus on language in CLIL classrooms. European Journal of Linguistics and TEFL 1 (2), 131. Coyle, D. (2013) Listening to learners: An investigation into successful learning. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 6 (3), 244–266. Cummins, J. (2003) Reading and the bilingual student: Fact and friction. In G. Garcia (ed.) English Learners: Reaching the Highest Level of English Literacy (pp. 2–23). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Eerikainen, L.M. (2015) Notebooking with iPads – ELLs in science class and beyond. MEd dissertation, University of Aberdeen. Eva, K.W. and Regehr, G. (2010) Exploring the divergence between self-assessment and self-monitoring. Health Science Education Theory and Practice 16 (3), 311–329. Fullan, M. and Langworthy, M. (2014) A Rich Seam: How New Pedagogies Find Deep Learning. Toronto: Pearson.

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Gu, Y. (2010) Learning strategies for vocabulary development. Refl ections on English Language Teaching 9 (2), 105–118. Hattie, J.A. (2012) Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning. New York: Routledge. Holec, H. (1981) Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamon (1st published 1979, Strasbourg: Council of Europe). Lantolf, J.P. and Pavlenko, A. (2001) (S)econd language (a)ctivity theory: Understanding second language learners as people. In M.P. Breen (ed.) Learner Contributions to Language Learning: New Directions in Research (pp. 141–158). London: Longman. Lantolf, J.P. and Poehner, M.E. (2014) Sociocultural Theory and the Pedagogical Imperative in L2 Education: Vygotskian Praxis and the Research/Practice Divide. New York: Routledge. Llinares, A. and Whittaker, R. (2010) Writing and speaking in the history class: Data from CLIL and fi rst language contexts. In C. Dalton-Puffer, T. Nikula and U. Smit (eds) Language Use in Content-and-Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) (pp. 125–144). AILA Applied Linguistics series. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Macaro, E. (2006) Strategies for language learning and for language use: Revising the theoretical framework. The Modern Language Journal 90 (3), 320–337. National Research Council (2012) Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century (J.W. Pellegrino and M.L. Hilton, eds). Board on Testing and Assessment and Board on Science Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. O’Malley, J.M. and Chamot, A.U. (1990) Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Osamu, C., White, C. and Coyle, D. (2007) Contexts for developing strategies. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University. Ruiz de Zarobe, Y. and Coyle, D. (2013) Towards new learning partnerships in bilingual educational contexts – raising learner awareness and creating conditions for reciprocity and pedagogic attention. International Journal of Multilingualism 12 (4), 471–493. San Isidro, X. (2017) CLIL in a multilingual setting: A longitudinal study on Galician students, teachers and families. PhD thesis, University of Vitoria-Gasteiz. Schmenk, B. (2009) Kulturelle und soziale Aspekte von Lernstrategien und individuellem Strategiegebraucht. Fremdsprachen Lehrem und Lernen 38, 70–78. Sneddon, R. (2008) Magda and Albana: Learning to read with dual language books. Language and Education 22 (2), 137–154. Stoll, L. and Louis, K.S. (2007) Professional Learning Communities: Divergence, Depth and Dilemmas. Maidenhead: Open University Press/McGraw Hill. Swain, M. (2006) Languaging, agency and collaboration in advanced language profi ciency. In H. Byrnes (ed.) Advanced Language Learning: The Contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky (pp. 95–108). London: Continuum. Taveau, F. (2018) A PluriLiteracies approach to teaching for learning. A case study. Strasbourg: The Graz Group. See http://pluriliteracies.ecml.at/. Tillema, H.H., van der Westhuizen, G.J. and van der Merwe, M.P. (2015) Knowledge building through conversation. In H. Tillema, G.J. Westhuizen and K. Smith (eds) Mentoring for Learning: ‘Climbing the Mountain’ (pp. 1–19). Rotterdam: Sense. van Lier, L. (2010) The ecology of language learning: Practice to theory and theory to practice. Procedia – Social and Behavioural Science 3, 2–6. Wells, G. (2009) The Meaning Makers: Learning to Talk and Talking to Learn (2nd edn). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Wilson, D. and Conyers, M. (2016) Teaching Students to Drive Their Brains: Metacognitive Strategies, Activities, and Lesson Ideas. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

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Appendix 1: Task Types Using the iPad to Stimulate Peer and Teacher Discussion iPad function

Examples of activities

Writing

Task creation; using sentence models; science ‘textbook’-style expository writing; rewriting or reusing paper notes; written or other notes/reflections

Drawing/representing/ capturing

Capturing images for labelling, writing; recreating a diagram, image, flowchart, etc. to show a different focus; creating images in other apps

Regrouping/reusing

Reusing text, images, own drawings in new tasks and new units; creating connections between pieces of work conceptually

Sharing/storing/ accessing

Reusing text, images, own drawings collaboratively

Narrating

Study: vocabulary: pronunciation and spelling; discourse in context; rehearsing sentence models by articulating ideas before writing; articulating ideas to comment on procedures; teacher narrating expository style; reminders, definitions; own notes to self Dialogue/discussion: remembering the train of thought; hearing self: monitoring and evaluating both the thought and the expression of it in language; capturing a moment of ‘discovery’ with a friend

5 Language Learner Strategies and Individual Differences Ernesto Macaro

Introduction

This chapter proposes that language learner strategy (LLS) research in general and Language Learning Strategies Instruction (LLSI) in particular can benefit from greater consideration of the individual differences (IDs) that exist among learners of a second language (L2). It argues that, while an LLS intervention provides us with powerful evidence of the success of LLSI, it does not sufficiently inform us of the reasons why it has been successful. By taking the theories of self-efficacy and attribution as examples of IDs, I will argue that, by examining the possible interactions between LLS and these IDs, researchers and (especially) teachers can secure a better long-term understanding of how L2 learning takes place over time. My view is that, by focusing on these interactions, a more comprehensive and robust teacher professional development programme with regard to LLSI will eventually result, one which also includes a deeper understanding of how LLSI can contribute to the formative assessment of language learners. Adopting a modified approach to strategy use can at first seem daunting to learners who may have got used to their own way of doing things. However, being able to see the benefits of taking time out and reflecting on their own learning behaviour is precisely the approach being advocated here and one which, as I shall try to demonstrate, will hopefully lead to greater success. The kinds of additional activities being advocated for teachers, while they may appear to be an extra burden on their already busy lives will, in the long run, prove to make their work more fulfilling in that they may detect less recurring failure on the part of their students. Finally a sense of self-efficacy is part and parcel of autonomy: without it the learner may simply not have the confidence to tackle the language on their own, while self-efficacious learners are more likely to take on challenging language learning tasks because of their belief that they have the ability to do so. 68

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Approaches to Strategy-based Instruction

There are fundamentally two ways for researchers to consider, and/or teachers to approach, LLSI. The fi rst is to design a programme of strategy instruction most suited to the population of learners in question and then to carry out the ‘intervention’ – preferably using a classic randomized control trial, if at all possible. This programme normally follows the cyclical process of: identifying what strategies learners are currently using; raising awareness of other potential strategies and strategy combinations against specific tasks; scaffolding of strategy use over a period of time; removal of scaffolding and evaluation (Macaro, 2001; Rubin et al., 2007). This approach is predicated on the ‘if it works, it works’ model. That is to say, provided the performance of the group of learners engaged in the programme can be compared to a group of learners not so engaged, and that any confounding variables are eliminated, then if they improve some aspect of language learning significantly compared to the other group we can assume that the intervention is the key variable having affected that outcome. And that’s all we need to know. The second approach (but one which obviously also includes the first) is to associate the strategy instruction with a number of key individual (and/ or group) differences which have been shown to potentially interact with strategic behaviour. Clearly this approach involves more time-consuming investigation on the part of researchers and/or teachers who may prefer a more straightforward pragmatic approach. However, I would argue that the extra commitment may offer more long-lasting beneficial results.

Individual and Group Differences

The possible differences that learners bring to a language learning situation are many and sometimes bewildering. When I do a seminar with pre-service language teachers on IDs and group differences (GDs) I always begin by asking them to brainstorm what these might be. One of the fi rst to be mentioned is ‘motivation’, soon followed by ‘gender’ and sometimes ‘introversion’ (see Wakamoto, 2009, for a discussion). Then, almost invariably, ‘ability’ rears its head, at which point we begin to try to unpack some of these constructs. Is motivation an ID or a GD? Does it vary sufficiently among individuals for it to be considered as an ID even though we can put boundaries around certain groups of learners and say that they appear to be more motivated than other groups (for example, learners of English in Korea compared to learners of French in the UK). Gender is usually put down as a GD although there is usually, and appropriately, a discussion about how masculinity and femininity cannot be treated as dichotomous constructs. We note that in general females tend to be more motivated towards language learning than males, although it is not clear from the research why this should be (Gu, 2002; Sunderland, 2000).

70 Part 1: Issues: Models and Contexts

Ability usually causes the biggest defi nitional problem because of its ambiguity. Language teachers in the UK often refer to secondary school learners as ‘more able’ and ‘less able’ and in most schools students are placed in ‘ability groups’, often on the spurious basis of a single language assessment.1 In these sessions with pre-service language teachers we then discuss the differences among proficiency, achievement and aptitude. We usually arrive at an agreement that proficiency is merely an ID based on a snapshot in time measurement (see Macaro, 2009, for a fuller discussion), usually a handful of language tests. And proficiency is clearly an ID rather than a GD because individuals can be measured on a finely tuned scale – something that is quite difficult to do with ‘a group’. Aptitude, we observe (see Erlam, 2005; Skehan, 2002), is an ID construct because, once again, individuals can be measured on a series of scales and aptitude can be broken down into a number of components, the best known of which are the ability to detect different phonemes in the speech stream, a good memory (both working and longterm memory), and the ability to observe patterns in language. We usually wrinkle our noses a bit at ‘aptitude’ because it suggests that these three attributes are immutable and so there isn’t much a teacher can do to help his/her learners (except to put learners in ability groups!). Achievement, as applied to individuals, we usually conclude, is a construct with a more acceptable label. It suggests a progression over time, one that can involve hard work, levels of motivation and, of course, LLS – or what I prefer to call strategic behaviour. It is particularly appealing to  teachers because ‘achievement’ is something a teacher can have a direct influence on. If, as Dörnyei (2013: 16) proposes, ‘strategy use – by defi nition – constitutes instances of motivated behaviour’, then if teachers can help students with their strategic behaviour, they should be creating the conditions for the students to be more motivated. Gardner et al. (1997), in their attempt to identify which IDs contributed most to language learning ‘success’, found that five factors best accounted for the correlations among the variables: self-confidence; language learning strategies (both cognitive and metacognitive); motivation to learn the L2; combined integrative and instrumental orientations for learning the L2; and language aptitude. However, the problem with this study is that it measured success through a snapshot in time (through a series of language tests: cloze, vocabulary, written composition and a selfrating scale) rather than ‘achievement’ as I have described it above, which can only be measured over a period of time. So, differentiating the constructs of ‘proficiency’, ‘aptitude’ and ‘achievement’ is crucial. Mercer and Ryan (2010), in their study of fi rst year EFL learners at universities in Austria and Japan, found that some of the learners in their sample believed that natural talent was the key element in successful language learning, which the authors ‘took to be indicative of a fi xed mindset’ (Mercer & Ryan, 2010: 437). Others in the sample

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appeared to hold beliefs about the value of hard work and ‘the potential to influence their ability through practice and effort’ (Mercer & Ryan, 2010: 437), which they took to be indicative of a growth mindset. It was also interesting that in the Japanese sample, learners tended towards a growth mindset, whereas in the Austrian sample, more variation in the mindsets held. The difficult issue, however, is how strategic behaviour leads to a ‘growth mindset’. How can LLSI demonstrate the value of hard work and reflection and the potential to influence ability through practice and effort? Ganschow and Sparks (2001) report that under-achievement among high school students could be due to deficient sound and sound/ symbol discrimination and that this dimension of aptitude was a strong predictor of eventual grades. However, they argued that motivational factors could override poor aptitude. But what might these motivational factors be? Attribution theory

A theory fi rst proposed by Weiner (1992), and one that has stood the test of time, is the theory of attributions. It is concerned with who or what a human being blames for his/her failures and to whom or to what s/he attributes success. The theory predicts that that to whom or what we attribute our success/failure in the past will significantly affect the way we behave in future with regard to wanting to achieve our goals. As we can see from Table 5.1, attribution of success or failure is distributed along a series of dimensions, the most influential of these being ‘controllable’ and ‘uncontrollable’. As applied to language learning, attributing success to being in control of the learning process is a positive attribution; attributing failure to the belief that the learning process is out of one’s control is a negative (or maladaptive) attribution. Linked to the notion of control is the location of that control. Thus, as Table 5.1 suggests, if success is attributed to ‘effort’ and is considered to be ‘internal’ to the learner (the volition to apply effort is perceived as coming from within), then there is a doubly positive attribution. A third dimension to attribution is  ‘stability’  – whether an aspect of (in our case) language learning is Table 5.1 Dimensions of attribution Internal

External

Stable

Unstable

Stable

Unstable

Uncontrollable

Aptitude

Mood Health

Task difficulty Teacher behaviour

Luck Learning materials

Controllable

Typical effort

Immediate effort

Reaction to teacher behaviour

Help from others

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relatively stable or unstable, or consistent or inconsistent. Thus attributing failure to ‘bad luck’ is a maladaptive attribution thrice over because it is uncontrollable, external and unstable. Williams and Burden (1999) explored attitudes and motivation against a framework of attributions of success/failure, using a cross-sectional sample of 36 secondary school students in the UK (Grades 6, 7, 9 and 10). All learners, when asked what they could do to improve, revealed a limited range of possible strategies that they knew of and/or were adopting. The researchers also found that attributions of failure changed over the years. The younger learners (aged 10–12) tended to attribute any failure to a lack of effort and poor concentration, attributing it to the self and therefore viewing it as something that they could resolve if they so wished. Older learners (aged 13–15) attributed failure to being distracted by others, to the difficulty of the tasks they were being given, to poor teaching and to their own lack of ability – and therefore out of their control. The researchers commented that although such variation might reflect developmental and/or maturational differences among the age groups, it was apparent that the attributions had also been socially constructed as a result of being in a particular class for a number of years. Also in the secondary UK context, Graham (2004) investigated attributions of success and failure by administering a questionnaire to over 500 students in 10 schools. Her key findings in relation to attribution were that Grade 11 students (aged 15–16) perceived their ability as the most important factor, whereas Grade 12 students’ (aged 16–17) effort and ability were almost equally distributed, and Grade 13 students saw effort and strategy use as most important. So again we see a development, this time a more positive one in terms of attributions. It should be noted that, in the UK context, students in Grades 12 and 13 will have opted to study a language whereas (at the time) for Grade 11 students language learning would almost certainly have been mandatory, again reflecting the social dimension’s impact on attribution. Sorić and Anćić (2008) investigated the relationship between causal attributions and L2 English learners in primary and secondary schools in Croatia using a self-assessment of their ‘achievement’ ‘either as success or failure’ (Sorić & Anćić, 2008: 20), an adaptation of Oxford’s SILL (Oxford, 1990), to elicit the strategies they claimed to use, and a causal attribution scale devised by Sorić (1998, cited in Sorić & Anćić, 2008: 20) which asked them to rate the reason for their (stated) achievement or failure along ‘the causal dimensions of internality, stability, and globality’. A global attribution is proposed, by the authors, as being the opposite of the situational specificity of attribution. So, for example, a learner may attribute her/his failure in maths to poor mathematical reasoning which would be a specific attribution – but to attribute it to low intelligence would be a global attribution. Sorić and Anćić found that the older (secondary) students perceived themselves as less successful language learners than the

Language Learner Strategies and Individual Differences 73

younger primary students. In both groups, those students assessing themselves as high achievers attributed their perceived success to stable and internal causes, in contrast to those assessing themselves as low achievers. However, and importantly for the argument being made in this chapter, strategic behaviour was not strongly related to the causal dimensions. In other words, learners who perceived success as being linked to internality and stability were not taking the further step of linking this to specific strategic behaviour. Furthermore, I would propose that, although selfassessment of success or failure in language learning makes sense when relating it to causal attributions, what is also needed is some hard evidence (through objective tests) of progression over time. In other words, learners need to have solid and external evidence that they are indeed making progress (see below). Self-efficacy theory

The second theory I would like to introduce into this argument is that of self-efficacy, one proposed by Bandura and developed in a series of publications over time (e.g. Bandura, 1993, 1995). Rather than relating to a student’s general sense of themselves as a successful or unsuccessful learner, self-efficacy is concerned with how learners feel about themselves in a specific learning activity. Perceived self-efficacy is likely to impact on what learning activities a learner chooses to engage in. Possibly they will only undertake an activity if they believe they are likely to be able to cope with its challenges. For example, in an L2 task such as writing a short story based on pictures, does a learner approach that task with a sense of confidence, a feeling that they are pretty good at that kind of task, or do they approach it believing that they are hopeless at it? The theory predicts that learners with low self-efficacy will approach the task with a sense of dread and will tend to dwell on their personal deficiencies rather than trying to remedy the situation by confronting it constructively. There are obvious links here to the affective strategies explored in Chapter 12. The question then is where the low self-efficacy has come from. I emphasize that with selfefficacy we are dealing with a relatively circumscribed activity such as a writing task; we are not dealing with an overall feeling of self-worth. A language learner can consider himself/herself brilliant at getting by talking in the L2 in all sorts of situations but have very low levels of selfefficacy towards formal writing. Where the low self-efficacy may have originated, therefore, is going to be an important question to ask. The theory predicts that it will have been developed over time through cognitively processing past encounters in relation to that specific task, in our example: confusion about the requirements of the rubric; getting bogged down in detail on the fi rst draft; frustration at dictionary use and poor feedback from the teacher.

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It is not difficult to see the relationship between self-efficacy and attribution theory. Graham (2006) proposes that listening to an audiorecording in class is a learning activity over which some learners may feel they have no control, and this is likely to result in levels of frustration similar to those in the writing example above. What we attribute our successes and failures to may result from maladaptive attributions in a particular kind of language learning/use task. So in our example of a writing task it could be: ‘the rubric isn’t clear enough about what I am supposed to do with these pictures’; ‘I haven’t been told the level of detail I have to go into’; ‘this stupid electronic dictionary doesn’t give me the L2 word I want’; ‘my teacher’s got it in for me’. Mills et al. (2007), investigating university students of French in the United States, found that self-efficacy was a good predictor of a desire to achieve and a stronger predictor than a desire to simply obtain requisite grades. Gagne (2005) reported a relationship between self-efficacy, level of effort expended on reading tasks, and reading success. There has been particular interest in Asia in self-efficacy and causal attribution, and their contribution to our understanding of language learning motivation. In Zhang’ s (1994) study of self-efficacy beliefs among college students it was found that self-efficacy was a powerful mediating factor among a number of cognitive variables and language proficiency. Teng (2005), investigating Taiwanese students, found positive correlations between proficiency and self-efficacy; Yang’s (1999) study, also in Taiwan, pointed to a ‘cyclical’ relationship between self-efficacy and strategic behaviour. Wang (2004), investigating young learners, found that a (self-estimated) limited mental lexicon led to negative attitudes to L2 reading tasks which in turn led to low self-efficacy. Hsieh and Kang (2010), in the Korean secondary context, found that learners with high levels of self-efficacy had higher levels of language achievement (based on self-report about recent tests) but also confi rmed having higher levels of control over their learning. One might speculate, in terms of our earlier distinction between IDs and GDs, as to why such a high number of studies on these themes have been carried out in Asia. It is possible that these authors wish to examine critically some of the stereotypes associated with cultures in Asian countries with regard to who is in control of the learning process. So feelings of self-efficacy and the attributions attached to those feelings are fundamental to the way in which learners consider their language learning, past, present and future, and this is very likely to affect their motivation. It is within their reasoning (their cognition) that lies the key to how they consider the current state of their learning and the expectations that they have for the future. If their current estimation of their success is low, as is their expectation for the future, then what is needed is some kind of intervention to help them think differently. This is where LLSI can be most effective and it is not too far-fetched to consider LLSI as a form of

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cognitive behaviour therapy, the kind of therapy that is often applied to chronic anxiety. And it is also not a coincidence that language learning anxiety (Horwitz et al., 1986) is considered to be another ID. It comes as no surprise that Gardner et al. (1997) found that high levels of ‘proficiency’ (as I have defined it above) correlated strongly with low levels of anxiety for language learning. It is possible that low self-efficacy about one or more tasks combined with maladaptive attributions may lead to a downward spiral of anxiety in relation to the language learning process in general. If that is the case, then the solution is to reverse that negative process step by step and language task by language task. This is why it is quite unhelpful for teachers to give very generalized feedback such as ‘improve the accuracy of your writing’. What is needed is an identification of the individual learner’s beliefs and needs and then an intervention in which the learner himself/herself is deeply involved as a participant. An example, in the case of a writing task feedback, might be: ‘you seem to be using far too often the strategy of thinking of a word in L1 then searching in the dictionary for the L2 word and then building a sentence around it. This is causing the problems I have underlined. Try thinking from time to time of a phrase that you are confident with and then seeing what changes you need to make to it in order that it still expresses what you want to say’ (see Macaro, 2014, for a fuller illustration of this strategic behaviour tendency). LLSI and individual differences

In our study using a large stratified sample of lower secondary learners (aged 12–13) of French in England (Erler & Macaro, 2011), we found very little evidence of progression over three years in the students’ ability to decode written French text. Students attributed this to ‘the strangeness’ of the French language, and particularly the grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPC). Their ability to decode was a strong predictor of their intention to continue learning the language. Clearly, from an attribution theory perspective, the strangeness of a language is not something students can easily do something about. However, French is only strange because its GPC system is different from that of English, which to a French youngster learning English must seem very strange indeed. For example, a French youngster coming across the English word ‘thought’ would have to overcome the differences in decoding the graphemes /th/, /ou/, /ght/, each of which are either realized differently in her/his native French or do not exist at all. So an intervention into this difficulty that students face needs to be carried out in relation to a clear GD – their first language (L1). However, Woore (2014) found that not all students were experiencing the same levels of problems and, moreover, some individuals were also experiencing transfer problems when similarities between the sound systems should (one would have hypothesized) have been facilitative, perhaps because they failed to apply L1 knowledge to the L2 words.

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In our study of listening comprehension (Graham & Macaro, 2008), we investigated and (we believe) successfully demonstrated an interaction between intervention into strategic behaviour (strategy-based instruction) and self-efficacy and attribution of success/failure. One aspect of our conceptualization of the intervention concerned the notion of ‘attribution retraining’, an approach that had hitherto been successfully applied to L1 contexts (e.g. Borkowski et al., 1990). In other words, an aspect of the LLSI was to be the amount of ‘scaffolding’ needed (operationalized as teacher feedback on strategy use) to get students to think differently, not only about how they went about a listening comprehension task, but also to think differently about what they attributed their success to and their difficulties with a task. Thus our LLSI programme had a number of important features. It was devised according to the specific needs of the population who were Grade 12 learners (aged 16–17) of French of lower intermediate proficiency, having embarked on a new programme and now being faced with more advanced level listening materials. Not surprisingly these students experienced low levels of self-efficacy with the (authentic) listening tasks and may have attributed any failure to their own lack of ability. The intervention encouraged participants to see connections between their strategic behaviour and the learning outcomes and to evaluate the effectiveness of that behaviour when encountering similar tasks in the future. This was in part achieved by the feedback on strategy use as in the following example: When the passage seems fast and fuzzy, try to use some of the strategies we have used to do with intonation – can you try to see where the stress is in the passage, where the speaker has a little pause at the end of sense groupings? (Graham & Macaro, 2008: 783)

The students were then encouraged to make the link between changes in strategic behaviour and the outcomes of subsequent listening comprehension activities. This is not the place to describe the study any further except to report that the LLSI had very positive outcomes: the intervention students significantly outperformed the comparison group in post-tests and delayed tests of listening comprehension (taking pretest scores into account) and, importantly, were able to identify and appreciate the factors that led to improvement. The intervention students made gains in their self-efficacy for listening as compared to the group that did not undergo the intervention. They felt statistically more confident in terms of: understanding gist; understanding detail; working out the meaning of unknown or incomprehensible words; and recognizing opinions expressed in the text. Of course some may argue that providing individual feedback on students’ reported strategies can be time consuming. However, I would argue that if we have less of a focus on the product outcomes (for example, adding up the number of correct answers in a listening activity; laboriously correcting written work), then that will create space and time to

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provide the kind of feedback on the processes involved in a skill (such as in the listening example above). I would fi nally like to link the discussion above to language learner assessment. I would argue that strategic behaviour, self-efficacy and attributions of success/failure need to be part of any framework of teacherbased assessment that claims to be truly formative. If we accept that motivation, of which self-efficacy and attribution are an integral part, is temporal and dynamic (Dörnyei & Otto, 1998), then motivation towards L2 learning can be affected by the way in which a teacher responds to a learner, not in terms of the products of their learning but in terms of the process of their learning. The connections that are being proposed here are between what a learner says s/he does in a given L2 task, his/her perceived success with that task and the way s/he confronts that kind of task in the future; their self-efficacy and to what they attribute that success. The teacher’s feedback through formative assessment becomes an intervention instrument, commenting on the learner’s strategic behaviour in that task and proposing alternative strategies if needed. If the learner then adopts these, or a wider range of strategies, and this leads to greater L2 learning or L2 use success, their self-efficacy should improve as well as their future metacognitive reflection, in turn leading to greater autonomy. This framework has been elaborated in Chapter 5 of Macaro et al. (2015), and is currently being evaluated in a study of pre-service teachers at Oxford University. In brief, the framework has the four skills as the main strands of learner development and the following sub-strands: vocabulary knowledge; grammatical development; strategic behaviour; and selfefficacy. A teacher adopting this framework would be expected not only to assess, at various time points, the main strands (and the vocabulary and grammar sub-strands) but also to evaluate and take into account a student’s reported strategic behaviour and self-efficacy beliefs. The framework is not prescriptive about how a student reports on his or her strategic behaviour and self-efficacy beliefs but we suggest, for example, that alongside homework tasks teachers give their students some questions allowing students to self-report their strategy use during the task and how they feel about the task they have completed. These are then collected in by the teacher and commented on. In the book we have called this a ‘pedagogical assessment system’ because we hope that it would have a beneficial washback effect on teaching. Conclusion

In this chapter I have tried to demonstrate that LLSI is very important but that it needs to be linked to IDs (as well as some potential GDs, as in Graham & Macaro, 2008; Woore, 2014), and that among these IDs selfefficacy and attribution can play a key role. I have also attempted to describe how strategies, self-efficacy and attribution can form an inherent

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part of a language assessment system. Future research into LLSI should give greater prominence to the interactions among these variables and their contribution to language assessment. Clearly, there is scope for more research into these IDs and their relationship with learner strategies. These research questions offer some suggestions: (1) Does LLSI that incorporates tracking of self-efficacy and attributions result in greater impact on language learning than LLSI that does not track these two individual differences? (2) What are learners’ reactions to incorporating self-efficacy and attribution into a programme of language learning and to what extent is the age/maturity of the learners a factor in their reactions? (3) If a language assessment system that includes a focus on strategic behaviour, self-efficacy and attribution is made a strong feature of preservice training: How convinced are pre-service teachers of its usefulness? Does their practice show explicit evidence of its use? How vulnerable is such an assessment system to the pressures faced by language teachers once in-service? Note (1) Or sometimes even worse: on the basis of their performance in national tests of (L1) English and mathematics!

References Bandura, A. (1993) Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning. Educational Psychologist 28, 117–148. Bandura, A. (ed.) (1995) Self-effi cacy in Changing Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Borkowski, J.G., Carr, M. and Rellinger, E. (1990) Self-regulated cognition: Interdependence of metacognition, attributions, and self-esteem. In B.F. Jones and L.  Idol (eds) Dimensions of Thinking and Cognitive Instruction (pp. 53–92). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Dörnyei, Z. (2013) Attitudes, orientations, and motivations in language learning: Advances in theory, research and applications. Language Learning 53 (1), 3–32. Dörnyei, Z. and Otto, I. (1998) Motivation in action: A process model of L2 motivation. Working Papers in Applied Linguistics (Thames Valley University, London) 4, 43–69. Erlam R. (2005) Language aptitude and its relationship to instructional effectiveness in second language acquisition. Language Teaching Research 9 (2), 147–171. Erler, L. and Macaro, E. (2011) Decoding ability in French as a foreign language and language learning motivation. The Modern Language Journal 95 (4), 496–518. Gagne, D.D. (2005) Self-efficacy and allocation of effort during reading among older and younger adults. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois. Ganschow, L. and Sparks, R. (2001) Learning difficulties and FL learning: A review of research and instruction. Language Teaching 34, 79–98. Gardner, R.C., Tremblay, P.F. and Masgoret, A.M. (1997) Towards a full model of second language learning: An empirical investigation. The Modern Language Journal 81 (3), 344–362.

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Graham, S. (2004) Giving up on MFL? Students’ perceptions of learning French. The Modern Language Journal 88 (2), 171–191. Graham, S. (2006) Listening comprehension: The learners’ perspective. System 34, 165–182. Graham, S. and Macaro, E. (2008) Strategy instruction in listening for lower-intermediate learners of French. Language Learning 58 (4), 747–783. Gu, Y. (2002) Gender, academic major, and vocabulary learning strategies of Chinese EFL learners. RELC Journal 33 (1), 35–54. Horwitz, E., Horwitz, M. and Cope, J. (1986) Foreign language classroom anxiety. The Modern Language Journal 70, 125–132. Hsieh, P.P.-H. and Kang, H.-S. (2010) Attribution and self-efficacy and their interrelationship in the Korean EFL context. Language Learning 60 (3), 606–627. Macaro, E. (2001) Learner Strategies in Second and Foreign Language Classrooms. London: Bloomsbury/Continuum. Macaro, E. (2009) Developments in language learner strategies. In Li Wei and V. Cook. (eds) Contemporary Applied Linguistics (pp. 10–35). London: Bloomsbury/ Continuum. Macaro, E. (2014) Reframing task performance: The relationship between tasks, strategic behaviour, and linguistic knowledge. In H. Byrnes and R.M. Manchón (eds) Taskbased Language Learning – Insights from and for L2 Writing (pp. 53–78) Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Macaro, E., Graham, S. and Woore, R. (2015) Improving Foreign Language Teaching: Towards a Research-based Curriculum and Pedagogy. London: Routledge. Mercer, S. and Ryan, S. (2010) A mindset for EFL: Learners’ beliefs about the role of natural talent. ELT Journal 64 (4), 436–444. Mills, N., Pajares, F. and Herron, C. (2007) Self-efficacy of college intermediate French students: Relations to achievement and motivation. Language Learning 57 (3), 417–442. Oxford, R.L. (1990) Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Rubin, J., Chamot, A.H., Harris, V. and Park, G. (2007) Intervening in the use of strategies. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 141–160) Oxford: Oxford University Press. Skehan, P. (2002) Theorising and updating aptitude. In P. Robinson (ed.) Individual Differences and Instructed Second Language Learning (pp. 69–94). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sorić, I. (1998) A comparison of Weiner’s theory of emotions and Lazarus’s theory of emotions in the school context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Faculty of Philosophy, Zagreb. Sorić, I and Anćić, J. (2008) Learning strategies and causal attributions in second language learning. Review of Psychology 15 (12), 17–26. Sunderland, J. (2000) Issues of language and gender in second and foreign language education. Language Teaching 33, 203–223. Teng, K.-H. (2005) Perceptions of Taiwanese students to English learning as functions of self-efficacy, motivation, learning activities and self-directed learning. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Idaho. Wakamoto, N. (2009) Extroversion/Introversion in Foreign Language Learning: Interaction with Learner Strategy Use. Oxford: Peter Lang. Wang, C. (2004) Self-regulated learning strategies and self-efficacy beliefs of children learning English as a second language. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University. Weiner, B. (1992) Human Motivation: Metaphors, Theories and Research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Williams, M. and Burden, R. (1999) Students’ developing conceptions of themselves as language learners. The Modern Language Journal 83 (2), 193–201.

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Woore, R. (2014) Beginner learners’ progress in decoding L2 French: Transfer effects in typologically similar L1-L2 writing systems. Writing Systems Research 6 (2), 167–189. Yang, N.-D. (1999) The relationship between EFL learners’ beliefs and learning strategy use. System 27, 515– 535. Zhang, X. (1994) Self-efficacy, outcome and attribution beliefs in a structural model of college students’ engagement and achievement in foreign language learning. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Florida State University.

6 Learning Strategy Instruction in Content and Language Integrated Learning Programs Marcella Menegale

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is an approach where a foreign language or second language (both hereafter referred to as L2) is used as the means of content instruction, for example, to teach science or history. The challenge students face is to learn already complex subject matter through the linguistic structures and vocabulary of a new L2 which they have only partially mastered. When this double cognitive effort (new content and new language) is suitably directed, it has a positive effect on subject matter acquisition (Smit, 2008; van de Craen et al., 2007; Várkuti, 2010) and students’ sense of self-efficacy (Hüttner et al., 2013; Lorenzo et al., 2010). Research has also suggested that encouraging learners to take responsibility for the learning process enables those in CLIL programs to make the most of this highly demanding bilingual learning environment. This, in turn, increases their linguistic and academic achievement (Coyle, 2013; Lasagabaster, 2011; Lasagabaster & Doiz, 2016). Yet, although there has been considerable research on the one hand into Language Learning Strategies (LLS) and on the other hand into CLIL, the literature linking the two is still very limited. To bridge the gap, this chapter discusses the relationship between CLIL settings and the use of metacognitive, cognitive and social learning strategies and presents some outcomes from a recent longitudinal small-scale study held in two secondary school CLIL classrooms in Italy. The chapter concludes with questions for future research. Introduction

Many students in CLIL programs express their preference for this kind of bilingual instruction since the subject matter is learnt at a slower pace, through more differentiated and meaningful classroom activities 81

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and with a greater concern to ensure deep understanding (Lasagabaster & Doiz, 2016). However, when the subject matter input is not sufficiently comprehensible, or when the students are not suitably prepared to access challenging texts and to reason about complex concepts, they can feel demotivated and unable or unwilling to fi nd the strategies to overcome their difficulties and to cope with the learning demands (Coonan, 2007, 2012; Dalton-Puffer et  al., 2010; Lasagabaster, 2009; Seikkula-Leino, 2007). Lack of a sense of self-efficacy and self-esteem can make students rely too much on their teachers and this is likely to intensify as learning requirements become more complex (Menegale, 2012). The consequent impact on learning achievement is evident. Although CLIL can be implemented with any students at any level of the curriculum (Mehisto, 2012: 51–52), if learners; ‘cannot use the L2, for example to take notes from teacher-presentations, plan and revise their writing, interpret graphs or report the outcomes of group work’, the risk is ‘reduced levels’ of subject content knowledge (Clegg, 2007; 126). It is here that strategies have an important role to play, as we shall see in the next section. Yet, in spite of their potential for promoting both L2 language competence and higher order critical skills, strategies have received marginal consideration in the specific field of CLIL research, where studies on strategies and strategic instruction are still limited. CLIL and Learning Strategies

While recognizing that it takes time to get used to CLIL (Lo & Macaro, 2015) and to acquire the necessary subject matter and languagerelated skills, CLIL would seem to provide a uniquely favorable environment for developing language learning strategies. Indeed it: ‘helps to redefi ne the curriculum, sharpening the focus on the interconnections between cognition and communication – between language development and thinking skills [as it] involves enquiry, information processing, reasoning, questioning and evaluation’ (Coyle et al., 2009: 13–18; see also Coyle’s 4Cs Conceptual Framework, Coyle, 2005). The link between thinking skills and language learning strategies is clear. Furthermore it is argued that LLS can be acquired in a more significant and authentic learning context compared to L2 classrooms (see Coyle et al., 2009; Grenfell, 2002; Macaro, 2008). Finally, if they are explicitly taught, they are more likely to be under conscious control compared to L1 content classrooms where strategies are often acquired in an informal and intuitive way. Encouraging findings suggest that CLIL learners tend to use a wider range of strategies than their non-CLIL peers, especially fluency-oriented strategies, focusing on pronunciation or intonation (Psaltou-Joycey et al., 2015). They initiate more collaborative and effective interaction, providing mutual linguistic and affective support through embedding more cooperative turns (Moore, 2011). Moreover, they are credited with greater

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risk taking and problem solving as well as vocabulary learning skills and grammatical awareness (Jiménez et al., 1996; Marsh, 2008). In the following sections, we explore some possible reasons for this. CLIL: A subject in its own right

CLIL has been described as a ‘new subject originating from a fusion between two already existing subjects; a foreign language and a content subject’ (Wolff, 2011: 72), and hence comes with its own characteristics and pedagogical principles. From the point of view of teaching, this means that teachers should avoid confusing CLIL either with the teaching of L2 for specific purposes, which is much more focused on language, or with the teaching of a subject in the L2 with no specific focus on language development, as happens in language immersion programs. Thus, ‘in order to structure a new subject, teachers of different disciplines have to climb out of their respective mindsets grounded in chemistry, economics, geography and physics’ (Coyle et al., 2010: 4). Instead, the unique, ‘fused’ CLIL subject requires their students to assemble facts learnt through different languages and in diverse contexts, establishing meaningful connections and operating conceptual transfer. This necessarily involves being asked to study in a more demanding way; to have more awareness of their own learning, more independence in managing resources, more willingness to monitor and selfevaluate the process – that is, more learner autonomy (Menegale, 2017). Learning strategies in CLIL programs

Learning strategies and content subject related skills might be considered as ‘the pillars of CLIL learning’ (Meyer, 2010: 6). The types of strategies suitable for CLIL contexts do not substantially differ from those needed in other language learning contexts. Rather, what changes in CLIL is the frequency of use and breadth of their application. A source of inspiration for CLIL is the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach known as CALLA (Chamot, 2009; Chamot & O’Malley, 1994). It was designed to provide students with explicit instruction in both language learning strategies and academic language skills through the subject content so as to equip them with effective learning skills and, as a consequence, improve the possibility of academic success. In both CALLA and CLIL the starting point is subject goals and related learning tasks; the strategies are matched to the content and the tasks are determined accordingly. Thus, drawing on the strategy classification proposed by Chamot and O’Malley (1994: 62–63), CLIL learners will need to: •

control their learning process (using metacognitive strategies such as planning what to do, reflecting on what has been learnt and directing attention to specific aspects of the language input);

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•

actively engage in knowledge structuring and organization (using cognitive strategies such as inferring, summarizing, using mental or real pictures to learn new information); negotiate meaning (using social and affective strategies such as questioning for clarification, working with peers, self-talk to reduce anxiety).

•

These strategies are part and parcel of what have been referred to within L1 studies as the ‘thinking skills’ which students need to exercise during the tasks they engage in. For example, reading strategies should be developed early, as suggested in Wolff ’s proposal for a CLIL curriculum (2010), since they determine the student’s success or failure given that much of the curriculum can only be accessed through reading (Wolff, 2005: 17). The main sources through which students acquire knowledge in content subjects range from informative to descriptive texts, from graphs to maps, charts, pictures, diagrams, and so on. Specific reading strategies are therefore required in order to interpret data and understand the content, arguments and explanations: for instance, previewing texts to predict main ideas (before-reading strategy); selecting key words (during-reading strategy); and constructing graphic organizers (after-reading strategy) (Chamot, 2009; Chamot & O’Malley, 1994). Compared to L2 classrooms where oral skills are primarily pursued, what prevails in CLIL classrooms is attention to writing as well as reading proficiency. Content subject language competence is fi rst and foremost text competence and from the very beginning students are asked to use the L2 to note down what they have learnt, write definitions, compile observation sheets and the like (Wolff, 2003: 217). If ‘[w]riting is par excellence a thinking process’ (Clegg, 2002, in Ball et al., 2015: 169), then students should be actively trained in the use of writing strategies so as to foster both subject-related writing and thinking skills. In order to tackle the huge amount of new information to which CLIL students are exposed, note-taking, for example, is a crucial study skill which it is certainly important to teach. If we break ‘note-taking’ down, we can better appreciate its relationship to the language learning strategies identified, for example, by O’Malley and Chamot (1990: 137–138), as shown in brackets below. The student has to orchestrate a range of strategies including: • • •

inferring meaning (‘making inferences’); summarizing the most important information (‘summarizing’); identifying the key words that carry the meaning (‘selective attention’).

Explicit attention to memorizing vocabulary also makes a difference in CLIL environments. Students require knowledge of subject-specific vocabulary, of the most frequently used words in the target language and of the academic vocabulary pertaining to the educational context (Eldridge et al., 2010: 82). Assuming that a word needs to be processed at

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least 10–12 times in order to be remembered (Nation, 2001), it is not difficult to conclude that CLIL teachers will have, on the one hand, to deliberately generate repeated opportunities for use of the less frequent words and, on the other hand, to foster independence by teaching students how to memorize vocabulary for themselves. Finally, there are a number of receptive and productive communication strategies that CLIL learners may need to use when facing problems in comprehension or communication in the L2. On the receptive side, asking questions for clarification can help learners exercise some kind of control over their intake, by allowing them to clarify the meaning of what they hear or read and so increase their deep understanding of the subject content. On the productive side, CLIL learners can use paraphrasing strategies or non-verbal cues such as gesture or subject-related visuals in order to negotiate meaning with the teacher or their peers. With appropriate scaffolding to overcome their difficulties (such as the use of speaking frames, sentence starters, substitution tables and graphs or flow charts in preparation for speech), even low language attaining students can feel more confident when asked to produce some kind of extensive language on cognitively demanding topics like writing a report to describe a science process. Finally, they can benefit from strategies such as self-talk and quiet rehearsal before speaking, which learners seem to use frequently in immersion programs (Navés et al., 2002: 81). These strategies reduce anxiety and, at the same time, allow students to become more fluent and accurate when speaking. LLSI in CLIL classrooms

There have been relatively few intervention studies of Language Learning Strategy Instruction (LLSI) in CLIL classrooms. It has been argued, however, that effective teaching in the CLIL classroom should include reflection on strategy use (De Graaf et al., 2007), since explicit discussion of the advantages of a strategy or cluster of strategies can be shared among peers. For example, students need to be made aware of their own and others’ comprehension processes in order to read a text strategically (Papaja, 2014), and guided to focus explicit attention on the target language in order to improve their level of accuracy (Swain & Lapkin, 1982; see Pérez-Vidal, 2007 for a discussion on focus on form specifically in CLIL contexts). Once practiced sufficiently, it is intended that learning strategies should become part of a student’s procedural knowledge and therefore more likely to be transferred to new tasks. Yet, evidence for the potential transfer of strategies across L1 and L2 as well as from language learning to content learning (for example, from memorizing vocabulary to memorizing history dates) remains unclear. Pinner’s (2013: 53) findings from Japanese university CLIL classrooms are encouraging, since students were keen to

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learn more transferable skills, an observation which also ‘indicates a disposition towards developing greater autonomy’. Similarly promising is the kind of cross-fertilization between classes across the language and content curricula found by Adamson (2014) while exploring the guided use of note-taking and listening skills in a CLIL university class over three years. Besides transferring skills spontaneously over to content classes, the students also reported autonomously connecting ideas, materials and references acquired in the CLIL class to other lessons. On the other hand, however, there are studies showing that, although L1 and L2 curricula encompass some common language learning strategies (see Harris & Grenfell, 2004), their transfer across L1 and L2 contexts, although occurring especially among high-attaining students (Gunning et  al., 2016; Hardin, 2001; Harris, 2004, cited in Harris, 2008), is far from inevitable. A number of reasons are suggested, including the lack of a common strategy terminology shared between L1 and L2 teachers as well as a lack of opportunities to collaborate both at the level of horizontal and vertical articulation of the curriculum (Gunning et  al., 2016; Harris, 2008). The same shortage of cross-curricular teaching synergy is also recorded in CLIL contexts (Mehisto, 2008; Pavón & Rubio, 2010). Although the importance of the development of autonomy and learning strategies in CLIL programs is clear, little classroom research has been carried out in this specific area and notably about students’ attitudes to any strategy instruction they have been exposed to and their ability to transfer strategies across subjects. It is hoped that the longitudinal study undertaken by the author of this chapter and described in the next section goes some way towards filling this gap. LLSI in Action in the CLIL Classroom: A Longitudinal Case Study

This small-scale study is part of a larger five-year longitudinal research project to investigate teaching methodology and learning achievement in two Italian secondary school CLIL classes. The purpose here was to begin to explore the following question: To what extent can CLIL offer a positive learning environment: (1) for the development of language learning strategies? (2) for the development of language learner autonomy? (3) for transferring strategies across subject areas? Methodology School context and participants

The study was carried out in an Italian secondary school (students aged 14–18) – a Liceo Classico Europeo. This is a school where the study

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of Latin and Greek is embedded in a European modern languages learning based curriculum pursuing the promotion of plurilingualism and intercultural awareness. It is implemented by teaching part of the curriculum through two European foreign languages according to CLIL principles and by means of various international projects. These include exchanges with schools in other countries and online discussions with students from all over the world on relevant science topics so that students are motivated to acquire basic interpersonal communication skills in more than one language. In terms of CLIL, the whole of the science or geography curriculum is taught in the L2 (English) from Year 1 (students aged 14), and that of either art history or history is taught in the L3 (German, Spanish or French) from Year 3 (students aged 16) (see Coonan, 2002; Leone, 2015, for an outline of the implementation of CLIL in Italy). This Liceo Classico Europeo is a non-selective state school, so the pupils’ initial levels of competence, especially in the L2 used as a means of content learning, differ quite considerably within the same class, as was the case in the two classes observed in this study. The students’ level of proficiency in English ranged from pupils who could hardly understand and speak English even about everyday topics to others who, due to former bilingual studies, already possessed a relatively high level of competence in English grammar and vocabulary. The subject areas involved were Earth science and biotechnology, taught by the subject specialist (hereafter the CLIL teacher) for two to three hours a week from the fi rst school year (students aged 14) to the fi fth school year (students aged 18). The CLIL teacher was relatively new to the CLIL approach at the beginning of the fi rst year. Yet, it is worth emphasizing that she was an expert in the field of learning strategies,1 which made her very well-qualified for this study. In fact, along with the more common scaffolding techniques used to enhance students’ understanding of the subject matter and of the L2 (for example, use of visual aids, word banks and activities to consolidate useful grammatical structures), the CLIL teacher prepared additional ad hoc content materials for each lesson throughout Years 1 and 2 (see Appendix 1 for an example of the teaching materials used). These included specifi c tasks  that required the application of a range of learning strategies in  order to integrate subject learning and strategy learning, as discussed below. Data collection

For this small-scale study, information was gathered through qualitative data: (1) Copies of Year 1 and Year 2 teaching materials, to build a picture of the learning environment by analyzing the strategies the teacher aimed at developing and the frequency of exposure. The materials

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include 14 handouts for Year 1 and 16 handouts for Year 2 (see Appendix 1 for an example of the teacher’s lesson plan and related student handout). The content of lessons was examined with a view to establishing which strategies were taught and recycled, how and when (see Appendix 2).The categories of learning strategies referred to are those defi ned by Chamot and O’Malley (1994: 62–63), specifically: metacognitive strategies (thoughts and activities which assist the learner in planning, monitoring and evaluating their learning); cognitive strategies (thoughts and activities which enable the learner to tackle the language itself); and social/affective strategies (thoughts and activities which support the learner in interacting with others by asking questions for clarification, cooperating to solve problems or getting/giving feedback, and using affective control to reduce anxiety). (2) Focus-group interviews with 11 CLIL students (seven females and four males) at the end of Year 2 (aged 15), as it was assumed that after almost two school years of CLIL-based instruction the students would have developed specific attitudes towards this kind of learning. On the basis of her knowledge of the students, the CLIL teacher identified those who were as much as possible representative of those in a typical CLIL classroom, that is, according to the main factors which seem to correlate with learning in CLIL contexts (Lasagabaster, 2011; Lasagabaster & Sierra, 2009; Sylvén & Thompson, 2015). These were: students’ level of performance in both the L2 and the subject content matter; their motivation for language learning; and their disposition to use strategies (Cohen, 2010; Green & Oxford, 1995; O’Malley & Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 1990; Ushioda, 2014; Yang, 1999). The sample of students ranged from those who were high attaining and highly motivated through to those who were lower attaining but still well motivated to those who were both low-attaining and with low motivation. The participants’ profi les are shown in Table 6.1. The interviews were conducted by the researcher with the students in their L1 (Italian) every mid and end-of-term over the 5 years of the study. Although no defi nite fi ndings can be drawn from the limited number of students involved and the lack of performance evidence, the study does suggest some useful avenues for future research. (3) Interviews with the CLIL teacher throughout the fi rst and second school year, to contribute to the picture of the learning environment students were offered. At the beginning of Year 1 the purpose was to gather information on the teacher’s learning goals connected to learner strategy instruction specifically in terms of LLSI and CLIL. She was also asked about her fi rst impressions of the students’ attitude both to CLIL as a new learning environment and to engaging in more autonomous and student-centered learning. The aim of the interview at the

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Table 6.1 Students’ profiles Student

Profile

Class A S1

High-attaining/highly motivated student

S2 and S3

Average-attaining/average-motivated students

S4

Low-attaining/highly motivated student

S5

High-attaining/low-motivated student

S6

Low-attaining/low-motivated student

Class B S7

High-attaining/highly motivated student

S8

Average-attaining/average-motivated student

S9 and S10

Low-attaining/highly motivated students

S11

High-attaining/low-motivated student

end of Year 1 was to see if any changes had occurred in their attitudes and at the end of Year 2 to see whether a certain autonomy in their use of learning strategies had fi nally been achieved. Findings The learning environment

Analysis of the data showed that from the very beginning of the fi rst school year, the CLIL teacher planned a series of teaching activities aimed at helping students gain more awareness of their learning through specific learning strategy instruction (see Appendix 2 for a detailed description). In the interview the CLIL teacher explained that, in order to facilitate both language and content learning, she decided to begin by developing strategies helpful to reading comprehension, since texts were the usual starting point for new content knowledge in her lessons. Students were guided first to identify key points in complex texts, for example classifying information by recognizing key words; then, in order to help them fully grasp the concepts and facilitate a deeper content understanding, they were taught to use graphic organizers such as diagrams and graphs to transcode information (see Appendix 2, No. 7: ‘Grouping’ cognitive strategy). The teacher engaged them in a continuous monitoring process, so that they could get used to applying strategies to check their comprehension (see Appendix 2, No. 4: ‘Monitoring comprehension’ metacognitive strategy). The students’ attention was also constantly directed to how to widen their content-related vocabulary knowledge; through repeated reflection at the beginning of the lessons on specific key words to be acquired (see Appendix 2, No. 1: ‘Organizational planning’ metacognitive strategy),

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through activities to support and practice memorization strategies, through the use of dictionaries or through regular transcription of new words in a personal vocabulary list (No. 5: ‘Resourcing’, ‘Visualizing’ and ‘Summarizing’ cognitive strategies), as well as through turning to an online dictionary to check comprehension and pronunciation of new words so to be able to improve, monitor and assess their own learning (No. 2: ‘Self-management’ and ‘Self-assessment’ metacognitive strategies). The teacher also tried to help students gain awareness of strategies used to infer meaning, requiring them to distinguish between new words in a text whose meaning can be deduced from the context and words which prevent text understanding (No. 6: ‘Making inferences’ cognitive strategy). The teacher reported that in the first months of Year 1 the students could not distinguish very well the difference between the two categories: they tended to put all the unknown words either into one or the other category. The teacher’s point was that they had not yet developed the appropriate strategies to exploit context clues and other relevant details, draw on their previous knowledge and make use of selective attention while they were reading in order to guess the meanings of new items. These were strategies that they developed in the following months (see, for example, Appendix 2, No. 3: ‘Selective attention’ metacognitive strategy). Instead, they were still processing texts through an ‘all-or-nothing’ approach, worried about the need to understand every single word of the target language, and this made them anxious and limited their capacity to think objectively about the strategies they could use. In Year 2, as long as students showed that they were still making progress in their use of the strategies taught in Year 1, they were encouraged to develop tactics for improving their oral and written productive skills. In order to prepare them to do this, they were taught how to use tables, templates and grids so they could take accurate notes either to revise from or to use later in their written and spoken work. Attention was given in particular to the Cornell note-taking method – a systematic format for organizing notes structured in such a way as to assist the learner in synthesizing and applying learned knowledge2 – in order to support both strategic understanding of the content and improvement in target language competence. To scaffold their learning, the teacher started by organizing her handout contents according to the Cornell note-taking method so that the students became familiar with the format. Later, she gave them partially completed Cornell method handouts, which students were asked to complete by adding the missing contents so that they became more familiar with how best to organize new information (for details, see Appendix 2, No. 8: ‘Note-taking’ cognitive strategy). Apart from taking notes, students were also required to reread and review the material regularly, covering the note-taking part of the page when they attempted to answer the questions/keyword prompts on the opposite part of the page. Finally, social/affective strategies were developed through task-based group work

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activities, peer tutoring and peer feedback, to foster the growth of cooperation skills and a spirit of empathy (Appendix 2, Nos 9 and 10: ‘Cooperation’ and ‘Questioning for clarification’ social/affective strategies). The teacher’s perspective

In relation to our research questions, from the teacher’s perspective the CLIL classroom appeared to provide a positive learning environment for the development of strategies, for fostering student autonomy and for facilitating some degree of transfer. All the work undertaken on learning strategies in Years 1 and 2 was thought by the CLIL teacher to be the reason why, by the end of Year 2, many students seemed to write better in English than in Italian in terms of lexical choices and text structure (cohesion and coherence).When she reflected back on her experiences, she stressed that except for in a limited number of cases, the pupils showed interest in trying out new strategies and that some of them got used to applying techniques independently – especially mind maps and the Cornell note-taking method which they transferred to their study at home with excellent results. In terms of student autonomy, she commented that many of them had matured, demonstrating a consistent sense of responsibility and a high degree of motivation in dealing with learning activities that required autonomy in selecting materials, managing tasks and self-correcting. Furthermore, students with critical linguistic weaknesses at the beginning of Year 1 were said to have acquired satisfactory subject skills as well as an appropriate level of language skills by the end of Year 2. The learners’ perspective

When asked if they thought that they had developed learning strategies taught in the CLIL lessons, which were the most useful and which, if any, they had transferred (Question 1 of the focus-group interview), most of the students gave positive feedback on the strategy instruction, particularly the value of mind maps, underlining key ideas and fi nding an appropriate title. One of the less motivated students (S11, see Table 5.1 above in this chapter) even reflected perceptively on the fact that at this point in their education: [w]e need to concentrate especially on deep understanding of the content … For this reason, learning difficulties would not be any the less if we were asked to study in Italian. Therefore learning techniques and study methods are useful because, no matter the language used, they help you organize new knowledge. (S11)

Although there were mixed feelings about the Cornell method, 2 students like S9 and S10, both low-attaining but highly motivated, responded positively to it, as did S8, an average-attaining and average-motivated student.

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[i]n CLIL, since studying through a foreign language makes understanding more complex, a technique like the Cornell note-taking method eases one’s learning process, helping focus one’s attention on a few, precise concepts, which will then help you connect one piece of information to another. (S9) I have realized that they give me a lot of help in organizing knowledge, especially the use of the Cornell note-taking method as it provides you with key words on the one hand and their explanation on the other … I also find that to underline and highlight key words is very useful. Now I have learnt how to select key concepts instead of just coloring the whole text! (S8)

Three students reported being a little disoriented in Year 1 when their CLIL teacher repeatedly asked them to use the Cornell note-taking method as well as other strategies such as dividing texts into main paragraphs and writing titles for each paragraph (S7, S8, S10). Although at the very beginning they did not realize the value of the LLSI, as they continued using these tools and reflected upon the strategies they were applying, S7 and S10 gradually understood the benefits of using them to the point that S10 began to transfer some of those techniques to the study of other (non-CLIL) subjects: Initially, I felt a bit lost when using the learning techniques proposed by our CLIL teacher. Yet, I soon got used to them, especially to the Cornell method and I’ve started to use it when studying Italian Literature as well: I prepare a Cornell note page, enter notes, and this helps me memorize the contents better. (S10, a low-attaining but highly motivated student)

This widening of the student’s repertoire of strategies reflects Oxford’s (2003) view that: L2 learners clearly need to make the most of their style preferences. However, occasionally they must also extend themselves beyond their style preferences. By providing a wide range of classroom activities that cater to different learning styles, teachers can help L2 students develop beyond the comfort zone dictated by their natural style preferences. (Oxford, 2003:7)

Both the high-attaining and highly motivated students commented that they only used the Cornell method for science but not for other subjects (S1, S7). However, the latter student also noted that she had almost developed her own internalized equivalent: It is like a Cornell note-taking page which develops in my mind instead of being reported on paper. (S7)

One student also commented on the development of their social strategies: We are probably a bit more […] able to work in group. (S5, a high-attaining but low-motivated student)

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The value of making the learning process explicit and then internalizing the strategies involved emerges even from S6 (a low-attaining and low-motivated student), who comments that: These are techniques that our CLIL teacher has required us to use regularly; they have become so spontaneous, in a certain way, that I have transferred them to the other subjects. Of course some techniques (like giving titles to paragraphs or underlining parts of texts) were not new to me before CLIL, but, certainly, I have improved my way of using them more appropriately and consciously due to the training that occurred in CLIL classes. (S6)

There are implications here for teachers to continue to explicitly foster the use of strategies. S9 comments: The other teachers do not pay explicit attention to learning strategies. I think that, at this point of our education, they are taken for granted. (S9, a low-attaining but highly motivated student)

Not all the students were so positive. Three pointed out their dislike of certain of the proposed techniques, making the point that, as each learner may feel differently about them according to their personal preferences, they should not be imposed (S2, S4, S5): I think that at this point of one’s life, everybody has already found their own way of studying and doing things according to their inclinations. (S2, an average-attaining and average-motivated student) I tried to take notes using Cornell note-taking method but I don’t think it’s suitable for me: I don’t like the fact that notes must be taken in a restricted space, I need to have more freedom when writing. (S4, a lowattaining but highly motivated student) I don’t think that strategies and techniques should be imposed by teachers; they are something to be used naturally by the learner themselves. I usually use cognitive maps, underline texts, and take notes, in any subject class. I have always used these techniques, even before doing CLIL lessons. (S5, a high-attaining but low-motivated student)

As these students were either low or average in motivation (S2 and S5) or low attaining (S4), it is possible that they were particularly susceptible to feeling pressurized to meet the teacher’s expectations. The students’ dislike could also be connected to their lack of motivation to devote the time and effort necessary to widen their repertoire beyond their comfort zone. As one student admits: Although I fi nd it very handy and beneficial, I admit not using the Cornell method when studying other disciplines because I am maybe too disorganized and too lazy. (S11, a high-attaining but low-motivated student)

Harris came to a similar conclusion about some of the students in her study (2007) and highlights the fact that strategy instruction should be integrated throughout the whole curriculum so that students appreciate

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its relevance rather than being left to the single initiative of some particularly well-informed teachers. The resistance of such students reminds us that in seeking to make strategy instruction central to our teaching agenda we must not overlook the very fi rst step of the process, namely developing students’ awareness of their current strategies and beliefs about learning strategies (see also Rubin & Acero Rios, this volume). Gu’s argument in Chapter 2 of this volume for a more ‘bottom-up’ model of LLSI reflects Chamot’s (2013) assertion that: if learning strategies are taught as a path to learner autonomy, then individual learners should decide which strategies work best for them. Strategy instruction should not be prescriptive; rather it should present a variety of alternatives and opportunities for students to develop their metacognitive awareness of the strategies that work for them. (Chamot, 2013: 88)

So if we are to encourage students to move outside their comfort zone, as Oxford (2003) indicates, we need also to develop their ability to evaluate accurately which strategies really do work best for them and why. While students’ mixed feelings about some of the strategies and their transferability arose through Question 1 of the focus-group interview, this was not the case in their responses to Question 2, which explored whether the learning environment had fostered the development of the students’ autonomy. The majority of students reported having a stronger sense of self-regulation and feeling more confident and effective, particularly in searching for new resources (S1, S2, S7, S9), in managing complex texts (S2, S7, S10), and in independent home study (S8). Their sense of self-efficacy, autonomy and greater ability to reflect on their own learning is evident in this comment by S3, an average-attaining and average-motivated student: Yes, maybe I am a bit more responsible for what I do, in the way I organize study materials, for what works better or doesn’t work at all for me. (S3)

This awareness of how they learn extends even to low-motivated students (S6 and S11), who perceive themselves as more aware and, above all, as more independent in managing strategies: I feel much more autonomous and responsible for what I learn. I think that I speak more in classroom and to some extent I have widened my personal range of learning strategies. (S6) I think this CLIL has helped me optimize both my study time and my learning in general. I think it gives me opportunities to widen my knowledge with many kinds of materials, which I can select for myself, if I want. (S11)

It seems that many of the students, even if they are not high attainers or particularly motivated, have observed other positive changes the classes have brought about: I think that CLIL requires more attention in class and more participation. (S2, an average-attaining and average-motivated student)

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In CLIL lessons I feel more active. (S8, an average-attaining and averagemotivated student) During CLIL lessons, we are engaged with exercises that involve all the class. They call for the active participation of all the students. (S9, a lowattaining but highly motivated student)

Students also note shifts in the teacher’s behavior: Our CLIL teacher tries to keep our attention walking around the room, instead of staying just sitting on her chair behind the teacher desk. She writes key words on the whiteboard so you can take notes easily. This also helps recap things when you become distracted and lose the thread of what the teacher is saying … It allows you to be more focused and feel less anxious. (S7, a high-attaining and highly motivated student)

Returning to the questions that guided this aspect of the five-year project, the learners’ perspectives do appear to reflect the teacher’s view that for many of the students the CLIL learning environment has facilitated the development of their strategies, their autonomy and also, to a limited extent, their ability to transfer strategies across other subject areas. However, these tentative reflections cannot be detached from the limitations of the study: the small number of students in the sample, the lack of classroom observations or performance evidence, and the context where the research was carried out, that is, in the Liceo Classico Europeo. Students following this specific program know in advance that they will go through extensive L2 teaching, including the learning of subject matter through the medium of a foreign language. In other words, it is what Bruton (2011: 530) calls a ‘selected scenario’, characterized by ‘certain educational circumstances’ (for example, pupils’ level of motivation in target language learning), which are in themselves potentially beneficial to CLIL implementation. We must also acknowledge the difficulty in any questionnaires or interviews of avoiding leading questions and that there is always the danger that the student may want to please the interviewer by giving positive responses. That said, it does seem that, even if some students experienced initial difficulties and not all were convinced of the value of the Cornell method, for example, many felt they were more autonomous and reflective learners. It is particularly heartening that this development was not limited to the high attainers. Indeed, interestingly it was some of the average- and low-attaining students such as S8, S9 and S10 who responded positively to strategy instruction including the Cornell method. It is often assumed that, because basic L1 learning strategies are taught in primary school or lower secondary school, there is no need for teachers to explain to the students how they can be applied to other subject areas, including the L2 and at more advanced levels. Yet, for some students LLSI offers a second chance to come to grips with those strategies that they struggled with when they were younger. And for many students, making

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the links explicit provides a much needed opportunity to understand when and how to transfer strategies (see also Gunning, this volume). Future Directions for Research

In spite of these and other positive fi ndings (see Carloni, 2010; Hanesová, 2014; Lázaro Ibarrola & García Mayo, 2012; Ruiz de Zarobe & Zenotz, 2015), further research clearly needs to be carried out on the use of learning strategies in CLIL settings. Recalling Peacock and Ho’s (2003) notable study in a university English for academic purposes (EAP) learning context, which showed that students’ strategy use varies across disciplines, it would be worth carrying out a similar study but in CLIL rather than EAP contexts, comparing and contrasting strategy use across disciplines. Studies could also examine the relationships in CLIL contexts between students’ strategy use, L2 proficiency, age, gender and motivation level. Furthermore, it could be investigated whether the effectiveness of strategy instruction differs by subject matter. Not only would such data be useful in creating more effective and targeted LLSI, but it could also help foster teachers’ cross-curricular cooperation. Hence, in addition to the questions in this small-scale study, possible avenues to explore could include: • • • •

Do language learning strategies used by CLIL students vary according to the subject matter approached? Does the effectiveness of the LLSI differ by subject matter? Do language learning strategies used by CLIL students vary according to their level of performance and motivation? What are the implications for both CLIL and L2 teachers?

Conclusion

The study reported here seems to suggest that, if students receive explicit instruction in language learning strategies suitable for CLIL settings, they become aware of their value and more autonomous in their learning. Some may even apply them to other (non-CLIL) subject learning environments as Adamson (2014) and Pinner (2013) found, particularly if the links are made explicit. These suggestions highlight the importance of further investigations into what characterizes CLIL learning processes, in primis the use of learning strategies and their inclusion in the CLIL curriculum, which still represent a significant gap in the research literature that needs to be filled. Acknowledgements

This study would not have been possible without the support of my supervisor, Professor Carmel Coonan, the dedication and commitment of

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the CLIL teacher involved, Eugenia Iovane, and the cooperation of her students (Liceo Classico Europeo ‘Foscarini’ of Venice). Notes (1) The CLIL teacher wrote some of the sections about reading strategies, note-taking tools and techniques for organizing and representing knowledge for a volume on learning strategies (Ferraresso & Lucarini, 2009). (2) In the Cornell note-taking method, the page is divided into different sections: a lesson date-and-title row at the top of the sheet, a cue/prompt column on the left-hand side and a note-taking column on the right-hand side. Finally, there is a summary row at the bottom. This layout is intended to guide the learner to record main facts, stress connections, refi ne understanding and memorize information. During a lecture, reading or listening activity, or at any time they have the opportunity, students write notes in the note-taking column. Once the lesson is fi nished, students reread their notes and write keywords and possible questions in the cue column, in order to clarify meanings, establish connections, etc. At the end, they write a brief summary at the bottom of the page. To help memorize the contents, the students can rehearse their notes, covering the note-taking (right) column while attempting to answer the questions or keywords in the cue (left) column or vice versa.

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Pérez-Vidal, C. (2007) The need for Focus on Form (FoF) in content and language integrated approaches: An exploratory study. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada 1, 39–54. Pinner, R. (2013) Authenticity and CLIL: Examining authenticity from an international CLIL perspective. International CLIL Research Journal 2 (1), 44–54. Psaltou-Joycey, A., Mattheoudakis, M. and Alexiou, T. (2015) Language learning strategies in CLIL and non-CLIL classes: Which strategies do young learners claim they use? In A. Psaltou-Joycey, M. Mattheoudakis and E. Agathopoulou (eds) CrossCurricular Approaches to Language Education (pp. 305–322). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars. Ruiz de Zarobe, Y. and Zenotz, V. (2015) Reading strategies and CLIL: The eff ect of training in formal instruction. Language Learning Journal 43 (3), 319–333. Seikkula-Leino, J. (2007) CLIL learning: Achievement levels and aff ective factors. Language and Education 21 (4), 328–341. Smit, U. (2008) The AILA Research Network – CLIL and Immersion Classrooms: Applied Linguistics Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swain, M. and Lapkin, S. (1982) Evaluating Bilingual Education: A Canadian Case Study. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Sylvén, L.K. and Thompson, A.S. (2015) Language learning motivation and CLIL. Is there a connection? Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education 3 (1), 28–50. Ushioda, E. (2014) Motivation, autonomy and metacognition: Exploring their interactions. In D. Lasagabaster, A. Doiz and J.M. Sierra (eds) Motivation and Foreign Language Learning: From Theory to Practice (pp. 31–49). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. van de Craen, P., Mondt, K., Allain, L. and Gao, Y. (2007) Why and how CLIL works: An outline for a CLIL theory. Vienna English Working Papers 16 (3), 70–78 Várkuti, A. (2010) Linguistic benefits of the CLIL approach: Measuring linguistic competences. International CLIL Research Journal 1, 67–79. Wolff, D. (2003) Content and language integrated learning: A framework for the development of learner autonomy. In D. Little, J. Ridley and E. Ushioda (eds) Learner Autonomy in the Foreign Language Classroom: Teacher, Learner, Curriculum and Assessment (pp. 211–222). Dublin: Authentik. Wolff, D. (2005) Approaching CLIL. In D. Marsh, D. Coyle, S. Kitanova, A. Maljers, D. Wolff and B. Zielonka (eds) Project D3 – CLIL Matrix. The CLIL Quality Matrix. Central Workshop Report No. 6/2005. See https://archive.ecml.at/mtp2/CLILmatrix/ pdf/wsrepD3E2005_6.pdf. Wolff, D. (2010) Developing curricula for CLIL: Issues and problems. In B. O’Rourke and L. Carson (eds) Language Learner Autonomy. Policy, Curriculum, Classroom. A Festchrift in Honour of David Little (pp. 103–120). Bern: Peter Lang. Wolff , D. (2011) CLIL and learner autonomy: Relating two educational concepts. Education et Sociétés Plurilingues 30, 69–80. Yang, N.-D. (1999) The relationship between EFL learners’ beliefs and learning strategy use. System 27 (4), 515–535.

LLSI in CLIL Programs

Appendix 1: Example of a CLIL Teacher’s Lesson Plan and Student Lesson Handout

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Appendix 2: Description of Learning Strategies Integrated into Year 1 and Year 2 CLIL Teaching Materials No.

Type of strategya – Description – Frequency

1

Metacognitive strategy: Organizational planning – Paying explicit attention to learning objectives (keywords, language structures, studying skills and strategies, and ICT skills) Year 1 and Year 2: At the beginning of each unit

2

Metacognitive strategy: Self-management, self-assessment – Training visual memory and verbal memory to find the most suitable strategy for one’s learning Year 1: Module 1, Unit 1.2 – Checking pronunciation of new words (the teacher gives a link to an online dictionary, shows how it works in classroom and then asks the students to use it autonomously any time they need it) Year 1 and Year 2: At the end of almost each unit – Arranging the conditions to support learning: ‘Surf the following website and download CmapTooms program which allows you to draw concept maps using your computer’ Year 1: Module 1, Unit 2.1

3

Metacognitive strategy: Selective attention – Listening to understand the general meaning of each text section Year 1: Module 1, Unit 1.2 – Reading selectively according to specific aims (skimming, scanning, search reading, extensive reading) Year 1: Module 1, Unit 1.3 Year 2: Module 2, Unit 1.1, Unit 1.5

4

Metacognitive strategy: Monitoring comprehension – Checking comprehension while reading, by activating specific actions like underlining/highlighting parts of the text, writing a title, numbering key words if they are in a hierarchic structure Year 2: All the 11 units included in Module 2 and Module 3

5

Cognitive strategy: Resourcing, visualizing, summarizing – Using reference materials, pictures and graphic organizers to support content/ concept understanding, memorization, rehearsal: ‘Hide the right column of your sheet and try to answer the questions using your own words’; ‘Surf the net and print some pictures about planets discussed in classroom today’ Year 1: Module 1, Unit 1.1 (Homework) ‘Write the definition of … using the following diagram’:

Year 1: Module 1, Unit 1.1 – Using reference materials, pictures and graphic organizers to widen vocabulary knowledge: ‘Record new words in your own vocabulary book using the dictionary if needed’ Year 1: Module 1, Unit 1.1, Unit 1.2, Unit 1.3, Unit 2.1; Module 2, Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3 Year 2: Unit 1.5

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6

Cognitive strategy: Making inferences – Guessing from context and predicting meaning: ‘Make a list of unknown words whose meaning can be deduced from the context. Then write a synonym or their meaning in English if you can’; ‘Make a list of words that prevent the understanding of text/concepts’ Year 1: Module 1, Unit 1.3, Unit 2.1

7

Cognitive strategy: Grouping – Classifying information according to their attributes: ‘Highlight the key words connected to …’; Year 1: Module 2, Unit 4 – Constructing graphic organizers: ‘Draw a diagram of …’; ‘Draw a concept map of …’; ‘Draw while listening’ Year 1: Module 1, Unit 1.1, Unit 1.2, Unit 1.3, Unit 2.1; Module 2, Unit 1.1, Unit 1.2, Unit 1.3, Unit 1.4 Year 2: Unit 1.3

8

Cognitive strategy: Note-taking – From Module 1, Unit 2: The teacher discusses relationships within the solar system following the Cornell note-taking method (see Endnote 2) ; for example, 'what is a model and how do we use them?' – From Module 2, Unit 1: The teacher discusses the rotation in the solar system through a partially completed version of the Cornell note-taking method where students complete the handout adding key words or questions for each time period in the (left) cue column – From Module 2, Unit 3: The teacher presents the tables (similar to preformatted Cornell notes-style pages) to be completed in the (right) note-taking column:

Year 1: From Module 1, Unit 2 and most of following lessons, including Year 2 9

Social/affective strategy: Cooperation – Working with peers to gather information from mutual prior knowledge: ‘In pairs, discuss previous lesson on the basis of the title of each paragraph’ Year 2: Module 2, Unit 1.3

10

Social/affective strategy: Questioning for clarification – Exercising communicative skills with peers with the aim of overcoming difficulties by asking questions and negotiating meaning: ‘Discuss alternative sentences to describe …’; ‘Check your answers with your classmate’ Year 1: Module 1, Unit 1.1, Unit 1.3; Module 2, Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 4; Module 3, Unit 1, Unit 3, Unit 5

Note: aSee Chamot and O’Malley (1994: 62–63).

Part 2 Issues: Less Studied and Less Taught Groups of Strategies Introduction to Part 2 To date, emotion regulation has received little attention within educational or SLA research, with key scholars acknowledging that affect should be given its due (see Oxford, 2016, 2017) and welcoming suggestions for further developments in the area. (Christina Gkonou & Rebecca L. Oxford, Chapter 14 in this volume)

The chapters in Part 1 were concerned with the theoretical issues raised by different models of Language Learning Strategy Instruction (LLSI), with its relative impact according to sociocultural factors and with its potential to foster self-efficacy. In Part 2 we turn to the issues raised by the content of the LLSI: in other words, which strategies are of value to the learner and could be taught. The thrust of previous Language Learner Strategy (LLS) research has been on identifying the cognitive strategies needed to learn a new language and the overarching metacognitive strategies used to plan, monitor and evaluate their use. It is only recently that we have begun to realize that, however valuable the seminal categorizations of strategies by O’Malley and Chamot (1990) or Oxford (1990), for example, certain groups of strategies have been overlooked. O’Malley and Chamot’s categorization (1990) did mention affective strategies but they were not investigated in any detail. Yet learning and using a language involves the whole person, with strong emotional responses ranging from delight at communicating successfully to frustration and boredom at memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules. Chapters 10, 11 and 14 all provide suggestions for teaching affective strategies but the chapters in Part 2 focus on three other groups of less studied strategies. Canale and Swain (1980) identified four features of communicative competence: strategic, grammatical, sociolinguistic and discourse competence. We have yet to fully explore the strategies involved in each and how they can be taught. Chapter 7 considers LLSI for developing the strategies that will build grammatical competence. Chapter 8 deals with strategies for fostering Critical Cultural Awareness (CCA) and Chapter 9 with 107

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strategies for learning and performing pragmatic strategies; the latter two groups are crucial for sociolinguistic competence. It may be worth clarifying that the issue is not the teaching of grammar or of CCA. Rather, the focus is on the strategies that the students need to learn grammar or CCA independently of teacher support. Each of the chapters begins by discussing what is known to date about the particular strategies in their area, since there is a danger otherwise that some useful strategic devices might simply fail to be recognized. That said, CCA is only one aspect of intercultural competence and has not as yet been the focus of empirical studies in its own right so the authors’ suggestions can only be tentative. The chapters then move on to offering some practical illustrations of how such strategies might be taught, providing a link to Part 3 which focuses on the implementation of LLSI at a concrete level with practical examples of LLSI activities and resources. References Canale, M. and Swain, M. (1980) Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics 1 (1), 1–47. O’Malley, M. and Chamot, A.U. (1990) Language Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oxford, R.L. (1990) Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Oxford, R.L. (2016) Toward a psychology of well-being for language learners: The ‘EMPATHICS’ vision. In P. MacIntyre, T. Gregersen and S. Mercer (eds) Positive Psychology in SLA (pp. 10–87). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Oxford, R.L. (2017) Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies: SelfRegulation in Context (2nd edn). New York: Routledge.

7 Grammar Learning Strategies Instruction in the Foreign Language Classroom: The Case of Students in Degree Programs in English Mirosław Pawlak

Introduction

Although the need for grammar instruction has always generated considerable controversy, there is broad agreement that this kind of pedagogic intervention is facilitative or even necessary for second and foreign language (L2) development (see Ellis, 2004; Larsen-Freeman, 2010; Loewen, 2015; Nassaji & Fotos, 2011; Pawlak, 2006, 2013a, 2014). To be more specific, the positive contribution of grammar teaching, including the provision of corrective feedback (CF), is stressed in a number of theoretical positions, only some of which can be mentioned at this juncture and only very briefly due to space limitations. DeKeyser (2007, 2015, 2017) believes, for example, that the knowledge of grammar rules provides a basis for spontaneous communication if learners have ample opportunities to practice such rules under conditions in which the target language (TL) is used in real time, as is the case with everyday conversation. Long (1996) and Swain (2000), in turn, are of the opinion that getting learners to attend to TL form, which can be achieved through different types of CF, increases the quality of input to which they are exposed, provides information about what is not possible in the TL (i.e. negative evidence) and gives an opportunity to modify erroneous utterances. There are also views that grammar instruction, irrespective of the form it takes, is effective when it is compatible with the learner’s current stage of interlanguage development, a position which is in line with the claims of processability

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theory (Pienemann & Lenzing, 2015). An important caveat, however, is that both the scope of such intervention and the specific techniques and procedures applied have to be adjusted to a given context. There can be little doubt that grammar instruction is indispensable in the case of university students enrolled in degree programs in English, where all components of communicative competence have to be developed so that students can use the TL accurately, meaningfully and appropriately in their future jobs as teachers, translators or interpreters. It stands to reason that the effectiveness of grammar teaching in this context can be greatly enhanced if students are instructed in the use of strategies that will help them better handle the understanding and use of the targeted structures. What should be emphasized, though, is that tackling the issue of instruction in grammar learning strategies (GLS) poses a major challenge in view of the fact that research into these strategies is still in its infancy. In fact, there is still no consensus as to how GLS should be classified, little is known about the strategic devices that learners draw on to better understand grammar structures and to successfully employ these structures in different kinds of tasks, and empirical evidence regarding the actual effectiveness of these strategies is scarce. In addition, there is a paucity of studies that would tap into the contribution of the myriad of learner-internal variables (such as learning styles) and learner-external factors (e.g. different types of tasks, ranging from controlled exercises to those requiring the use of TL features in real-time communication) that may mediate the application of GLS. Furthermore, attempts to explore the effects of pedagogic intervention in this area are few and far between (see Anderson, 2005; Cohen, 2011; Oxford, 2011; Oxford et al., 2007; Pawlak, 2009, 2012a, 2012b, 2013a; Pawlak & Oxford, 2018). As Oxford (2011: 256) writes, ‘(…) grammar strategies have had very little attention. In fact, they have garnered the least interest and concern of any area of L2 learning strategies.’ Even though the tenuous empirical evidence makes it difficult to conduct principled grammar learning strategies instruction (GLSI), it is clear that such efforts should nonetheless be made because, to quote Cohen (2011: 690), ‘(…) grammar forms are not just magically acquired. (…) the hard fact is that learners encounter grammar forms that are problematic and may well cause them repeated difficulties (…)’. Thus, instead of waiting for research to generate more insights into GLS and offer failsafe or at least reliable pointers for effective instruction, it is incumbent on teachers to aid their students in learning grammar effectively, as well as adopting a more autonomous approach to this task. Such challenges obviously also have to take into account the overall objectives of a particular course or program. This goal can only be attained through some form of GLSI, even if such pedagogic intervention has to be based on research fi ndings concerning language learning strategies (LLS) in general, experience, intuition and the realities of a specific context, rather than on empirical evidence directly pertaining to GLS. In line with this reasoning,

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the present chapter aims to formulate some tentative principles of GLSI and specifically for university students studying for a degree in English in a foreign language setting. Issues in Defining, Classifying and Using Grammar Learning Strategies

Leaving aside the heated discussions regarding the defi nition and features of LLS (see, for example, Cohen, 2011, 2014; Cohen & Griffiths, 2015; Griffiths, 2008; Oxford, 2011, 2017), following Cohen and PinillaHerrera (2009: 64), GLS are understood here as ‘deliberate thoughts and actions that students consciously employ for learning and getting better control over the use of grammar structures’. Adopting such a defi nition is consequential in the sense that it makes it plain that appropriate use of GLS can lead to the development of both explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge or, at the very least, a highly automatized variant of explicit representation (cf. DeKeyser, 2007; Ellis, 2007). The former is declarative, conscious and can only be employed when learners have ample time to fall back upon pertinent rules, as the case might be with controlled exercises (such as putting verbs in parentheses in the appropriate form). The latter is procedural, either subconscious or accessible with such ease that these rules can be applied effortlessly in real-time, spontaneous message conveyance, which is to a large extent called for in the performance of different types of communication tasks (for example, the use of passive voice in an attempt to describe a famous landmark). This is without doubt a crucial consideration for the possible foci of GLSI, since it should include strategies addressing both types of knowledge, perhaps with one being given more emphasis than the other depending on the situation in which it takes place. Another important issue that requires consideration before undertaking GLSI is the way in which grammar learning strategies should be categorized. Although there may be doubts as to whether coming up with a neat classification is at all possible, given that strategic devices can perform multiple roles (cf. Cohen, 2014; Oxford, 2017), some order simply needs to be imposed on the multifarious ways in which learners approach learning grammar structures. While some researchers (e.g. Tilfarlioğlu, 2005; Trendak, 2015) have opted to fall back upon the classification of general LLS proposed by Oxford (1990) and her Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL), the specificity of learning grammar dictates that a classification should be devised which would be dedicated solely to this language subsystem or else some useful strategic devices might simply fail to be recognized (cf. Pawlak, 2013a). The same reasons have guided Cohen (this volume) in the classification of pragmatic strategies. An initial attempt to develop such a descriptive scheme for GLS was made by Oxford et al. (2007), who identified four modes of grammar

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instruction which may call for the use of quite different GLS. Two of the modes were implicit, namely: a focus on meaning, where the primary concern is the attainment of communicative goals; and a focus on form, where the learners’ attention is directed at linguistic features because inaccurate use of these features would hinder effective communication. The other two were explicit, that is deductive or inductive, depending on whether learners are provided with the requisite rules or requested to discover them on the basis of TL samples. Acknowledging the merits of this fi rst systematic attempt to categorize GLS as strategic devices in their own right, Pawlak (2009, 2012b, 2013b) also pointed to the shortcomings of this descriptive scheme, which involved, among others, failure to take account of the learners’ perspective, omission of different types of practice that lie in most cases at the core of grammar teaching and learning, as well as exclusion of some general categories of strategies typically included in leading classifications (for example, metacognitive, affective and social strategies). Based on options in grammar instruction listed by Ellis (1997) and modified by Pawlak (2006), the existing categorizations of LLS as well as the available, albeit admittedly scant and patchy, fi ndings of the empirical investigations of GLS, Pawlak (2013b, 2018) proposed his own classification which served as a basis for designing a new data collection tool. The classification consists of the following four groups of GLS: (1) metacognitive strategies, which are employed with a view to self-regulating the process of learning grammar in terms of planning, organizing, monitoring and evaluating it (for example, seeking opportunities to practice grammar features in a multitude of ways); (2) affective strategies, which serve the purpose of addressing the affective and motivational issues which may arise in the study of grammar (such as encouraging oneself to practice structures that are difficult or problematic); (3) social strategies, which entail interaction with the teacher or other learners with the purpose of enhancing the knowledge or control of the grammar of the additional language (for example, engaging in the practice of linguistic features together with peers); and (4) cognitive strategies, which encompass mental operations and processes that come into play when learning or using grammar structures. Since the last group of strategies directly concerns the techniques that learners employ in learning grammar and it is composed of the greatest number of strategic devices, it is further subdivided into four subcategories, which to some extent reflect those proposed by Oxford et al. (2007), that is: (1) strategies applied to enhance comprehension and production of grammatical features in communication tasks (for example, using specific structures to attain a communicative goal, as when telling a story or writing a spontaneous email message); (2) strategies used to develop explicit knowledge of grammar through deduction and induction (like paying attention to the rules provided by the teacher or drawing on electronic sources, such as websites or corpora, to figure

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out how rules work); (3) strategies applied to enhance implicit knowledge of grammar, which can differ with respect to whether they involve controlled or spontaneous production of TL features (such as trying to apply specific rules correctly in new sentences or making efforts to use them in spontaneous oral or written production) or reception of these forms aimed at noticing form-meaning mappings (like listening to or reading texts containing multiple instances of the TL structure); and (4) strategies used to deal with the CF provided on grammar errors (for example, trying to notice how the correct version deviates from one’s own production and to improve on what has been said). Even though this classification is not free from shortfalls and represents work in progress, it is relevant to the present discussion as it will provide a point of reference in the presentation of the principles of GLSI further on in this chapter. What also has to be kept in mind when determining the goals and nature of GLSI are the results of studies into the use of GLS in the context in which it is to be implemented or other similar contexts. In this case, such studies include all of those where additional languages are taught as foreign rather than second languages, a situation that typically entails scant out-of-class access to the TL. Since a detailed overview of such research projects falls beyond the scope of this chapter, it seems warranted to only synthesize their main fi ndings at this juncture. For one thing, research has demonstrated that learners in foreign language settings for the most part tend to rely on rather traditional ways of learning grammar, drawing in the main on the cognitive strategy of formal practice, even though some evidence to the contrary is also available (e.g. DroździałSzelest, 1997; Mystkowska-Wiertelak, 2008; Pawlak, 2008, 2012b). Secondly, it has been shown that the nature of the activity in hand is bound to impinge on the application of GLS, with the distinction between the performance of controlled exercises and communication tasks playing a key role (see Pawlak, 2012c, 2012d). Thirdly, the empirical evidence indicates that students are likely to employ GLS that are reflective of the instructional practices used by their teachers and that there may be a marked discrepancy in responses to Likert-scale items compared to openended questions (e.g. Pawlak, 2008, 2012b). Fourthly, the few studies that have examined the impact of mediating variables on the employment of GLS have produced confl icting results, showing, for example, that the relationship to proficiency may hinge on a specific category of GLS and indicating as well that age, gender and the amount of experience in language learning may play a part (e.g. Mystkowska-Wiertelak, 2008; Pawlak, 2009; Tilfarlioğlu, 2005). Lastly, the handful of research projects that have zoomed in on the effect of GLSI have demonstrated that such an intervention can be effective in increasing the application of the targeted GLS and enhancing mastery of the specific grammar structures being taught, but such studies have been done mostly with respect to controlled exercises rather than real-time communication (Morales & Smith, 2008;

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Trendak, 2015). Scant as it undoubtedly is, this empirical evidence bodes well for the efficacy of GLSI, the principles of which will be outlined below. These have been developed based on the author’s experience of working with students studying English in Polish universities. The Context of Grammar Learning Strategies Instruction: University English Majors in a Foreign Language Setting

As emphasized in most recent studies (see, for example, Chamot, 2004; Oxford, 2011, 2017; Rubin et al., 2007), strategy-based instruction, including that which targets the use of GLS, should be tailored to the characteristics of a given instructional context, in which learners may be of similar age, strive to attain similar goals, receive a similar kind of instruction, be evaluated in a similar manner and have similar opportunities for access to the TL outside school. This does not, of course, obviate the need for individualization within each context. For this reason, before embarking on the presentation of the recommendations for effective GLSI, it is crucial to outline the main characteristics of the context for which pedagogic intervention is intended. The group in question are Polish students enrolled in a three-year BA program in English in two higher education institutions in Poland. They can be assumed to be by and large representative of their peers attending similar programs in other foreign language settings, whether in Europe or in other parts of the world. Although there are bound to exist slight differences between particular departments, the core of a BA program in English, and other foreign languages for that matter, consists of an intensive course in the TL spanning the period of the entire three years. This course is typically composed of several components which can be labelled in different ways but which usually include separate classes in grammar, pronunciation, speaking, reading, academic writing, use of English and integrated skills, with the number of contact hours decreasing and different areas being stressed as students move from Year 1 to Year 3. Integral to the program are also content classes in literature, linguistics, history, cultural studies and foreign language teaching methodology, as well as a number of electives, most of which are taught through the medium of the TL. In their fi nal year, students also have to attend a seminar of their choice where the main requirement is writing a diploma paper in English in one of the content areas listed above, a task that clearly requires a high level of proficiency as well as a considerable degree of familiarity with the conventions of academic writing. While the admissions criteria in Poland have been relaxed in recent years in order to accommodate the much lower proficiency levels of the fewer and fewer candidates who apply and course requirements have been lowered as well, the completion of the program still necessitates achieving superior command of the TL (namely C1–C2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for

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Language (CEFR) (Council of Europe, 2001), an inherent part of which is mastery of grammar that is thoroughly tested at end-of-the-year examinations. A few comments are also in order about the students enrolled in this program, their goals, characteristics, needs and attainment, with the caveat that although such descriptions help depict the realities of the context in question, they represent generalizations that by no means apply to every single individual. First, present-day English majors appear to have very different agendas from those of, say, 10 or 15 years ago, with most of them viewing the program as an intensive course in the TL rather than the opportunity to delve into the linguistic system or the literature and culture that it represents. Secondly, they are seldom willing to go beyond what is done in class by seeking out additional practice opportunities in their own time, which speaks volumes about their level of autonomy – if not about their inability to exercise independence then certainly about their reluctance to do so. Thirdly, as mentioned above, their proficiency is lower than it used to be, as is the level of attainment on completion of the program, with many students, in all likelihood due to the format of final examinations in secondary school, lacking explicit knowledge of basic TL features (such as irregular verb forms), let alone the ability to apply grammar structures accurately, meaningfully and appropriately (cf. Larsen-Freeman, 2003) in spontaneous communication. Fourthly, since in most cases grammar classes place a premium on controlled, traditional exercises as well as the mastery of difficult, sometimes rare and barely necessary structures, and as this approach is also reflected in achievement tests and the end-ofthe-year examination, this is exactly what students emphasize in their learning, with the use of GLS mirroring these instructional practices (see Pawlak, 2008, 2012b). Fifthly, despite the copious and constantly growing opportunities for contact with the TL, for example through the internet or computer-mediated communication, few learners avail themselves of existing resources and, even when they do, this seldom happens with the purpose of improving their command of grammar. Obviously, not all English majors fit this profile and the way in which they approach learning grammar is also determined by an array of individual difference variables, connected to their beliefs, language aptitude, working memory capacity, personalities, learning styles, favored general LLS or their envisaged ideal language selves (Dörnyei, 2009). Such contextual and individual factors surely have to be taken into account when planning and undertaking GLSI, an issue which is the focus of the following section. Tentative Principles of Grammar Learning Strategies Instruction

The guidelines for the implementation of GLSI are based on a number of key considerations, that is: (1) the defi nition and classification

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of GLS presented above; (2) the fi ndings of empirical investigations conducted thus far; (3) the realities of the educational setting; and (4) the guidelines for strategy-based instruction that can be found in the relevant literature. In view of the fact that points 1–3 can easily be related to the issues discussed in the previous section, the last one is in need of elaboration. Rubin et al. (2007) mention a sequence of four steps that is common to all models of strategy training and includes making learners cognizant of the strategies that they already employ, presentation and modeling of new strategies by the teacher, the provision of abundant opportunities for the practice of the targeted strategies, and the opportunities for self-evaluation and the transfer of strategies to new tasks. What can be added to the list is that strategy-based instruction should: be explicit, with learners being cognizant of its goals; be integrated into regular language classes rather than provided as a separate course; initially focus on metacognitive and cognitive strategies in order to foster self-management; be comprehensive; and capitalize on students’ shared knowledge of their mother tongue when such an option is viable (Chamot, 2004; Harris, 2003; Rubin et al., 2007). In light of these considerations, the following principles of GLSI directed at students in degree programs in English can be proposed, accompanied with suggestions of how they could be implemented in practice: (1) The overall goal of strategy instruction should be to raise the students’ awareness of the importance of grammar in foreign language learning and to make them cognizant of the fact that the rules that they know consciously cannot easily be employed in real-time communication. This could entail, for example, having them work on a communicative task calling for the use of the passive voice, such as a description of a famous place on the basis of a set of prompts, recording their output to encourage self-monitoring of their errors, and subsequently offering feedback on their performance. The application of such a procedure is likely to lead students to notice gaps in their knowledge of the targeted grammar structure and offer an incentive to improve it through the employment of GLS. (2) Although students are likely to benefit from GLSI with respect to all four of the categories listed earlier, given the limited time that can be dedicated to such instruction the focus should be on the cognitive GLS and their subcategories, not least because the remaining strategies can be attended to in other classes (such as speaking, writing, integrated skills). In the light of the nature of instruction that students receive and their predilection for rather traditional ways of learning grammar structures, within the cognitive group the main focus of GLSI should be on strategies that aid production and comprehension of grammar structures in communicative tasks. They should also enhance rule

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(3)

(4)

(5)

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discovery with the assistance of different resources, assist noticing form-meaning mappings and enable better utilization of CF provided by the teacher or peers. Instruction should be preceded by the identification of the GLS that students already employ, which would, on the one hand, raise their awareness and, on the other, ensure that the scant amount of time is not wasted on teaching strategic devices that students are already adept at using. This could be done with the help of the tool for tapping GLS use devised by Pawlak (2013b, 2018, forthcoming) as well as group- and whole-class discussions about how grammar can best be learnt, which could be conducted in the mother tongue when necessary (for example, with students in the first year of the program). The GLS selected for instruction should be presented by the teacher in the course of the grammar classes and then practiced intensively with reference to the points of grammar covered throughout the course. Taking one example, the strategy of negotiating grammar forms with the teacher when given a clue (such as a clarification request in the course of a communicative task) falls within the category of GLS aimed to better prepare students to respond to error correction. It could be presented with the help of audio-recordings and transcripts of classroom interaction in which such negotiation occurs, which would help sensitize students to ways in which it can be initiated and responded to. The next step could involve encouraging students in detecting cases of such negotiation in other transcripts, coming up with a list of phrases that can be used for this purpose and then consistently reminding them to fall back on such devices when they notice errors in interaction with peers where specific grammar features are practiced in focused communication tasks. Students should periodically be asked to identify grammar structures that cause them difficulty, both with respect to controlled exercises and spontaneous communication. Then they can be requested to come up with sequences of GLS, or strategy chains (Oxford, 1990), that could help them remedy the problem but at the same time be compatible with their individual profiles. Students could subsequently discuss the proposed solutions with their peers and present them to the whole group, inviting comments and feedback from the teacher or the other members of the class. The use of the GLS which are the focus of the intervention should also be fostered in other classes constituting the intensive course in the TL, which would encourage further practice and help transfer these strategies to new tasks. For example, speaking classes could include tasks that require spontaneous use of a structure that has been recently introduced in the grammar course and attention could be drawn to it in an integrated skills class. Obviously, this would call for close collaboration and coordination between teachers.

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(7) Students should be allowed opportunities to reflect on and self-evaluate their use of GLS at the start of each semester so that they can determine which of the strategies are the most and least useful, to what extent they correspond to their learning styles, and which of them they would like to employ in their future grammar learning, perhaps with respect to other foreign languages they may be learning as well. This could be done yet again with the assistance of the tool mentioned above (Pawlak, 2013b, 2018), having students write a narrative about the problems that they face in learning grammar and the ways in which they choose to tackle them or referring them to websites for learning the grammar of other foreign languages (e.g. Cohen & Pinilla-Herrera, 2009). (8) For such instruction to produce the expected results, it would be necessary to promote a more autonomous approach to learning grammar, of which GLSI should be an integral part. This goal could be facilitated by, for example, familiarizing students with additional resources that can be employed for learning grammar and providing training in their use, raising students’ awareness of issues involved in teaching grammar, or encouraging the use of information and computer technology in understanding and practicing grammar structures (for example, corpora, internet communicators or other types of social media; see Pawlak, 2016). Obviously, such general principles should be viewed as tentative guidelines rather than infallible pronouncements to be adhered to at all costs, for the simple reason that their true utility will be determined by a number of factors, the most important of which is individual variation. It is clear, for example, that, due to their personality or learning styles, some students may never be convinced to rely on discovery learning and others may shy away from practicing the TL by means of computer-mediated communication. Besides, somewhat in spite of their characteristics described above, many English majors are bound to have their preferred ways of learning which may be very difficult, if not impossible, to modify, particularly if they have proven successful in allowing them to function effectively in the BA program. All of this indicates that GLSI should be as individualized as possible, although, undeniably, this may prove to be an arduous task (see Macaro, Chapter 5 and Chamot, Chapter 6 in this volume.) It should also be made clear that GLS learned in one context are not easily transferred to another, such as a different TL, not least because the grammar systems of different languages systems are bound to call for the application of different GLS. Conclusions, Caveats and Future Directions

This chapter has attempted to outline a number of principles of GLSI for students on an English as a foreign language degree course. The task is rendered particularly challenging by the paucity of research on GLS,

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both in general and with respect to GLSI in particular. On the one hand, the principles listed above, while clearly general and tentative, constitute a coherent whole and it could be argued that they might serve as a point of reference for organizing GLSI not only for BA or MA programs in English and other foreign languages but, at least to some extent, also for other educational contexts where grammar teaching is part and parcel of the curriculum. On the other hand, it should be strongly emphasized that implementing such intervention is likely to be beset with a number of difficulties which might even render it unfeasible in some situations. While some of the problems are related to the scant amount of time that teachers have at their disposal and the need to focus on the other important priorities they have to pursue, a much more serious obstacle is the fact that, for GLSI of the kind described above to work, a major change would be indispensable in the ways in which grammar is taught and tested. Without this change, GLSI would make little sense since, as previous research has demonstrated (Pawlak, 2009, 2012a), many students have a tendency to approach learning grammar in a way that mirrors instructional practices and testing procedures. In other words, if instruction mainly relies on discussing rules and applying them in completion, translation or transformation activities and the same is true for achievement tests and fi nal examinations, it is wishful thinking to believe that many students will be eager to draw upon strategies related to learning and using grammar structures in communication tasks. Obviously, achieving this goal would not be easy because teachers’ instructional practices are reflective of their deeply seated beliefs (Pawlak, 2013c) and would likely necessitate farreaching changes in pre-service and in-service foreign language teacher education. Since waiting idly for a change that might never materialize does not seem a viable option, efforts to overhaul grammar instruction and to implement GLSI should be initiated locally. For these efforts to be successful, however, more research is needed on GLSI, which would employ mixed-methods designs and address such issues as the following: • • • • •

What are the short- and long-term effects of GLSI? What are learners’ perceptions of this intervention and their engagement with it? To what extent is GLSI compatible with individual characteristics? To what extent is GLSI mediated by the characteristics of a grammatical feature (e.g. its complexity)? If grammar and indeed GLSI were to be more fully integrated into a language course, do some types of language class (for example, speaking or reading classes) lend themselves best to a particular strategy?

It is hoped that empirical evidence of this kind, if disseminated in an appropriate and accessible manner, may convince many teachers to undertake GLSI in their classrooms and perhaps even contribute to a more general change in the way in which grammar is taught at different educational levels.

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References Anderson, N.J. (2005) L2 learning strategies. In E. Hinkel (ed.) Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning (pp. 757–771). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Chamot, A.U. (2004) Issues in language learning strategy research and teaching. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 1, 12–25. Cohen, A.D. (2011) Second language learner strategies. In E. Hinkel (ed.) Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning, Vol. II. New York and London: Routledge. Cohen, A.D. (2014) Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language (2nd edn). New York: Routledge. Cohen, A.D. and Griffiths, C. (2015) Revisiting LLS research forty years later. TESOL Quarterly 49, 414–429. Cohen, A.D. and Pinilla-Herrera, A. (2009) Communicating grammatically: Constructing a learner strategies website for Spanish. In T. Kao and Y. Lin (eds) A New Look at Language Teaching and Testing: English as Subject and Vehicle (pp. 63–83). Taipei: Language Training and Testing Center. Council of Europe (2001) Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DeKeyser, R.M. (2007) Introduction: Situating the concept of practice. In R.M. DeKeyser (ed.) Practice in a Second Language: Perspectives from Applied Linguistics and Cognitive Psychology (pp. 1–18). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DeKeyser, R.M. (2015) Skill-acquisition theory. In B. VanPatten and J. Williams (eds) Theories in Second Language Acquisition (2nd edn). London: Routledge. DeKeyser, R.M. (2017) Knowledge and skill in SLA. In S. Loewen and M. Sato (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Instructed Second Language Acquisition (pp. 15–32). New York and London: Routledge. Dörnyei, Z. (2009) The L2 motivational self system. In Z. Dörnyei and E. Ushioda (eds) Motivation, Language Identity and the Self (pp. 9–42). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Droździał-Szelest, K. (1997) Language Learning Strategies in the Process of Acquiring a Foreign Language. Poznań: Motivex. Ellis, R. (1997) SLA Research and Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ellis, R. (2004) The Study of Second Language Acquisition (2nd edn). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ellis, R. (2007) Implicit and explicit learning, knowledge, and instruction. In R. Ellis, S. Loewen, C. Elder, J. Philp, H. Reinders and R. Erlam (eds) Implicit and Explicit Knowledge in Second Language Learning, Testing and Teaching (pp. 3–26). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Griffiths, C. (2008) Strategies and good language learners. In C. Griffiths (ed.) Lessons from Good Language Learners (pp. 83–98). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harris, V. (2003) Adapting classroom-based strategy instruction to a distance learning context. TESL-EJ 7, 1–16. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2003) Teaching Language: From Grammar to Grammaring. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2010) Teaching and testing grammar. In M.H. Long and C.J. Doughty (eds) The Handbook of Language Teaching (pp. 519–542). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Loewen, S. (2015) Introduction to Instructed Second Language Acquisition. London and New York: Routledge. Long, M.H. (1996) The role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition. In W.C. Ritchie and T.K. Bhatia (eds) Handbook of Research on Second Language Acquisition (pp. 413–468). New York: Academic Press.

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Morales, M. and Smith, D. (2008) Mental images in the acquisition of L2 grammar: The case of ‘ser’ and ‘estar’ in Spanish. Revista Nebrija de Linguistica Aplicada a la Ensenanza de Lenguas 2, 1–24. Mystkowska-Wiertelak, A. (2008) The use of grammar learning strategies of secondary school students. In M. Pawlak (ed.) Investigating English Language Learning and Teaching (pp. 139–148). Poznań and Kalisz: Adam Mickiewicz University Press. Nassaji, H. and Fotos, S. (2011) Teaching Grammar in Second Language Classrooms: Integrating Form-focused Instruction in Communicative Context. New York and London: Routledge. Oxford, R.L. (1990) Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Oxford, R.L. (2011) Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies. Harlow: Pearson Education. Oxford, R.L. (2017) Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies: Selfregulation in Context. New York and London: Routledge. Oxford. R.L., Lee, K.R. and Park, G. (2007) L2 grammar strategies: The second Cinderella and beyond. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 117–139). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pawlak, M. (2006). The Place of Form-Focused Instruction in the Foreign Language Classroom. Poznań – Kalisz: Adam Mickiewicz University Press. Pawlak, M. (2008) Advanced learners’ use of strategies for learning grammar: A diary study. In M. Pawlak (ed.) Investigating English Language Learning and Teaching (pp. 109–135). Poznań and Kalisz: Adam Mickiewicz University Press. Pawlak, M. (2009) Grammar learning strategies and language attainment: Seeking a relationship. Research in Language 7, 43–60. Pawlak, M. (2012a) Grammar learning strategies: State of the art. In L. Pedrazzini and A. Nava (eds) Learning and Teaching English: Insights from Research (pp. 69–90). Monza and Milan: Polimetrica. Pawlak, M. (2012b) Instructional mode and the use of grammar learning strategies. In M. Pawlak (ed.) New Perspectives on Individual Differences in Language Learning and Teaching (pp. 263–287). Heidelberg and New York: Springer. Pawlak, M. (2012c) Investigating the use of grammar learning strategies in a communicative task: A micro perspective. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, Boston, MA, 6–9 March. Pawlak, M. (2012d) The use of grammar learning strategies in text-manipulation activities: Insights from quantitative and qualitative data. Paper presented at the 22nd Conference of the European Second Language Association, Poznań, 5–8 September. Pawlak, M. (2013a) Principles of instructed language learning revisited: Guidelines for eff ective grammar teaching in the foreign language classroom. In K. DroździałSzelest and M. Pawlak (eds) Psycholinguistic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Second Language Learning and Teaching: Studies in Honor of Waldemar Marton (pp. 199–220). Heidelberg and New York: Springer. Pawlak, M. (2013b) Researching grammar learning strategies: Combining the macro- and micro-perspective. In Ł. Salski, W. Szubko-Sitarek and J. Majer (eds) Perspectives on Foreign Language Learning (pp. 191–210). Łódź: University of Łódź Press. Pawlak, M. (2013c) Comparing learners’ and teachers’ beliefs about form-focused instruction. In D. Gabryś-Barker, E. Piechurska-Kuciel and J. Zybert (eds) Investigations in Teaching and Learning Languages: Studies in Honor of Hanna Komorowska (pp. 109–131). Heidelberg and New York: Springer. Pawlak, M. (2014). Error Correction in the Foreign Language Classroom: Reconsidering the Issues. Heidelberg: Springer.

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Pawlak, M. (2016) The role of autonomy in learning and teaching foreign language grammar. In M. Pawlak, A. Mystkowska-Wiertelak and J. Bielak (eds) Autonomy in Second Language Learning: Managing the Resources (pp. 3–20). Heidelberg and New York: Springer. Pawlak, M. and Oxford, R.L. (2018) Conclusion: The future of research into language learning strategies. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching 8, 525–532. Pawlak, M. (2018) Grammar Learning Strategy Inventory: Another look. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching 8, 351–379. Pawlak, M. (forthcoming) Grammar Learning Strategies and Instructed Second Language Acquisition. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Pienemann, M. and Lenzing, A. (2015) Processability theory. In B. VanPatten and J.  Williams (eds) Theories in Second Language Acquisition: An Introduction (pp. 159–179). New York and London: Routledge. Rubin, J., Chamot, A.U., Harris, V. and Anderson, N.J. (2007) Intervening in the use of strategies. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 141–160). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swain, M. (2000) The output hypothesis and beyond: Mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue. In J.P. Lantolf (ed.) Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning (pp. 97–114). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tilfarlioğlu, Y. (2005) An analysis of the relationship between the use of grammar learning strategies and student achievement at English preparatory classes. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies 1, 155–169. Trendak, O. (2015) Exploring the Role of Strategic Intervention in Form-focused Instruction. Heidelberg and New York: Springer.

8 Language Learning Strategy Instruction for Critical Cultural Awareness Anna Uhl Chamot and Vee Harris

Introduction

This chapter explores teaching the strategies involved in one aspect of what has variously been called sociocultural competence (Council of Europe, 2001), intercultural competence (Deardorff, 2006) and cultural competences (Oxford, 2011). It is not possible in this short chapter to define each of these terms or to enter into the complex debates as to what constitutes ‘culture’ (see, for example, Spencer-Oatey, 2012). The heart of this book is the ‘how’ of learning (that is to say, strategies) rather than the content itself. That said, common to all the terms is the belief that the aim of learning a new language is not simply to enable students to become proficient in using it. Rather, it is also to engage with the cultures of the people who speak that language and, in the process, to develop some insight into one’s own culture. Such engagement with other cultures may involve knowledge (both culture-specific information and sociolinguistic awareness), skills (such as observing and analyzing) and attitudes (such as respect, openness and curiosity) (see, for example, Deardorff, 2006; Willems, 2002). However, intercultural competence also implies the ability to translate such understandings into appropriate forms of written and spoken communication, to shape your language and behaviour so that they are sensitive to the social context: whom you are communicating with, when, where and why. Rather than the old model based on trying to imitate a native speaker, the view is that learners should become ‘intercultural speakers’ (Byram, 1997; Kramsch, 1998). As there has been a range of studies on oral communication strategies (see Nakatani & Goh, 2007, for an overview) and since Cohen (this volume) focuses on strategies for pragmatics, our focus here is on what Byram (1997) terms ‘Critical Cultural Awareness’. He defines it as: An ability to evaluate critically and on the basis of explicit criteria, perspectives, practices and products in one’s own and other cultures and countries. (Byram, 1997: 53) 123

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Houghton argues in her Introduction to Critical Cultural Awareness: Managing Stereotypes through Intercultural (Language) Education (Houghton et al., 2013) that this key component of intercultural competence is intrinsically linked to political education. The ‘critical’ dimension implies moving beyond the simple accumulation of knowledge to questioning stereotypes and images presented in the media. It means developing a thoughtful evaluation of other cultures and one’s own, based on evidence rather than bias. This in turn can bring about: ‘a lasting change in self-concept, attitudes and behaviour’ (Bateman, 2002: 320). In the current climate of mass migrations of peoples, it seems a particularly apposite moment in time to provide students with the tools to challenge stereotypes. We have also chosen this focus because, although books, newspapers, poems and fi lm can give advanced students considerable insight into cultures, some teachers of beginner students struggle to develop their lessons beyond simply discussing factual information (such as typical meals or the colour of taxis). So the chapter aims to suggest how language learning strategy instruction (LLSI) could foster strategies to develop a critical insight into their own and other cultures, even at this early stage in their learning. We use cultures in the plural throughout the chapter since one of the misleading assumptions presented in some textbooks is that there is one homogeneous target language culture. However, as the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe, 2001) points out, intercultural awareness values the regional and social diversity within societies and recognizes how each of the communities can appear from the perspective of the other, often in the form of misleading stereotypes. The purpose of the chapter is twofold: fi rst to explore those strategies students might need in order to develop Critical Cultural Awareness (CCA), and secondly to suggest how to teach them. We start by comparing defi nitions of CCA to the overall strategies for intercultural competence that have already been identified to see if existing strategy categorization frameworks are sufficiently comprehensive to cover CCA. Principles and practice of Critical Cultural Awareness

Throughout the chapter, we will use the term Critical Cultural Awareness although, as we shall see, studies other than Byram’s include an emphasis on reflecting on one’s own and other cultures, even if the terms are different. The World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (National Standards Collaborative Board, 2015), for example, proposes five goals for foreign language learning, often referred to as ‘the 5 Cs’: Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons and Communities. Each ‘C’ provides standards for the knowledge and procedures that language learners need

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in order to develop proficiency in the target language (TL). The two standards for the goal area of Cultures are: (1) learners use the TL to link cultural practices to perspectives (that is, the values and beliefs of a culture) and (2) learners use the TL to link cultural products (artefacts ranging from literature or art to handicrafts and special cooking tools) to the target culture’s perspectives. In addition, the fourth C, Comparisons, asks learners to learn more about the target culture by comparing it to their own culture. The interrogation of products and practices to critically explore the values underlying them again emerges in a range of research studies around the theme of intercultural competence. Hence the insistence that, once students have learned how to identify, analyze and reflect on practices in the target cultures, they should be equally consistent when judging the practices of their own cultures (Chapelle, 2010). It is argued that in today’s complex society students need not only to learn to see things from different perspectives, but to dig deeper and explore: ‘the origins and implications of worldviews, values, beliefs, and attitudes, ask questions about the world, themselves, and others and question what is presented as universally true’ (Critical Literacy Winter School, 2006: as quoted in Nugent & Catalano, 2015: 18). A related goal set out by Yulita (2013: 205) is to: ‘critically evaluate ideological concepts that could possibly lead to intercultural conflict’. As has been argued by Kramsch (2004), Sinicrope et al. (2007) and Stewart (2007), the transformation of global communities through immigration means that we need to prepare learners to engage in intercultural dialogue. In other words, learners should interrogate not only the target language cultures (TLCs), not only those cultures in their own country that they are comfortable with, but also other less familiar cultures that they may encounter. Turning to practical pedagogical considerations, Byram (2012) proposes that CCA has two dimensions. The first is the social dimension. For example, Nugent and Catalano (2015) suggest that a class could explore the way French has changed in Paris due to immigration. Quoting Kramsch (2004: 43–44), they go on to explain that this does not mean abandoning teaching the Standard language. Instead it means recognizing that: ‘these symbols of national identity have become multiple, hybrid, changing, and often conflictual’. The second dimension is psychological, asking students to consider the relationship between language and identity (Byram, 2012). Nugent and Catalano offer valuable illustrations that help students to understand stereotypes, again for those studying French. Students could, for example, reflect at the time of the World Cup on the identities of some of the players. They could: (1) choose three and discover where they were born and if their parents were of French origin or from other countries: (2) ask themselves whether the players might consider themselves French or not and why and if it matters; and (3) ask themselves what they think might be the attitude of players born in France to those not born in France and whether there is an element of racism in these attitudes. On a simpler level

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they suggest that students can use newspaper articles to contrast the attitudes of indigenous French people towards immigrants with their attitudes towards football players. A particular strength of their work is their recognition that scaffolding is needed if such discussions are to take place in the TL within secondary schools. They provide a useful template of the linguistic structures required, for example, ‘il est (du/de la/)’ (he is from …), ‘il est né et il a grandi au/en’ (he was born and grew up in …). However valuable such activities are, they do not equip students to function autonomously since it cannot be assumed that students will automatically transfer any insights they may have gained from such lessons to a new situation. Will they be able to critically interrogate a film they see, for example, or a book they read? And if they travel to the TL country, do they know what to observe and how to moderate their behaviour according to what they learn? Just as the strategies to learn the language need to be made explicit, so do those for developing intercultural competence. Learning Strategies for Developing Intercultural Competence

Alvarez et al. (2008: 180) refer to the ‘dearth of research evidence’ in the field of strategies for intercultural competence. This section reviews the extent to which existing studies provide insight into the specific strategies for CCA. Following O’Malley and Chamot’s seminal publication in 1990, learning strategies are often categorized into metacognitive, cognitive, social and affective strategies. Expert strategic learners orchestrate a wide variety of strategies from all four of these categories, although there has been remarkably little research into social, collaborative strategies (see Harris, this volume) and it is only relatively recently that affective strategies have been studied in depth (Oxford, 2011, 2017), a point we will return to later. Oxford suggests that sociocultural-interactive strategies have also been overlooked, describing them as ‘the hidden stepchild in L2 learning’ (Oxford, 2011: 99) and presenting them as a category in their own right. As the name implies, the strategies cover overcoming knowledge gaps in one’s linguistic repertoire as well as ‘Dealing with sociocultural contexts and identities’ (Oxford, 2011: 133). They are organized under the headings of her new framework of strategy categorization, based on her Strategic Self-Regulation model. The headings apply to all the strategy groups, whether cognitive, affective or sociocultural interactive strategies: for example, ‘Paying Attention to …/ Planning for …/Obtaining resources for …’. In this case the headings are followed by ‘Contexts, Communication and Culture’. Although many of the strategies focus on facilitating oral communication or setting up opportunities to learn about cultural products and practices through watching films and so on, a limited number of strategies seem relevant to CCA. ‘Exploring socio-cultural meanings about silence, body language and social customs’ (Oxford, 2011: 136) includes asking oneself the significance of the

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vodka-drinking tradition in Russia and how refusing to participate would be viewed. It resonates with the emphasis in CCA on exploring ‘the implications of world views, beliefs and attitudes’ discussed earlier (Critical Literacy Winter School, 2006). Another strategy reflects the critical, questioning dimension of CCA, ‘Exploring the meaning of social roles, identity, power and the media’, with examples such as: ‘how I, as a woman, as a foreign woman, am viewed in those countries’ and; ‘analyzing the logic or truthfulness of what the TV commentator is saying … and trying to identify the real purpose (to inform, persuade …)’ (Oxford, 2011: 135). One other aspect of Oxford’s categorization framework is relevant – the attention paid to affective strategies. As Ehrman (1996: 137) points out; ‘Every imaginable feeling accompanies learning, especially learning that can be closely related to who we are, as language learning is’. Contact with another culture, its practices and values can be quite disconcerting and even threaten one’s sense of identity, so it is likely that strategies to reduce anxiety and increase motivation may be important. The link between language learning, affective strategies and identity is evident in the discussion of the ‘Multiple Self’ (Oxford, 2017). The helpful acronym of CRITERIA is provided for the strategies needed to develop certain related aspects of sociocultural competence: Co-operation, Respect, Integrity, Tolerance of ambiguity, Exploration, Reflection, Intercultural empathy and Acceptance of complexity (Oxford, 2017: 202). Unsurprisingly, Respect and Tolerance of ambiguity also appear on Deardoff ’s desired list of attitudes. Of relevance to CCA is Oxford’s illustration of Acceptance of complexity: ‘Overcoming stereotypes by recognizing that they are merely generalities, often negative ones, and by focusing on complex characteristics of specific, authentic people from that culture’ (Oxford, 2017: 202). Although not stated explicitly, the strategy may be important not just for questioning preconceptions about people in the TL country but ultimately for challenging stereotypes about marginalized groups within one’s own culture. The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe, 2001) again focuses mainly on the role of interaction strategies with an emphasis on keeping the communication channels open or repairing them if there has been a misunderstanding. Finally, we turn to Paige et al.’s (2002) inventory (in Alvarez et al., 2008: 188–189). Possibly because it is tailored to students’ residence abroad, some strategies match up very specifically to the defi nitions of CCA, including the affective dimension. These include: • • • •

Consider ways in which different cultures might view things in different ways; Respect the way people from other cultures express their emotions; Refrain from making quick judgements about another culture; Consider what my friends living in the host country say about people from my own culture, using what I know about cultural bias.

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The inventory seems particularly helpful in encouraging students to question their assumptions and to consider things from different perspectives. The fi nal strategy is one of the few in the existing literature which encourages them to reflect on their own cultures, not just those of the TL country. Important though such studies have been, most of the strategies focus on oral interaction or lack an analytical dimension and so offer a very limited set of the strategies directly relevant to developing CCA. Furthermore, teachers familiar with O’Malley and Chamot’s (1990) categorization framework might fi nd Oxford’s system of grouping and naming the strategies rather complex. It seems then that the CCA aspect of intercultural competence has not been fully explored so we wanted to seek out conversations with a small group of learners which would allow us to focus on this particular area. We hoped to see if their discourse could suggest whether this group of overlooked strategies might perhaps merit systematic, robust investigations based on a range of empirical evidence in the future. For example, are there CCA strategies other than those strategies identified in the existing literature? Can CCA strategies be mapped onto existing categorization frameworks, such as that of O’Malley and Chamot (1990), or is a new framework necessary? Given that affective and social strategies are under-researched, are there some that might be particularly important for the development of CCA? Finally, we were interested in the kinds of prompts that could encourage learners to articulate any CCA strategies they might have developed. Exploring learning strategies for critical cultural awareness

We began by reflecting on our own experiences, since we have both lived abroad for at least one year and travelled extensively. A number of strategies common to both of us emerged that had, we believed, helped us to develop some degree of CCA. We then engaged in discussions with five volunteers who agreed to share with us their own paths to CCA. With such small numbers, there was no intention of engaging in a systematic investigation. Rather, we wanted to explore what their discourse could tell us about this specific group of strategies which might perhaps foster an interest among research colleagues in a detailed investigation involving a large number of learners in a range of contexts. The five volunteers were all from England but had each lived in another country for over three months and they represented a range of ages and backgrounds. Two were middle-aged teachers of secondary school students in state schools and were already experienced in presenting strategies in readily accessible language. Three were language learners ranging in age from a bilingual primary school student to a senior citizen. All of them had had the privilege of living abroad and, of course, an important distinction to be explored in future is between students who are

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living within the country and those who are studying it as a foreign language from elsewhere. Our prompts included questions like: What kind of thoughts occur to you when you encounter a different culture either here or abroad? and Have you ever decided the way of doing things in another country or another community suited you better or worse than the ones you were used to? Can you give an example and explain why? The volunteers appeared to be able to talk readily about the strategies they used. A short selection of examples is given in Table 8.1. While other categorization frameworks might well be suitable, we found that we could group most of the examples under O’Malley and Chamot’s (1990) headings of ‘Metacognitive’, ‘Cognitive’, ‘Social’ and ‘Affective’, which teachers may already be familiar with (Column 1), although there is clearly overlap between the categories. Where possible we also retained O’Malley and Chamot’s definitions of strategies for tackling the language in Column 2. In Column 3 we explore how, just by changing the content, the same defi nitions apply to strategies for developing CCA: for example, ‘Use selective attention and imitate’ applies both to copying an accent and to copying cultural behaviour. ‘Predict possible problems’ applies both to communicating and to handling potentially negative attitudes. Column 4 provides examples of the CCA strategy in action drawn from our discussions with the volunteers. A particular difficulty we encountered was CCA in relation to affective and social strategies, which are only briefly mentioned in O’Malley and Chamot’s work. Although Oxford (2011, 2017) has made a substantial contribution to our understanding of the relationship between culture and affective strategies, her analysis of the ‘Multiple Self’ reaches well beyond CCA. Yet several statements from our volunteers suggest the specific role affective strategies play in fostering CCA. For example by observing and then copying the expression of feelings in the L2 culture, they gained a fresh perspective on the sociocultural behaviour in their L1 home environment. So where appropriate we added to or expanded on O’Malley and Chamot’s defi nitions. It seems from our limited discussions that this very small group of volunteers have developed a range of strategies for questioning their own preconceptions of the TL cultures as well as those presented in the media, and for interrogating not only other cultures but also their own. Some of their strategies appear to have been discussed in the existing literature such as imitating native speakers’ behaviour (Oxford, 2011) in order to ‘fit in’. Others, however, have the ‘critical edge’ that Byram (1997) describes in his defi nition of CCA at the start of the chapter. For example, our volunteer’s comment that she imitated the open expression of emotions she saw around her was immediately followed up by her thoughts on the emotional reticence of people within her own cultural experience. Indeed, there were several examples where the volunteers commented more

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Table 8.1 Examples of Critical Cultural Awareness (CCA) strategies using O’Malley and Chamot’s (1990) categorization framework Strategy category from O’Malley and Chamot (1990)

Strategy definition from O’Malley and Chamot (1990)

CCA application of definition

Example of strategy in action from discussions

Metacognitive

(1) Planning

Decide to find out if assumptions/ stereotypes about TLCs are true and how to gain evidence

‘I knew I had some silly ideas about German people and I needed to be open-minded and talk to people when I went there this summer.’

Cognitive

(2) Use selective attention and (3) Make inferences

Notice unfamiliar TLC practices and perspectives and Use context to infer what TLC practices reveal about underlying values

‘It seemed to really matter exactly how you position your hands when you pour a drink for someone else in Korea. ‘So I started wondering if it’s to do with respect for the age and status of the person. Perhaps they look after the elderly better than we do?’

Use selective attention and (4) Imitate

Observe native speakers’ behaviour in order to fit in with cultural practices

‘I like to forget about home and play along, fit in.’ The examples above show how two strategies can be chained, as Oxford (1990) noted.

(5) Questioning

Seek to check out initial impressions about TLC

‘I wondered if the way they treated their children in the family I was living with was typical. So I started to watch families in parks and out shopping.’ ‘From the media at home, people in this country are supposed to have a reputation for individualism and liberalism but this doesn’t seem to fit in with what I see in daily life.’

(6) Compare across L1 and L2

Use comparison with TL cultures to critically evaluate one’s own

‘Spanish festivals would really worry the Health and Safety brigade but at least they bring all the generations in the family together. I wish we had something like it.’ ‘They seemed to make fun of people’s accent from that part of Germany. It kind of made me wonder about how the media presents people like me with a Northern working-class accent.’ (Continued)

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Table 8.1 (Continued) Strategy category from O’Malley and Chamot (1990)

Strategy definition from O’Malley and Chamot (1990)

CCA application of definition

Example of strategy in action from discussions

Affective

(7) Use selfand world knowledge to build confidence and motivation

Seek out a positive learning environment based on knowledge of L1 and TLC cultures

‘I hung out in vegan cafes as I knew it would be my type of people and that would make me more confident in approaching them.’

(8) Noticing

Notice changes in own expression of feelings and sociocultural behaviour and use it to reflect on L1 culture with fresh eyes

‘I seem to use my hands more and express my feelings more in Spanish. I don’t know why in my family we hide our emotions so much.’

(9) Predict possible problems

Go out of one’s way to maximize positive responses and answer questions honestly about one’s own culture

‘If people seemed a bit suspicious of me as a British person, I tried to be especially friendly and not get too defensive when they made fun of the English or asked why we still had a royal family.’ ‘If I didn’t like some dish, I didn’t say anything. I just added something to make it taste nicer.’

(10) Work with others to achieve a greater mutual understanding

Be sensitive to NSs’ responses and seek to understand the values underlying them

‘I spent a lot of time choosing a present for a friend then had to ask another friend why they didn’t look particularly pleased with it.’

Social

favourably on the TL cultures (TLCs) than their own, such as the relationships across generations. There was evidence of a willingness to check out initial impressions and to ‘question what is presented as universally true’ (one of the objectives identified by the Critical Literacy Winter School) including images of the TL cultures presented in the media. No examples of the metacognitive strategy of Evaluation emerged in our discussions, where the volunteers reflected on whether their strategies had been successful or not, perhaps because this was simply a rapid snapshot of a small group of people reflecting on experiences some time ago. Our overview of the existing literature on strategies for intercultural competence already suggested that the focus on oral interaction meant that CCA strategies had not been fully explored. The conversations with this small group of volunteers appear to confi rm that investigating CCA strategies might be a fruitful avenue for systematic cross-cultural studies, including of learners whose only access to the culture is online, in order to

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supplement those strategies identified in the existing literature. All the volunteers had lived abroad and it cannot be assumed that students without such valuable experiences will develop CCA strategies without them being made explicit, modelled and practised. The implications for LLSI are the focus of our fi nal section. We conclude this section, however, with an unexpected observation that emerged from the conversations. Just like the bilingual students discussed in Chapter 3, the volunteers’ strategies seem in part to have been determined by the environment in which they grew up. In line with a Bourdieusian perspective (Grenfell & Harris, 2017), their CCA strategies of ‘use selective attention’ and ‘observe and imitate in order to fit in’ were fostered by the particular social class and cultural contexts of their home environment. For example, Ann is a working-class woman who, unlike many of her peers, had succeeded in going to the local grammar school and then to university. She describes how: I was careful to watch how middle- class people do things as I learned the lesson the hard way. When I fi rst was invited to ‘dinner’ I turned up at lunch time rather than for the evening meal, cos that’s what ‘dinner’ meant at home.

Since one of her parents was Protestant and the other Catholic, the same strategies were again regularly brought into play. The ability to adapt easily served her well when she embarked to live in Australia with her partner, as she had only travelled abroad briefly once with her parents. Eve was also adept at ‘fitting in’ but her strategies stemmed from the reverse situation. From a middle-class background, she had travelled extensively with her parents around Europe and beyond from an early age. Educated in an all girls’ private school where students are encouraged to have high aspirations, she reflects that: I suppose I left school feeling I had the right to go wherever I wanted and that gave me confidence.

This confidence allowed her to enter readily into interactions with native speakers, to cope with gaps in her linguistic repertoire, not to feel threatened about alternative ways of living and to ‘go out of one’s way to maximize positive responses’. We include these details not only to reinforce our view that the learner’s environment has a direct impact on fostering strategies but also to emphasize the uniqueness of each individual’s cultural strategy use and how strongly it is part of their very identity. Thus far, we have described CCA and begun to explore the strategies that might foster it. We turn fi nally to considering how such strategies may be taught. As Oxford (1996) reminds us, students’ own cultural backgrounds will play a part in determining how readily they are able to engage in critical reflection but, as Knutson (2006: 54) points out: ‘cultural stance or disposition are not fi xed, or even stable phenomena’ and so

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are open to change. It is with this hope in mind that we offer some tentative suggestions for how we might teach strategies for CCA. LLSI for Critical Cultural Awareness

To our knowledge, no other studies have explored LLSI specifically tailored to foster CCA. This section draws on the strategies identified in the discussions with the volunteers and in the review of the relevant literature to present some preliminary suggestions for an instructional sequence of lessons. We have chosen to direct the lessons at the beginner rather than the advanced student, since in our experience teachers fi nd it hard to develop CCA when the students’ restricted linguistic repertoire may limit their access to books and fi lms, where cultures often fi nd an obvious expression. The sequence is developed from materials devised at National Capital Language Resource Center at George Washington University. It uses a familiar topic to illustrate how LLSI can challenge stereotypes and develop learners’ procedural knowledge so that they can perform appropriately in cultural interactions. Of equal importance is its potential for students to learn to value not only TL cultures but also those in their own classroom. We believe that where teaching the language of a particular topic can incorporate LLSI for CCA, it is likely to be more meaningful than learning either the language or facts about a particular culture for its own sake. The framework of the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) is used, reflecting our view that CCA strategies should be made explicit and embedded in everyday language lessons rather than in a separate unit of work. The clear structure of this approach should also be reassuring to teachers new to LLSI. That said, we are aware of the arguments presented by Gu and by Coyle (this volume) for a more bottom-up, collaborative approach. For this reason, our suggestions seek to go some way towards reconciling the two approaches by including opportunities for students to work in groups and negotiate outcomes and success criteria (see Harris, this volume). Although various learning strategies are described, they would not all be introduced in the same lesson, as many would be reminders to use strategies previously taught. Possible CCA strategies are indicated by italics. Preparation

Negotiate the objectives of the series of lessons with students. For example, the students can work collaboratively to come up with their own questions in response to prompts such as: ‘What would you like to know about the products and practices related to food and meals in countries where the target language is spoken?’ ‘What would you like to know about how they view our own eating habits?’ ‘How will we fi nd out?’ In the course of discovering what students already know, accept responses about

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Table 8.2 Sample linguistic scaffolding for target language discussions 1. What I think

2. Why

3. What I found out

(1) I think some/many/ all English/French/ Mexican people eat … fish and chips/ snails/pizza

Because it’s a cold/hot climate, cheap/weird/ healthy/local/food.

Only wealthy people/ everyone eats/drinks …

(2) I think some/many/ all English/French/ Italian people drink … tea/beer/wine

Because I have seen it on TV/YouTube

All the time/only for special occasions

4. Strategies I used and if they helped

finding some things strange but point out the need to use selective attention and analyze evidence to avoid stereotyping. Students can use the linguistic scaffolding in Table 8.2 to help them discuss in the TL their initial assumptions about eating habits (Columns 1 and 2), what they discover later (Column 3) and the strategies they use in the process (Column 4). The outcomes of the sequence of lessons can again be negotiated. Students can discuss together whether they want to prepare a poster, a poem, a song, a PowerPoint presentation, a role-play or even create a website where all or some of these outcomes can be viewed and even challenged by students in the TL countries. Role-play is a particularly good way of seeing if they can apply their new understanding of TLC practices to their own communicative interactions in the TL. Each group can then work together to identify the demands of the task and the success criteria for their particular outcome. Having discussed these with their teacher, they can move on to the next step. Presentation and modelling

Encourage students to ask questions about the reasons underlying different lifestyles, for example: ‘Why do you think there are differences in meal times?’ ‘How would you fi nd out?’ Students not only share their ideas but also the strategies they might need and teachers can think aloud to model those strategies that have not been raised so far, for instance: ‘When I want to understand why (food, meal) seems to be so important in (TL) cultures, I use my world knowledge and the context to try to figure it out. So – I think about (soup for breakfast) and decide that (culture) people probably like it because they believe it is healthy, especially on a cold morning!’ Give the strategy a name (Making inferences) and explain its meaning, for example: ‘It means making a logical guess using what you know and deciding if it makes sense in the context.’ Exploring the reasons behind eating patterns in the target cultures is a vital means of challenging assumptions that any alternative lifestyle other than one’s own is unsafe or unpleasant. Students come to understand how climate

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can determine the use of rice or potatoes as a staple diet, for example, or how spicy dishes can delay food going bad in hot weather and lower the risk of heart attack and strokes. Similarly, shrimps, snails, grasshoppers and other insects are all eaten where there is an abundant supply and are often an essential source of protein. Teachers will need to exercise careful judgement, however, as to the most appropriate point at which to encourage students to share their own eating habits and lifestyles. It may only be towards the end of the sequence of lessons that students feel comfortable enough. They may initially fear laughter or racist abuse if they describe eating patterns at home or their lives before they became refugees. Yet it is exactly these kinds of intercultural conversations that CCA is intended to foster. Whether they are conducted in the L1 or in the TL will also be a matter for the teacher to decide. Practice

Having completed Columns 1 and 2 in Table 8.2, students discuss together the outcome of their group in more detail and what they can do to achieve it. These strategies are named as Planning and Questioning, for example: ‘I want to fi nd out if everyone eats/drinks (fish and chips/beer, etc.) all the time or if it is a stereotype/only rich people.’ There is a wealth of intercultural information online and students can choose to watch adverts on food or cooking programmes on television or read information about foods and meals typical of different groups within the TLCs. Encourage them to consciously select one or more learning strategies to make the task more successful. For example, after watching scenes of meals, students could use selective attention to notice and then critically compare similarities and differences in foods, expressions of politeness and table manners that differ from their own culture, perhaps making a Venn diagram to visually represent foods and behaviours that are similar in both their own and the TL cultures, and those that are different in each. Students then complete Column 3 of Table 8.2 but it is important that they first check with a TLC authority (teacher, text, TL mother tongue speaker) so that they learn to question the media. Recent advances in technology allow online forms of communication which make it possible for teachers to Skype colleagues in other countries so that students can pose questions directly to their peers and classes can exchange videos about their lives. In one lesson on ‘Hobbies’ in a multicultural school in London that we observed, the videos sent by a colleague in the TL country showed students swimming in a lake. When some of the children protested that it was not healthy, an animated discussion developed as other children in their class reported the fun of fishing in lakes in Afghanistan and bathing in rivers in India during their summer holidays when they went to visit their grandparents. It was the first time that their teacher became aware of their students’ rich experiences and knowledge. Mature students can communicate on an individual level via a range of social media platforms,

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described by Robbins in Chapter 13. As one of the volunteer teachers in our discussions explains: Social networking has its problems but it can help to dispel myths and mediate some of the stereotyping in the media. We get to know people who know other people and even their photos can give insights into their cultures.

Throughout the sequence of lessons, the focus is not just on students acquiring the content (knowledge of a particular country’s eating habits and the reasons underlying them) but on the strategies they need to explore the eating habits of any country and the differences between communities within it. In line with Kramsch (2004), ask students to make inferences about and compare how the different practices reflect the income level or cultural values of particular sociocultural groups or how the food served in a particular place (London, for example) has changed over time and why. The aim is for students to learn to empathize, to challenge themselves to understand those aspects of the TLCs at variance with their own cultural values and to question what is presented as universally true. Self-evaluation

Set up opportunities for students to evaluate both their learning and the strategies they used to achieve it. Members of each group first share with the audience their self-evaluations against the criteria they agreed on and then use feedback from their peers and the teacher to refi ne them. Expansion/transfer

Finally, encourage students to expand what they have learned about food and meals into learning about other cultural aspects such as schooling, historical roots of cultural products and practices, and how geography, climate and income level impact on the everyday life of different groups in the TL countries. Jones (1995) suggests a useful activity where pupils pack matchboxes with typical small items from their own culture such as coins and stamps and these are then sent to an exchange school who send matchboxes back. The evidence and resulting discussion serve to compare the TLCs to the way they are presented in the media and to their own cultures, and to contrast previous stereotypes with new knowledge. The long-term aim is that gradually these kinds of carefully focused discussions may help students to develop the strategies they need in order to: ‘critically evaluate ideological concepts that could possibly lead to intercultural conflict’ (Yulita, 2013: 205). Conclusions and Research Questions

However valuable studies into cultural awareness and interculturality are, the view taken in this chapter is that the strategies students need

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to develop such insights should be taught explicitly if they are to fully explore and enjoy other cultures and learn to critically interrogate their own. In the 1970s and 1980s, we came to realize that simply teaching students the language would not ensure their ability to use and learn languages independently. It is no different for CCA. Students need to learn the tools for coming to grips with cultures other than their own and to use that as a jumping-off point for scrutinizing their own cultural practices. Although valuable insights have been provided by existing studies, further research is needed focusing specifically on strategies to foster CCA, in order to supplement those already identified. Descriptive studies with both successful and unsuccessful young language learners including those who have never been to the country would reveal both the frequency and range of learning strategies employed as well as suggesting the most useful categorization framework. It would also provide important information for selecting the strategies to be taught in experimental classroom-based research. To this end, we propose the following research questions: (1) What learning strategies do language learners use to develop CCA: (a) when living in a TL country; (b) in the classroom; and (c) online? (2) How can they be categorized in the most readily accessible way for teachers? (3) What LLSI activities are most effective for developing CCA? (4) What features of the home and local environment foster the development of CCA strategies? (5) Do teachers assess language learners’ use of CCA strategies and, if so, how? References Alvarez, I., Beaven, T. and Garrido, C. (2008) Strategies for acquiring intercultural competence. In S. Hurd and T. Lewis (eds) Language Learning Strategies in Independent Settings (pp. 179–195). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Bateman, B.E. (2002) Promoting openness toward culture learning: Ethnographic interviews for students of Spanish. The Modern Language Journal 86 (3), 318–331. Byram, M. (1997) Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Byram, M. (2012) Language awareness and (critical) cultural awareness – relationships, comparisons and contrasts. Language Awareness 21 (1–2), 5–13. Chapelle, C.A. (2010) If intercultural competence is the goal, what are the materials? Proceedings of Intercultural Competence Conference 1, 27–50. Council of Europe (2001) Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Critical Literacy Winter School (2006) A brief introduction to critical literacy. As quoted in K.  Nugent and T. Catalano (2015) Critical Cultural Awareness in the Foreign Language Classroom. See http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/fl es/ Booklet_A%20Brief%20Introduction%20to%20 CL_%202006edition.pdf (accessed 15 September 2017).

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Deardorff, D.K. (2006) The identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization at institutions of higher education in the United States. Journal of Studies in International Education 10, 241–266. Ehrman, M.E. (1996) Understanding Second Language Learning Diffi culties. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Grenfell, M. and Harris, V. (2017) Language Learner Strategies: Contexts, Issues and Applications in Second Language Learning and Teaching. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Houghton, S.A., Furumura, Y., Lebedko, M. and Song Li (2013) Critical Cultural Awareness: Managing Stereotypes through Intercultural (Language) Education. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Jones, B. (1995) Exploring Otherness – an Approach to Cultural Awareness. London: Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research (CILT). See https:// www.all-languages.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Exploring-otherness-newWord.pdf (accessed 6 September 2017). Knutson, E.M. (2006) Cross-cultural awareness for second/foreign language learners. Canadian Modern Language Review 62 (4), 591–610. Kramsch, C. (1998) The privilege of the intercultural speaker. In M. Byram and M.  Fleming (eds) Language Learning in Intercultural Perspective (2nd edn) (pp. 16–31). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kramsch, C. (2004) The language teacher as go-between. Utbildning & Demokrati 13 (3), 37–60. Nakatani, Y. and Goh, C. (2007) A review of oral communication strategies: Focus on interactionist and psycholinguistic perspectives. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 205–227). Oxford: Oxford University Press. National Standards Collaborative Board (2015) World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages (4th edn). Alexandria, VA: National Standards Collaborative Board. See https://www.actfl.org/publications/all/world-readiness-standards-learning-languages (accessed 9 August 2017). Nugent, K. and Catalano, T. (2015) Critical Cultural Awareness in the Foreign Language Classroom. Faculty Publication. Lincoln, NE: Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education, University of Nebraska. See http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1193&context=teachlearnfacpub. O’Malley, M. and Chamot, A.U. (1990) Language Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oxford, R.L. (1990) Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Oxford, R.L. (ed.) (1996) Language Learning Strategies around the World: Cross-cultural Perspectives. Manoa, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Oxford, R.L. (2011) Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies (1st edn). Harlow: Pearson Education. Oxford, R.L. (2017) Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies: SelfRegulation in Context (2nd edn). Abingdon: Routledge. Paige, R.M., Cohen, A.D., Kappler, B., Chi, J.C. and Lassegard, J.P. (2002) Maximising Study Abroad: A Student’s Guide to Strategies for Language and Culture Learning and Use. Minneapolis, MN: Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition. Sinicrope, C., Norris, J. and Watanabe, Y. (2007) Understanding and assessing intercultural competence: A summary of theory, research, and practice. Second Language Studies 26, 1–58. Spencer-Oatey, H. (2012) What is culture? A compilation of quotations. GlobalPAD Core Concepts. GlobalPAD Open House. See http://www.warwick.ac.uk/globalpadintercultural (accessed 30 October 2017).

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Stewart, V. (2007) Becoming citizens of the world. Educational Leadership 64 (7), 8–14. Stromberg, J. (2014) 10 things non-soccer fans need to know about the World Cup. Vox, 10 June. See http: //www.vox.com /2 014 /6/10 /5 793632 /10 -thingsnonsoccer-fans-need-to-know-about-the-world-cup (accessed 10 May 2015). Willems, G.M. (2002) Language Teacher Education Policy Promoting Linguistic Diversity and Intercultural Communication: Guide for the Development of Language Education Policies in Europe – from Linguistic Diversity to Plurilingual Education. Strasbourg: Language Policy Division, Council of Europe. See https:// rm.coe.int/language-teacher-education-policy-promoting-linguistic-diversity-and-i/ 1680887837 (accessed 15 August 2018). Yulita, L. (2013) Critical pedagogy: Stereotyping as oppression. In S. Houghton, Y. Furumura, M. Lebedko and S. Li (eds) Critical Cultural Awareness: Managing Stereotypes through Intercultural (Language) Education (pp. 204–220). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.

9 Strategy Instruction for Learning and Performing Target Language Pragmatics Andrew D. Cohen

Introduction and Rationale

This chapter starts with an anecdote to help readers see how important the use of well-placed strategies can be in performing target language (TL) pragmatics effectively. An American approaches a man on the street in Martinique and launches directly into a request for help in interpreting a confusing parking slip issued by a machine. Instead of responding to the American’s question (asked in fluent French), the man says, ‘Bonjour Monsieur’. So what does the Bonjour mean pragmatically? Does it mean ‘What? I didn’t hear the question’? Or does it more likely mean ‘I was put off by your focusing immediately and exclusively on the parking slip, without going through the courtesy of extending a morning greeting’? Since it happened to me, I know it meant the latter. And the speaker stressed the Bonjour when he said it, in order to indicate his being irked by the focus on the issue rather than the importance of fi rst providing a greeting. After a proper greeting, a pleasant conversation took place with the man (see Cohen, 2012). Understanding the illocutionary force or function of Bonjour in a French-speaking community can be a challenge and the example illustrates how the learning of TL pragmatics involves the intersection of language and culture, in an often intertwined way. A productive approach to looking at this intersection is through intercultural pragmatics, namely, looking at the way that the language system is put to use in social encounters among people who have different first languages (L1s), may communicate in a common language, but usually represent different cultures (Kecskes, 2014: 15).

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Although language instructors teach greetings during the very fi rst language classes, learners may not know the ‘when’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of using them. Since we cannot assume that they just pick this up, rather than only teaching the pragmatics I would argue that we should teach pragmatic strategies. So instead of using rather vague, general strategies, teachers undertaking language learning strategy instruction (LLSI) could benefit from a categorization with particular strategies suggested for the specific area of language study, in this case pragmatics. As Pawlak indicates in Chapter 7 of this volume, a more fi nely tuned categorization is also helpful for dealing with grammar strategies. At the outset, it should be noted that pragmatics includes far more than speech acts – such areas as politeness and impoliteness, humor and sarcasm, conversational management, discourse markers, implicature and deixis (Cohen, 2017). Nonetheless, much of the focus on the teaching of pragmatics has been on speech acts, given their crucial role in TL interactions, and also given the ease with which basic speech acts like greetings can be taught, unlike sarcasm or implicature which are more of a challenge to teach. Consequently, the focus in this chapter will be on speech acts as a representative area within pragmatics. Strategies for Learning and Performing Target Language Pragmatics

There have been at least two kinds of research on LLSI for pragmatics. Following a longstanding categorization of pragmatics strategies (Cohen, 2005), one approach is to look descriptively at the awareness of strategies for learning and performing TL pragmatics. For example, a study by Tajeddin and Malmir (2015) found that the use of more pragmatic strategies was related to better knowledge of speech acts among the highest and lowest performers in a sample of 500 EFL learners (Tajeddin & Malmir, 2015). Another kind of research has focused on strategies in one specific area of pragmatics, such as in the study by Li (2013) involving TL requests. This second approach characterizes many of the studies cited in a recent review of research on pragmatics (Taguchi & Roever, 2017: 214–221). Such studies often compare explicit with implicit pragmatics instruction. The Li study focused on converting declarative knowledge about the target feature, which is request-making in L2 Chinese, into increasingly automatized procedural knowledge by computerized input- and output-based practice activities (Li, 2013). While the results for this specific study were somewhat mixed, the general trend is towards explicit instruction, where learners’ awareness of strategies plays a significant role. Research has shown that learners do not simply acquire pragmatic niceties through osmosis (see Cohen, 2018: 24–25, for a listing of studies finding explicit teaching of pragmatics to be more effective than implicit teaching). That said, to my knowledge there

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are as yet few teacher development programs or programs of language instruction that give prime attention to pragmatics strategies. In fact, it is only recently that the English as a second language/English as a foreign language (ESL/EFL) instructional literature has started to pay attention to pragmatics (Bardovi-Harlig, 2017; Vásquez & Sharpless, 2009; Vellenga, 2004). The attitude has been to let students develop their own strategies for enhancing the learning and performance of TL pragmatics. In a response to Plonsky’s (2011) challenge to language teachers that they make the rationale for their strategy instruction more transparent, LLSI educators could both explain their criteria for the explicit LLSI that they undertake (for example, giving the rationale for their choice of strategies and indicating the length of intervention) and also make the LLSI materials themselves more accessible to the field (such as by posting them on the Pragmatics Wiki, http://wlpragmatics.pbworks.com; see Bardovi-Harlig, 2017, for endorsement of sharing pragmatics materials). In this chapter a range of tasks will be presented for explicitly teaching the strategies that more or less match the CALLA steps of raising awareness, modelling, practicing and evaluating pragmatics strategies. The chapter ends with the specific example of LLSI aimed at teaching learners the pragmatics strategies associated with ‘apologizing’. That said, other models or frameworks of LLSI can also be applied to ensure successful employment of strategies for dealing with pragmatics, including the more collaborative bottom-up approach outlined by Gu in Chapter 2 of this volume, in which students work together to identify performance criteria, as well as to choose appropriate strategies for the task at hand and especially those that they need to practice. Definition and Functions of Strategies for Pragmatics

First a word about strategies for pragmatics. They can be seen as falling within the broad category of communication strategies. However, whereas communication strategies are often aimed at getting messages across in a straightforward and transparent manner, strategies for the production of language in a pragmatically appropriate way may call for avoiding transparency. Pragmatics strategies deal specifically with the comprehension and production of language when the underlying sociocultural intentions are not necessarily straightforward, especially not to learners of that language. For example, learner strategies for the comprehension of pragmatics involve correctly interpreting speech acts addressed to them such as requests and apologies, as well as strategies for producing such speech acts effectively. Recent research has found empirical evidence to support the notion that strategies may take on a cognitive, social, affective or metacognitive function from one moment to the next, depending on the nature of the interaction (Cohen & Wang, 2018). In other words, the very same strategy

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of, say, asking a stranger for directions in downtown Buenos Aires in Spanish (Disculpe, señor/señora/señorita. Podría decirme cómo llegar a la embajada de los Estados Unidos? ‘Excuse me, Sir/Ma’am/Miss. Could you tell me how to get to the US Embassy?’) could take on a metacognitive, a cognitive, a social or an affective function, and could fluctuate back and forth from one function to another. For example, at the moment of planning, when the learner is, say, considering the age and relative status of a stranger before requesting directions in Spanish, the strategy has a metacognitive function. The same strategy takes on a cognitive function during those moments when the learner is searching for the appropriate pragmalinguistic structures given their relative ages and genders – in this case the appropriate form of ‘you’ (tu, vos or usted in Argentinian Spanish). This same strategy of asking directions has a social function at the moment when the learner is actually asking a particular stranger for directions. Finally, when the stranger responds that s/he is new to the city and unable to give directions, or gives a response that is too fast or abrupt for the learner to understand, the strategy shifts from a social to an affective function if the resulting frustration triggers a metacognitive function again (for example, planning how to ask someone else for directions). Study abroad students are often surprised at how strangers on the street in the host country are not as accommodating as their teachers were at home. If the task calls for a sequence or cluster of strategies, then this fluctuation of functions could be across the various strategies, which makes strategy use even more complex. In asking directions from a stranger, an initial pragmatic strategy might be to engage the person in conversation about the weather. The next strategy in the sequence might be for the learner to say s/he is just visiting. A third lead-up strategy could be to point out that s/he is a learner of the language and might not make the request properly. With that preamble, now let us consider some strategies for the initial learning and performing of pragmatics, recognizing that the above-mentioned metacognitive, cognitive, social and affective functions are subsumed within any given strategy. Tasks for the initial learning of pragmatics

The categorization of pragmatics strategies (Cohen, 2005) has continued to provide both teachers and researchers with guidance in how to think about and operationalize pragmatics strategies, as illustrated by the Tajeddin and Malmir (2015) study cited above, where their survey was based entirely on this categorization. It lends itself nicely to a series of suggested classroom tasks that teachers could engage in so as to give learners an opportunity to practice their use of strategies for developing their TL pragmatics skills (see also Cohen, 2014). This section looks at some tasks drawn from that categorization for familiarizing learners

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first with strategies for learning pragmatics and then with strategies for using them. Especially at the stage of the initial learning of pragmatics, learners need to attend to the pragmatic behaviors that they would like to learn, starting by ‘identifying’ a speech act of interest and then ‘noticing’1 the particulars of performance in a given situation. Once learners have noticed what it is that they would like to learn, they can call up one or another strategy for dealing with this pragmatic behavior. Since some pragmatic behaviors may be subtle, the learners may need to ask native speakers or highly competent nonnatives to ‘verify’ their observations. For example, the learner may ask something like, ‘Was it because the person asking for directions was younger that she was so polite in her request? Or was it just because she was asking a stranger?’ The following tasks can help raise and sharpen their awareness: (1) Have your students ‘identify’, for example, several speech acts to focus on using criteria such as: (a) their frequency of use in common situations encountered by the TL speaker in the given speech community (e.g. ‘requesting’, ‘refusing’ and ‘thanking’); (b) their potentially high-stakes value in discourse (e.g. ‘apologizing’ and ‘complaining’); and (c) their special role in the given community of practice within the speech community or the society, such as in creating solidarity. For example, they might encounter the use of cursing for the purpose of bonding (Daly et al., 2004) among university students. Once your students have identified the speech acts of interest, they need to collect and ‘analyze’ their data. They will also need to strategize regarding the aspects of performance to which they will attend. For example, how much will they focus on their comprehension of the given speech act as performed by native speakers (NSs) (such as the sincerity of an apology or the politeness of a request), how much on the production of it (like a tactful compliment), and how much will they consider facial expressions and gestures in both comprehension and production? While it is undoubtedly challenging for students to collect such data on their own, it may give them more ownership of the task, and hence more motivation to do it and contribute to the learning process. They can then report back to the class as the ‘experts’ since they are the ones with the information. A good source of basic information on key speech acts is the CARLA website: http://carla.umn.edu/speechacts/descriptions.html. Examples are given in some nine different languages. That same website also has web pages with strategies for performing speech acts in Japanese (http://carla.umn.edu/speechacts/japanese/introtospeechacts/index.htm) and in Spanish (http://carla.umn.edu/speechacts/sp_pragmatics/home. html). Both the Japanese and the Spanish pragmatics webpages require

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users to pay close attention to speech act interactions by NSs in order to come to realizations as to the appropriate language to use in the given context, as in this example (http://carla.umn.edu/speechacts/sp_pragmatics/Apologies/impos_apology.html): Based on what you have learned so far about communicative acts, how do you predict that your apology in Spanish would change based on the severity of the offense? Give an example of an apology in Spanish for both of the offenses you listed above.

If there is more time, students could gather information (through interviews and observation) on how these speech acts are performed by members of one or more communities of practice within a given speech community. They could choose, for example, the workplace, and look at making requests of working associates who are the same age, refusing requests made by people of higher status, and thanking people in service – like cafeteria workers or janitors. A key goal of learners – using whatever strategy set they enlist – is to ‘compare’ the realization of the speech act(s) to see if there is variation according to: (a) the magnitude or seriousness of the issue prompting the speech act (such as apologizing for missing a meeting versus spilling hot coffee on a friend); (b) the relative age of the speaker and the addressee (for example, making a request to a senior professor or to a young child); (c) the relative status of the speaker and the addressee (for example, making a request to the senior vice president of a fi rm or to a custodian); (d) the relative roles of the speaker and the addressee in the relationship (like making a request to the chair of the board meeting or to a waiter in a restaurant); (e) the length of acquaintance of the interlocutors (such as making a request to a stranger about switching seats upon boarding an airplane as opposed to seeking advice from a longtime friend over morning tea). (2) Having thus first raised their awareness of the speech acts to focus on, the teacher could conduct a class project to encourage learners to ‘compare similarities and differences’ across cultures by having the learners think through and even write out what the appropriate things to say would be for that speech act (or other pragmatic behavior) in the given situation in the L1 speech community of the learners (assuming they all have the same L1) as compared to what is said in the TL speech community. The comparison could involve the following elements: (a) ‘identifying’ the sociopragmatic (that is, socioculturally appropriate) norms for performance of these speech acts in the TL communities – namely, the circumstances under which it is appropriate

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(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

to use the speech act or not: for example, whether to make an apology for a work-related incident to a colleague during a social event; and whether to convey the bottom-line message right at the start of a conversation, gradually build up to it or save it for the last possible moment; ‘identifying’ the speech act specific strategies (conventionally referred to as semantic formulas) that tend to be used with the given speech act in that situation (such as whether the strategy of offering a repair is expected to be used in that apology situation); ‘verifying’ their interpretation for any cross-cultural differences by asking members of the TL speech community. This could mean members of a particular community of practice such as a group at the workplace, or social or friendship group (for example, asking whether it is appropriate for a college student to give an outright refusal to the department chair’s invitation to dinner and whether the refusal could include – even in jest – an informal phrase like ‘No way!’); ‘identifying’ the pragmalinguistic forms to use (e.g. whether to use the word ‘apologize’ in the expression of apology or just ‘sorry’, whether to repeat ‘sorry’ more than once, and whether to intensify with words like ‘really’, ‘awfully’ or ‘so’); upon establishing similarities and differences between the two cultures, ‘making a mental note’ or a notebook entry regarding these difference(s), such as in terms of address (for example, referring in the TL to Dr Stephen Blake as ‘Doc’, ‘Steve’ or ‘you’ – whether tu or vous in French/tu or usted in Spanish).

Tasks for performing pragmatics

Once students have become aware of the strategies and seen some of  them modelled, they are ready to move on to practicing them for themselves. (1) Have your students use ‘visualization’ strategies such as using a mnemonic device in order to retrieve the speech act material that has already been learned. A visualization strategy could, for example, entail ‘visualizing’ a continuum with pragmalinguistic options on it from the most minimal expression of apology in the TL (such as slixa ‘sorry’ in Hebrew) to the most formally apologetic (ani mitnatzel ‘I apologize’). A mnemonic device could be a word representing, for example, the various categories for when the subjunctive would be expected to be used in Spanish, such as the word WEDDING representing ‘Wish’, ‘Emotion’, ‘Doubt’, ‘Desire’, ‘Impersonal’, ‘Negation’ and ‘General possibility’ (from the Grammar Strategies

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website: http://carla.umn.edu/strategies/sp_grammar/strategies/form/ moods/subjunctive/wedding.html). While accessing the subjunctive aspect is not in and of itself a pragmatics issue, it could become so since there is a fine line between grammar in its own right and grammar as a vehicle for being pragmatically appropriate. So pragmatic inappropriateness could result from the use of the indicative which might sound too bossy, as opposed to the subjunctive, which sounds more mitigated (*Quiero que lo hace ahora. *’I want you to do it now’ rather than Quiero que lo haga ahora ‘I would like you to do it now’). Becoming aware of the social appropriateness of such distinctions could make studying grammar seem more relevant for some learners. (2) Have your students practice strategically those aspects of speech act performance that have been learned. This could involve having students do mind games, where they ‘engage in imaginary interactions’, perhaps focusing on certain pragmalinguistic aspects of the speech act (while riding their bikes somewhere or while waiting in a long line). This imaginary practice task would entail using strategies for visualizing a TL interaction, such as a request to a customer service representative that the store replace a defective computer. The desired goal would be greater comfort using the given speech act when the actual need arose. Another sample task would be to have your students engage in a speech act role-play with fellow learners of the TL or with NSs playing the other role and varying the age and status of the speakers. (3) A less utilized task but a potentially valuable one would be to purposely cater to the learning style preferences of your students during their efforts to practice performing TL pragmatics. It would start by determining their learning style preferences (whether informally or through some style preference inventory – such as the one available on the CARLA website: http://carla.umn.edu/strategies/sp_grammar/ pdf_fi les/CohenOxfordChi-StyleSurvey.pdf) and then trying out an approach to the speech act delivery that is consistent with the results. For example, if the learners are found to be more reflective, then you might suggest that they think through the elements in the speech act before performing it; if they are more impulsive, then suggest that they ‘online’ it and see what the response is. Learners could be asked to share with the class the strategies that they used. Perhaps the students could record themselves as they deliver the speech act and then record their retrospective self-observation as a means for collecting data on their strategy use and for learning to evaluate their performance. Likewise, pairs of students could take turns being the performer and the one collecting the verbal report data (see Cohen, 2013, for more on collecting verbal report data). (4) Another task would be to suggest to your students that they use some of the broader ‘communication’ strategies to assist themselves in

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avoiding embarrassing pragmatic failure. For example, they could use the strategy of ‘alerting the addressee’ before the delivery of the speech act that it may not come out right (‘I want to say I’m sorry, but I’m not sure how to say it right …’). Then after it is delivered, if the learner has a sense that the performance of the speech act did not work out as intended, they could use a metalinguistic strategy to try to repair the situation (such as ‘I have a sense that I didn’t say that right. Please help me out here. How would you make this request/apology/complaint? If it is of any help, this is how I would say it in my native language …’). Again they could evaluate how successful they were in weaving the various strategies together. (5) The final example is a classroom task not usually employed by classroom teachers since they may not be aware of it themselves or at least do not wish to promote this behavior. It involves encouraging students to acknowledge specific instances where they do, in fact, have the requisite knowledge to perform the speech act appropriately but, as an expression of self-agency or subjectivity, remain true to their own inclinations in their speech act delivery, rather than being native-like in their performance (see Ishihara, 2009). For example, when American learners of Japanese purposely refrain from using honorific verbs in talking about people of higher status (for instance, using taberu ‘to eat’ instead of the honorific mesheagaru), they would use the strategy of telling their interlocutor(s) that it is because such use of honorifics feels inconsistent with their view that all people should be treated equally. In the next section, we put such tasks together into a sequence of steps for a specific function. The LLSI Model in Action: Apologizing

Let us assume that your learners wish to get proficient at apologizing in the TL. Returning to the CALLA framework, strategizing may look like this: •

•

•

Awareness raising/preparation. The learners first discuss among themselves different ways in which they might apologize in their L1, then ‘identify’ the forms that they already know for apologizing in the TL, and thirdly ‘identify’ any further language forms that they need to learn. Modeling/presentation. The learners watch a simulation video with various TL apologies in it, and are called on to ‘observe’ the role that age and status appear to play in those apologies, as well as to ‘notice’ the language forms used in the interactions. The learners could also be asked to ‘visualize’ the continuum of expressions of apology as they proceed with this task. Collaborative practice. The learners work in pairs to remember various ways to deliver and respond to a TL apology (which could include

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a rejection), such as by engaging in various role-plays with repeated switching around of the roles, and by giving each other feedback as to the seeming appropriateness of the facial expressions and gestures used. They could also discuss the functions that come up for them as they use strategies. For example, are there moments when the given strategy is having an affective function, whether positive or negative? In other words, at the moment when the strategy of avoiding the use of honorifics is used, to what extent might it make them feel good about themselves or uncomfortable? Evaluation/self-evaluation. The learners ‘monitor’ each other on how well they do, and afterwards ‘identify’ the apology-specific strategies that worked well and those that they need to work on more. Transfer/expansion. The learners discuss in pairs or as a whole group other situations in which these strategies could be used, such as for other speech acts (such as requesting, complaining, complimenting, criticizing or teasing).

Several caveats are in order. One is that the use of a categorizational framework like this is a teaching strategy. It remains for the learners to develop and try out further their own set of strategies for learning and performing TL pragmatics. In addition, the above provides only one suggested way to use the framework to teach apologizing in the TL. It may not be the best way since it depends on the particular learners, the context and the nature of the learning. With respect to the learners themselves, it would depend upon their age, their TL proficiency, their language background, their cultural knowledge and their willingness to conform to the speech community’s norms for language behavior. With regard to context, whether it is an L2 or a FL, the learning environment can play an important role. Nevertheless, as noted in the review of literature by Wyner and Cohen (2015), research has shown that it is possible that some learners may, counter to expectations, arrive at better mastery of TL pragmatics in an FL rather than an L2 context. There may be a variety of reasons, such as super-high motivation to learn, high intensity of study, extensive exposure to the internet, keen ability to identify distinguishing pragmatic behaviors, and impressive skills at imitating native models. A further issue is the extent to which both the formal learning and the informal acquisition of TL pragmatics take place in school (in the classroom, in the playground, in the cafeteria) or in out-of-school contexts.

What We Still Need to Investigate

When I published the categorization of strategies for the learning and performance of pragmatics strategies in Intercultural Pragmatics (Cohen, 2005), the categorization was criticized on the grounds that it had not

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been empirically validated (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2006). When I issued a response at the time (Cohen, 2006), there was not the volume of studies on pragmatics and on pragmatic strategies that now exists. I would say that the categorization has stood the test of time, recently having been used as a major resource for the large-scale survey conducted by Tajeddin and Malmir (2015) and providing scaffolding for studies such as those cited by Taguchi and Roever (2017) dealing specifically with pragmatics instruction, and more recent studies such as one by Al Masaeed et al. (2018). Still, there is a need for research to continue validating the utility of various strategies on the list. Here are some research questions to ask: (1) Regarding the relative impact of strategy instruction on the performance of pragmatics, what adjustments might need to be made for learners differing in age, level of TL proficiency, language and cultural background, and willingness to conform to the speech community’s norms for language behavior? For example, what kinds of LLSI would contribute to learners who spend hours surfi ng the web in the TL? For learners over 65 an added variable is that of memory, since material that used to be acquired or learned through memorization may no longer stick. (2) What is the relative role that strategies play in learning TL pragmatics in an L2 as opposed to an FL context? (3) What might be differences in strategy development and use in and out of the classroom? (4) What is the value of having learners ‘pay attention to’ and even collect verbal report data on the fluctuation in the functions of the strategies that they use (i.e. metacognitive, cognitive, social and affective)? Some students may be fascinated by such distinctions and may really wish to explore the machinations of how strategies actually work for them from moment to moment, whether the strategies are stand alone, in sequences or in clusters. Other students may have no interest in such distinctions. This is where research can help to elucidate matters, such as the study by Cohen and Wang (2018). Looking ahead, there may well be a need for a more fi nely tuned description of pragmatics strategies than is currently available in the literature. In addition, there is the issue of how much to refi ne the list of strategies for TL pragmatics. For one thing, we need to look at often neglected speech acts such as criticism, teasing and cursing. We also need to look beyond speech acts, at other areas of pragmatics such as humor and sarcasm, as well as at politeness/impoliteness, conversational style, discourse markers, conversational implicature and deixis (Cohen, 2017). It is valuable to do research with students studying abroad. Shively (2013) conducted a close-order study of Kyle in Toledo, Spain, to determine the strategies that he used to be funny. One strategy that he used extensively

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was to imitate his Spanish friends or his Puerto Rican friend who was in the program with him. Through them, he learned to say diablo ‘darn’ and vale, venga ‘OK, right’ as a way to be sarcastic and to initiate his efforts at humor. Conclusions

This chapter has constituted an effort to arouse more interest in strategies for learning and performing TL pragmatics, given that pragmatics does not tend to be an area that learners simply pick up through osmosis. Examples are provided of LLSI activities for accessing and using pragmatics strategies. The main purpose of this chapter has been to encourage both language teachers and learners to find answers for themselves to the following questions: ‘What are strategies that learners and performers of pragmatics use or could use in order to achieve success at the pragmatic level?’ and ‘How could they avoid incurring pragmatic failure?’ Fortunately, there is now an abundance of research studies which demonstrate that knowing the pragmatics of a TL can be essential in appropriately using both vocabulary and grammar forms. There is, however, still a need for research on strategy instruction for enhancing pragmatic performance. Note (1) Note that the verbs ‘identify’, ‘notice’, ‘analyze’, ‘verify’ and ‘compare’ appear in inverted commas in this chapter in order to signal that they are elements common to strategies across the language areas.

References Al Masaeed, K., Waugh, L.A. and Burns, K.E. (2018) The development of interlanguage pragmatics in L2 Arabic: The production of apology strategies. System 74, 98–108. Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2017) Acquisition of L2 pragmatics. In S. Loewen (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Instructed Second Language Acquisition (pp. 224–245). New York and Abingdon: Routledge. Cohen, A.D. (2005) Strategies for learning and performing L2 speech acts. Intercultural Pragmatics 2 (3), 275–301. Cohen, A.D. (2006) A reply to Pilar Garces-Conejos Blitvich. Intercultural Pragmatics 3 (3), 359–364. Cohen, A.D. (2012) Comprehensible pragmatics: Where input and output come together. In M. Pawlak (ed.) New Perspectives on Individual Differences in Language Learning and Teaching (pp. 249–261). New York: Springer. Cohen, A.D. (2013) Verbal report. In C.A. Chapelle (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Cohen, A.D. (2014) Strategies for learning and performing speech acts. In N. Ishihara and A.D. Cohen (eds) Teaching and Learning Pragmatics: Where Language and Culture Meet (pp. 227–243). Abingdon: Routledge. Cohen, A.D. (2017) Teaching and learning second language pragmatics. In E. Hinkel (ed.) Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning, Vol. 3 (pp. 428–452). New York: Routledge.

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Cohen, A.D. (2018) Learning Pragmatics from Native and Nonnative Language Teachers. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Cohen, A.D. and Wang, I.K.-H. (2018) Fluctuation in the functions of language learner strategies. System 74, 169–182. Daly, N., Holmes, J., Newton, J. and Stubbe, M. (2004) Expletives as solidarity signals in FTAs on the factory floor. Journal of Pragmatics 36 (5), 945–964. Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, P. (2006) Interlanguage pragmatics: A response to Andrew Cohen’s ‘Strategies for learning and performing L2 speech acts’, published in Vol. 2, No. 3, of Intercultural Pragmatics. Intercultural Pragmatics 3 (2), 213–223. Ishihara, N. (2009) Transforming community norms: Potentials of L2 speakers’ pragmatic resistance. In M. Hood (ed.) Proceedings of the 2008 Temple University Japan Colloquium on Language Learning (pp. 1–10). Tokyo: Temple University Japan. Kecskes, I. (2014) Intercultural Pragmatics. New York: Oxford University Press. Li, S. (2013) Amount of practice in pragmatic development of request-making in L2 Chinese. In N. Taguchi and J.M. Sykes (eds) Technology in Interlanguage Pragmatics Research and Teaching (pp. 43–70). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Plonsky, L. (2011) The effectiveness of second language strategy instruction: A metaanalysis. Language Learning 61 (4), 993–1038. Shively, R.L. (2013) Learning to be funny in Spanish during study abroad: L2 humor development. The Modern Language Journal 97 (4), 930–946. Taguchi, N. and Roever, C. (2017) Second Language Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tajeddin, Z. and Malmir, A. (2015) The construct of interlanguage pragmatic learning strategies: Investigating preferences of high vs. low pragmatic performers. Journal of Teaching Language Skills 6 (4), 153–180. Vásquez, C. and Sharpless, D. (2009) The role of pragmatics in the MA TESOL programs: Findings from a nationwide survey. TESOL Quarterly 43 (1), 5–28. Vellenga, H. (2004) Learning pragmatics from ESL & EFL textbooks: How likely? TESL-EJ: Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language 8 (2), A-3. Wyner, L. and Cohen, A.D. (2015) Second language pragmatic ability: Individual differences according to environment. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching 5 (4), 519–556.

Part 3 Implementation: The Learners Introduction to Part 3 It is high time that new efforts are directed from exploratory and descriptive research of strategy use to undertaking and researching different approaches to LLSI, with the aim both of enhancing our theoretical understanding and also being of practical use to teachers. (Peter Gu, Chapter 2 in this volume)

Part 1 took up Peter Gu’s challenge by focusing on different approaches to Language Learning Strategy Instruction (LLSI) and the theoretical issues raised. LLSI, for example, should not only be concerned with promoting linguistic progress but also learners’ autonomy and their sense of selfefficacy. Part 2 raised a further theoretical question by discussing those groups of strategies that have been overlooked in the past: grammar strategies, strategies to foster Critical Cultural Awareness and those to learn and perform pragmatics. If Part 3 develops some of the themes raised in Parts 1 and 2 in terms of their practical applications, it is not to say that there is no underlying theoretical rationale. It is more a question of a shift in focus in order to highlight pedagogical activities and resources. These have not been readily available, since studies have tended to concentrate on the research measures used at the expense of describing the LLSI intervention in depth. Two of the chapters are particularly concerned with how to adapt the LLSI – either according to age (Chapter 10) or according to the learner’s attainment level and needs (Chapter 12). The other two chapters tackle a further concern for teachers, namely, how to incorporate LLSI into the curriculum. Chapter 11 is based on a project to integrate LLSI activities into textbooks for learning English in Greek primary and secondary schools and Chapter 13 describes a range of ways in which technology can be used to foster learners’ strategy use. Two further features are worth highlighting. The first is that the initial three chapters are geared towards school-age students rather than adult learners. Indeed Chapters 10 and 11 refer specifically to primary school children – an age group rarely covered in the LLSI literature. The second point is that Chapters 10 and 11 include

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concrete materials and activities for teaching affective strategies since that is one of the less studied and less taught groups of strategies. The provision of classroom-based examples of LLSI and of resources at a range of levels reflects our concern to support teachers and the fi nal section of the book is devoted to LLSI in pre- and in-service teacher education.

10 Designing Effective Strategy Instruction: Approaches and Materials for Young Language Learners Pamela Gunning, Joanna White and Christine Busque

Introduction

To introduce the context for the issues we explore in this chapter, we begin with the response of a 12-year-old, Grade 6 student we will call Lisa. After reading a text in class, Lisa had been asked to explain what she did to fi nd the answer to a question. Lisa:

I check the keyword in the question and I go back in the text to see this keyword. Researcher: Can you give me an example? (Reading the question) ‘Why do people sneeze?’ I checked in the Lisa: text for sneeze and read ‘Do you ever sneeze when you walk into the bright sunlight?’ Bright sunlight – this is the answer.

In this excerpt, Lisa was confident in her ability to use the key word strategy to arrive at the correct answer to the question. We will provide additional illustrations of students’ comments later. This example is taken from research conducted in Quebec, Canada, where 80% of the population is Francophone and most students study English as a second language (ESL) as a school subject for one to two hours per week. Lisa’s class received an enriched ESL program and studied English for three hours per week throughout elementary school. While strategy use is prescribed for all subjects, ESL and French L1 are taught by different teachers who are typically unaware of the strategies to be taught in one another’s curriculum. However, Lisa’s class was participating in a research project in which her first and second language (L1/L2) teachers 155

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collaborated on the teaching of reading strategies. For several months, they taught reading strategies that matched the task and that were derived from the curriculum in both languages. Indeed, language learning strategy instruction (LLSI) is beneficial in various other skill and competency areas (Cresswell, 2000; Lee, 2007; Nakatani, 2005; Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari, 2010) and has positive effects on affective variables as well as management of the learning process (Chen, 2007). In spite of these positive fi ndings, however, LLSI research with young language learners (YLLs) is scarce (Rubin et  al., 2007). This might be due to a lack of resources, uncertainty about how to adapt abstract, complex concepts to YLLs’ level, or concern that children lack the necessary metacognitive awareness. Other problematic issues include appropriate design of LLSI for YLLs, the language of strategy instruction, knowing when and how to withdraw support, and non-equivalent strategy terminology in L1 and L2 contexts; the latter is especially relevant to LLSI that encourages transfer across languages. In this chapter, we present a framework for LLSI based on four years of research with YLLs in Quebec, whom we are defi ning here as aged 11–12 years (Grade 6 elementary). We link theory and practice by providing examples of each step of the framework. We believe that meticulous planning is essential to the success of LLSI among YLLs, so we provide illustrations of approaches, materials, and practical suggestions for teachers. Why Strategy Instruction with Children?

Strategy awareness helps children become better learners (Moon, 2005). Development of strategy awareness, therefore, is a crucial focus of LLSI among YLLs, which should involve explicit teaching of what a strategy entails, as well as how and when to use it (Rubin et al., 2007). Existing studies show that LLSI can heighten children’s awareness of strategies for solving problems, overcoming knowledge gaps (Gunning et al., 2016) and managing their learning (Vandergrift, 2002). LLSI can also facilitate oral interaction (Gunning, 2011), listening comprehension (Vandergrift, 2002), reading comprehension (Macaro & Mutton, 2009) and writing (Gu, 2007). These studies, all involving YLLs, support the notion that LLSI helps YLLs become active participants in the learning process as they choose strategies to solve learning problems, thereby improving learning outcomes, which in turn enhances motivation and self-efficacy (Gunning, 2011). In reporting the benefits of LLSI on learning, Gu (2007: 32) declared: ‘The question is no longer whether SBI [strategy-based instruction] should be promoted, it is now a matter of how.’ In this chapter we address the question of how to promote effective LLSI with YLLs. While some would argue that younger students lack the metacognitive awareness to engage in LLSI, we hope to show from our own experience and from

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comments from our own and other learners, that this need not be the case (Chamot, 1999; Chamot & El-Dinary, 1999). Most models of effective LLSI reflect a process in which the initial steps are heavily scaffolded and support is lessened as students progress in their strategy development (Rubin et al., 2007). Chamot’s (2009) Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) illustrates this process (see the Introduction to this volume). Whichever model is chosen, however, the LLSI needs to be adapted to the age, proficiency level, context and culture of the learners (Gunning, 2011). An example of this is the Problem-Solving Strategy Intervention (PSSI) model (Gunning, 2011; Gunning & Oxford, 2014), a three-step LLSI model designed for YLLs. This model involves a gradual progression from helping students develop strategy awareness (Step 1), to helping them develop their ability to match strategies to task demands, by engaging them in multiple, varied practice opportunities using a concrete tool, a strategy wheel, to note down an activity for which each strategy was useful (Step 2). Step 3 helps students take responsibility for their strategy use, as they develop their ability to select and use strategies autonomously through a simplified strategy goalsetting and self-regulation procedure, using a strategy log containing a repertoire of strategies from the curriculum. The teacher explains the task without telling students which strategies to use. The students discuss in their groups and identify those they think will be helpful for that task. Following this, they set individual goals by checking off on their strategy log those they think they will personally use. They engage in the task, after which they check off the strategies they actually used, and in a posttask reflection they discuss those that helped them the most in accomplishing the task. Although the fi rst two steps bear similarities to CALLA, the PSSI model is age appropriate, as it underscores the degree of progression and detailed scaffolding, involving concrete tools and procedures, which are necessary for LLSI with YLLs, particularly those who are new to the language and to language learning. Drawing on Yin’s (2009) social-interaction theory, a further feature of the PSSI model is that ‘researchers and practitioners work together, customising an elongated process of problem identification and solution testing’ (Yin, 2009: 139). Gunning (2011) used the PSSI with 6th graders (12-year-olds) to investigate whether LLSI in oral interaction could address the difficulties the teacher described of students’ overdependence on the L1 (Gunning & Oxford, 2014). Using an adaptation of the PSSI model, we have also explored L1/L2 teacher collaboration in reading strategy instruction as teachers raised their students’ awareness that strategies can be transferred across languages (Gunning et al., 2016). In the next section, we discuss principles for conducting successful LLSI with YLLs, and we illustrate in more detail the progression from the initial introduction of a strategy through the practice and evaluation steps. We include some of the tools we developed from these studies, as well as a textbook example.

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Principles and Practice of LLSI Lessons with Young Learners

Teaching abstract concepts, such as strategies, to YLLs requires meticulous planning and preparation. The phases of our teacher planning framework are similar to the CALLA steps, but the type and degree of scaffolding mentioned above are particularly evident in the practice step, which is broken down into three smaller stages as described below. Raising awareness: Identifying students’ needs

Depending on the students’ proficiency level, the teacher can identify strategies they are already using through class discussions or questionnaires, or by placing students in situations where they need to use strategies, without guidance, and then eliciting the strategies they have used. For young learners, Gunning et al. (2000) raise the strategy awareness of YLLs in Grade 3 by telling a funny story in the L2, using gestures and illustrations of key words to help them understand. After listening to the story, the students collectively reconstruct the storyline in their L1 and the teacher elicits the strategies they have used. The teacher then makes a poster with the students’ strategies, using plenty of visuals and very simple English words. There is some debate about what language to use for LLSI (Rubin et al., 2007). However, once students have grasped the concept of strategies, the use of the L1 is no longer necessary as LLSI can be conducted in the L2 with the help of pictograms, posters and mascots. Robbins (2016) uses cuddly mascots to make abstract strategy concepts tangible to YLLs by associating stuffed animals with strategies. For a demonstration of a lesson using Monitoring Monkey, see http://calla.ws/demo/. The use of visual aids is crucial with YLLs. Visuals promote interest and facilitate comprehension, thereby fostering self-efficacy, all of which are of particular importance when YLLs are attempting to understand abstract concepts in the L2. Self-efficacy influences the use of affective strategies, as research shows that high-achieving children use significantly more affective strategies than do their mid- and low-achieving peers (A.U. Chamot, personal communication, 15 December 2016; Gunning, 1997, 2011; Lan & Oxford, 2003), and yet all children need to feel they can be effective learners. Modelling particular strategies

In Quebec, the curriculum lists the strategies to be taught, and from this repertoire students gradually learn to select strategies according to their needs and the requirements of the task. Initially, however, the teacher selects the strategies and visualises each step of the presentation process in order to make explicit the practice and the reasoning that otherwise would be implicit (Dubé et al., 2013). The teacher goes through the process of the

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Figure 10.1 Example from the student strategy resource table. © Reproduced with authorization of Gunning, White and Busque

activity by thinking aloud while modelling the strategy (Oxford, 1990). This includes how to break the strategy down into specific, concrete behaviours, expressed in simple language with a step-by-step explanation. For example, for beginners, Lassire et al. (2002a) suggest a familiar maths equation formula, such as READ + FIND = SCANNING for information. Strategy component cards and strategy posters can be used to illustrate behaviours related to each strategy (see Lassire et al., 2002b). For intermediate learners (aged 11–12), Gunning et al. (2016) suggest a student strategy resource table with pictograms, definitions and specific behaviours (Figure 10.1). If the strategy to be taught involves speaking (for example, compensatory strategies such as asking for help), functional language posters in the L2 can be prepared to help students deploy the strategy using the language on the posters (e.g. Can you help me?). Teachers can model the strategy by thinking aloud how they would implement it, showing these visual aids. The entire think-aloud process must be planned, including the simple language and logical sequence of steps for students to follow. It is particularly important for teachers to support the development of affective strategies for YLLs and help them develop strategies for coping with their anxiety about learning a new language. Mascots and puppets like ‘Monitoring Monkey’ capitalize on children’s inherent attachment to stuffed animals and help them relax when faced with stressful learning situations (Robbins, 2016). In Figure 10.2, Gunning et al. (2000) used a mascot to model using strategies for controlling stress, for a Grade 3 beginner level class. The students listen to the recording of the mascot thinking aloud and then the teacher’s guide prompts teachers to draw the students’ attention to the boy at the bottom of the page and to elicit the strategies he used to control stress.

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Figure 10.2 Excerpt from Gunning et al. (2000). Reproduced with authorization of Lidec, Inc

Patricia, whose lessons will be described in full below, always had a ‘Control stress’ strategy poster on the board in her Grade 6 class. She frequently drew the students’ attention to it and discussed techniques for controlling their stress when faced with a difficult task. For example, she emphasized that in reading, students did not have to understand every word, as she pointed to the ‘Go for the general meaning’ poster. Practice steps

Students can name and describe strategies long before using them autonomously (Gunning & Oxford, 2014), so they need multiple opportunities for guided practice to be transformed into autonomous use. This

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raises issues regarding scaffolding: how and when to withdraw support, and how to progress in the practice of a single strategy in a way that maintains student motivation and avoids boredom (Harris, 2007). Given the degree of scaffolding necessary with YLLs, our framework breaks the practice phase into three distinct steps to ensure progression towards greater autonomy: guided practice; independent practice of a particular strategy or group of strategies; progression in the complexity of each strategy, and variation in practice activities. Guided practice

The teacher proposes activities or exercises integrating the use of the strategy and leads the students in their strategy use as they complete the activities, as a whole class, in teams or individually. Independent practice of particular strategy or group of strategies

Students do activities or exercises by themselves, applying what they have learned during the modelling and guided practice (Dubé et al., 2013). Students need independent practice opportunities, working on their own or in groups, without the teacher directing their strategy use. During independent practice, students will employ the strategies taught, but they should be allowed some element of choice because strategy use is closely tied to learning styles and individual needs (Oxford, 2011); for example, some learners prefer to take risks, whereas others might choose to use resources. Progression and variation in the practice steps over a period of time

To maintain student engagement during the repeated practice of a single strategy over several class periods, it is important to vary the task type and the accompanying cluster of strategies. Autonomous use

The ultimate goal of LLSI is for students to use strategies to autonomously manage their learning. This step involves developing the ability to set goals for strategy use, select and orchestrate their strategies with flexibility, and monitor and evaluate their effectiveness. This step is challenging for learners (Harris, 2007), so with YLLs it takes a long time to achieve and, according to the Québec Education Program (Ministère de l’Éducation du Québec, 2001), it is not formally targeted in elementary school. To promote this step, Patricia, an Intensive English Grade 6 teacher, used the following adaptation of Step 3 of the Problem-Solving Strategy Instruction. She explained a task without telling the students which strategies to use and asked them to decide independently how to proceed. Although scaffolding was removed at this point, she suggested to students to use their strategy file as a resource. After the activity, students engaged in posttask

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whole-group reporting, saying which strategies they used, which ones were most helpful for the activity, giving examples, and explaining why they were helpful. They also shared strategies in small group discussions. It should be clear from the above description that our model also places considerable emphasis on students collaborating in pairs and groups. As Harris argues in Chapter 3, such collaboration allows students to draw on each other’s strengths; bilingual students, for example, may be particularly adept at inferring meaning using cognates, especially when they have been taught to make cross-linguistic connections through L1/ L2 teacher collaboration. Table 10.1 provides a concrete example of the guided practice steps, since insufficient attention is often given to this step, the assumption being that students only need to be told about the strategies for them to be able to use them automatically. In this example, Patricia, the Grade 6 ESL teacher mentioned above, taught a cluster of strategies involving inferencing, such as the use of cognates and illustrations. It demonstrates how she varied the strategy clusters and task types over the course of a five-month research project. Patricia started with the modelling and guided practice of mainly word-level strategies for inferencing in the periods of Times 1–3, and gradually progressed to inferring information and working more independently on the particular strategies in Times 4–6. The sequence culminated in students fi nally selecting strategies for themselves in Time 7 (for more detailed information, see Gunning et al., 2016). As discussed below, each step was followed by posttask reflection, feedback and strategy sharing. Reflection

Students need to understand which strategies are useful for which situation in order to choose effective strategies for a task. Research shows that one difference in strategy use between effective and less effective learners is the ability of the former to select appropriate strategies for tasks (Chamot & El Dinary, 1999; Gunning, 1997; Oxford et al., 2004). Therefore, students need to reflect on their strategies at each step of the LLSI and receive feedback regularly from teachers and peers on their choice of strategies for particular tasks in order to make informed choices for future strategy use. Some argue that younger learners lack the metacognitive strategies to evaluate and reflect on their learning. However, as will be clear from illustrating our own experience, students benefit from sharing their strategies as this helps them understand how their peers are using them, thereby widening their own strategy repertoire (Gunning & Turner, 2018). Reflections can be teacher led or in the form of a student-to-student group discussion. Regular post-task reflections and feedback help students regulate their learning but teachers need to plan such opportunities, especially for younger learners. For example, after having her Grade 6

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Table 10.1 Progression in teaching a single strategy: Variation of task types Times over 5 months

Step

Activities

Time 1

Modelling inferring meaning of word

Patricia … • Used strategy posters and think-aloud procedure to explain and model inferring word meaning in a text by looking around the word.

Time 2

Modelling inferring meaning of word

• Explained and modelled how to use illustrations and cognates to infer meaning of words in a story.

Time 3

Practising and • Taught students to use their L1 content knowledge and scaffolding inferring ESL knowledge to infer meaning of expressions in meaning of word English. They practised by reading a children’s news story together about the astronaut, Chris Hadfield, and Patricia scaffolded the deconstruction of their understanding of the Milky Way as follows. She prompted students to activate their L1 prior knowledge of stars (content) but also their L1 system (by thinking about words they knew in French related to stars and making a connection with words they knew in English). They practised further, using the text of a song and YouTube video by Hadfield.

Time 4

• Modelled inferring meaning from a text by colour-codModelling and practising inferring ing information related to Wh questions and making meaning from a text intelligent guesses regarding missing information. The students practised colour-coding key information from a pen-pal letter and guessing, for example, who was sending the letter, from where and when (what season) the letter was sent.

Time 5

Practising inferring • Had the students practise inferring meaning by using Wh meaning from a text questions and visuals in order to guess the unstated profession of the main character in a video in an unfamiliar language.

Time 6

Independent use of inferencing

• Organized reading circles; the students read texts independently and worked out their understanding in collaborative groups. Each group member had a responsibility involving inferencing (among other instructed strategies).

Time 7

Independent choice of strategies

• Gave the students a text with the title and certain key words removed, and they inferred the topic of the text. They were not given any suggestions of strategies to use and they chose these independently.

students read a long, challenging text, Patricia led them in the following posttask reflection: Patricia:

Claire:

Which strategy did you use today? Before you tell me, compare with your partner. The students shared their strategies in pairs and then Patricia asked volunteers to share with the class. A volunteer, Claire, responded. I guess intelligently.

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Patricia: Claire:

What did you guess intelligently? I use information I know. For example, ‘corn’ to guess ‘cornfield’. Patricia gave Claire positive feedback, wrote cornfi eld on the board and underlined corn to make this salient to the other students. After other volunteers had shared their strategies, Patricia addressed the class. Patricia: So this was a long, difficult text. Do you feel that using strategies helped you understand it? Students: Yes. Patricia: And is it okay (pointing to the poster representing ‘Go for the general meaning’) if you don’t understand all the words? Students: Yes. Patricia: So remember this when you read difficult texts … you can do the same thing in other situations.

It is important to note that such reflections can be conducted after guided practice or independent practice or following opportunities for autonomous strategy use, although the degree of teacher prompting may decrease so students are not simply coming up with ‘the right answer’. For this reason, it is vital when students report their strategy use to insist on accountability by asking them for specific examples (Gunning & Oxford, 2014) because YLLs may report using strategies just to please the teacher. First/second language transfer of strategies

Teachers can raise students’ awareness of the usefulness of cross-linguistic transfer of strategies. ESL teachers can help students realize that they can use their L1 knowledge to infer meaning in their L2, through cognates and their L1 content knowledge, as demonstrated by Patricia, who ‘… raised students’ awareness that they could use their French L1 system and content knowledge as resources’ to understand the Milky Way (see Gunning et al., 2016: 79). LLSI for Young Language Learners: Putting It All Together

Given the concerns some teachers may have about the lack of LLSI guidance for teachers of younger learners, Table 10.2 provides a concrete example of the principles and practice for each step of LLSI planning. It illustrates the progression of the teaching of the strategy of ‘predicting’, by Dan, a Grade 6 ESL teacher. He adopted a gradual approach, teaching predicting over the course of two and a half months, thereby again demonstrating the degree of scaffolding and progression needed for LLSI with YLLs. The Time 1 column illustrates the progression in teaching two of the prediction-related strategies from Figure 10.1: using the title and illustrations. The Time 2 column shows the progression in fostering the strategy of using prior knowledge to make

Time 1 (April 2)

Dan (teacher) … • used student strategy resource table (Figure 10.1) to initiate a class discussion about predicting; • read Behaviours A and B in Figure 10.1 (‘use of title and illustrations’); • drew students’ attention to the pictures beside two short texts and told students that in preparing for reading, they could look at the illustrations and predict what the story texts might be about.

• modelled by thinking aloud ‘using the pictures of the characters’ in two textbook readings; e.g. looking at the fi rst character he wondered aloud, ‘Who is he? What is his job? He has a medieval costume and a bell. I think the text will be about …’.

• asked the students to highlight Behaviour A on the strategy table and led them in a prediction of elements of the text based on the title and the subtitles; they then read the text individually.

Students read independently and completed a comprehension activity.

Teaching phases

(1) Awareness raising

(2) Modelling/ explanation

(3a) Guided practice

(3b) Independent practice

Table 10.2 Teacher LLSI planning template: A classroom example

(Continued)

Dan then asked the students to read the story and see whether that princess was arrogant or nice. The students read the story individually. They answered questions independently, then discussed their answers in small groups. The final question was ‘Predict whether the prince and princess will be happy’. Using prior knowledge of fairy tales, Laurent predicted: ‘I think they will be happy because it’s always like that in stories. All stories finish good. They always say, they live happily ever after.’

Dan guided students’ use of Behaviour C on the strategy table, ‘focusing on using prior knowledge to predict’; e.g. using their prior knowledge of princesses to predict the character of the princess in the story. He asked what they thought of princesses. Most said princesses are arrogant. Marie said that is a stereotype because in real life some princesses are nice. Dan asked for an example and Marie said Princess Kate.

In preparation for reading the story, The Princess and the Pea, Dan projected a picture of peas on the board and elicited predictions regarding the storyline and why the pea would be important.

Dan (teacher) … • focused on Behaviour C of the strategy table (Figure 10.1: ‘title, illustrations + prior knowledge’); • elicited examples to ensure that students were aware of what the strategy entailed and how and when to use it.

Time 2 (May 1)

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Time 2 (May 1)

L1/L2 transfer of LLS

Students work on a story. A student, Claude, explaining his autonomous strategy use: ‘Me, when I read, first I take a guess of what we gonna read. For example, [pointing to the textbook reading] here I look at the picture and I see a costume a little bit England, and here, Egypt or Africa, so I think it’s gonna be in this country or … And after, I look at the name of the text. Here is the town crier. I say that … I use what I know and I say that it’s gonna be about people who speaking in the room or something …’

(5) Autonomous use

A student, Francis, explaining his use of L1 (French) knowledge to infer the meaning of storyteller: (Translation) ‘Well, at first storyteller was a bit difficult but after, not really. Story, is une histoire; teller … tell is like dire; therefore, I make links and it is someone who tells stories’.

Note: Claude made conscious strategy choices and personalized his use of predicting, combining related instructed behaviours (looking at the illustrations and title, and using prior knowledge) to facilitate his reading comprehension

Post task discussion (example): • Dan asked the students when they used predicting and how. Most said they used it before reading but Laurent said: ‘I predict while I read. Sometimes my predictions are right but sometimes they are wrong and I get little surprises along the way. This maintains my interest so I keep on reading to the end.’ Dan praised Laurent, thanked him for sharing, and explained to the class that predictions need not be always right; that the importance of predicting is maintaining their interest, so predicting can be used before or during reading.

Dan asked the students … (Time 1: April 2): To predict elements of a text, based on the title, subtitles, and illustrations. They then read independently and completed a Venn diagram. (Time 2: May 1): To predict elements of a story, The Princess and the Pea, based on their prior knowledge, they answered comprehension questions individually and discussed the prediction question in groups. (Time 3: May 22): To predict elements of a text on famine based on a group discussion and personal choice of prediction-related behaviours on our strategy resource table. They drew upon their French L1 content knowledge to make predictions regarding famine. They then read a children’s news story about famine in groups using a round-robin technique, answered questions on their own and reflected on their predictions.

Practice of the strategy, predicting, with various short texts and stories, over a two-and-a-half-month period.

Time 1 (April 2)

(4) Reflection (after each practice sequence)

(3c) Progression and variation in practice activities of all three predicting strategies (over a period of time)

Teaching phases

Table 10.2 (Continued)

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predictions. The fi nal section at the bottom of the table shows how the three strategies for predicting were put together. Implications for LLSI Teacher Education for Young Language Learners

We have seen how an essential component in successful LLSI is careful design and planning, and understanding that learners need plenty of time for adequate practice (Chamot, 2005). Thus it cannot be seen as a small, mechanistic addition to everyday classes. Instead, teachers should view LLSI as enabling learning, rather than taking time away from content teaching (Gunning, 2011), and should help their learners ‘perceive strategies as an important component in facilitating their progress towards the attainment of learning goals’ (Gunning & Oxford, 2014: 83). Classroombased researchers can play an important role in supporting teacher participants and facilitating the LLSI design. An example from research projects we conducted in two Grade 6 classrooms in Quebec illustrates the need for such support (Gunning et al., 2015, unpublished data). Teacher A received training from the researcher, including discussions about techniques and viewing videos of effective LLSI from one of our previous studies. Teacher A also received an illustrated student strategy resource (Figure 10.1) and sample lesson plans showing how to integrate LLSI into ESL lessons. Both Teacher A and Teacher B were asked to build LLSI into their regular lessons. Teacher B designed his own lessons, based on his selfdeclared prior knowledge of LLSI. Teacher A taught strategies as processes, using resources and effective techniques. His students reported using the student strategy resource table frequently, and their personal highlighting and underlining of strategic behaviours on it corroborated this claim. By the end of the project they used reading strategies independently. Teacher B, on the other hand, used interesting strategy presentation techniques but taught too many strategies at once, and as a list rather than as a process. Reading strategies were discussed in his classroom only when the researchers visited and although the students were given the student strategy resource table, they were not actually presented with opportunities to use it. Furthermore, he relied on his own perception of the students’ ability to transfer L1 strategies to the L2 rather than seeking firm evidence. Consequently, by the end of the project, the students could explain the strategies presented, but had not proceduralized them. When faced with a learning difficulty, their default strategy was asking the teacher for help. It is clear then that, just like their students, teachers need more than a checklist or one or two examples. Both of them need time, practice and support: for the teachers it is to become independent in integrating LLSI fully into their lessons; for the students, it is to become independent in using the strategies they need.

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In Chapter 2 Gu argues for a model of LLSI in which students have more ownership of the strategies from the outset. It is they who decide on the criteria for successful completion of the task and select the strategies they think will be most helpful. Although this might be appropriate for more advanced learners, we would argue that YLLs need the greater degree of initial support and scaffolding that we have described, in order to independently select strategies. Furthermore, teachers new to LLSI may fi nd a clear framework reassuring. Once they are more confident, they might be ready to move on to the more organic, non-sequential, responsive approach to LLSI described by Coyle in Chapter 4. Conclusion

In this chapter we have argued that unsuccessful LLSI can be attributed in part to faulty design and that the scarcity of classroom-based research with YLLs could be due to a lack of resources. In order to help teachers and researchers design effective LLSI for YLLs, we have combined research and practice to propose principles and resources, such as the importance of visual support and the use of a planning framework for conducting LLSI with YLLs. In this framework, we divide the practice phase into distinct steps accounting for the degree of scaffolding needed to teach LLS to YLLs. We focus on the progression of LLSI related to a single strategy, from awareness raising to autonomous use, showing that a variety of task types is essential to maintain student engagement. In response to teachers’ concern that LLSI takes time away from content teaching, we maintain that if LLSI helps students become autonomous learners, the time devoted to careful planning, explanation, modelling, practice and reflection will save time for content teaching in the long run. This chapter begins to fi ll the gaps in the literature for designing effective LLSI for young learners of a second or foreign language. Future research could investigate the following questions: (1) What would be the impact of teacher training videos showing how to implement each phase of the framework on teacher planning and LLSI design for YLLs? (2) Does the gradual progression and scaffolding of LLSI with YLLs lead to the long-term retention of strategies? References Chamot, A.U. (1999) Reading and writing processes: Learning strategies in immersion classrooms. In M.A. Kassen (ed.) Language Learners of Tomorrow: Process and Promise (pp. 29–59). Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook. Chamot, A.U. (2005) Language learning strategy instruction: Current issues and research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 25, 112–130. Chamot, A.U. (2009) The CALLA Handbook: Implementing the Cognitive Academic Learning Approach (2nd edn). New York: Pearson Education.

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Chamot, A.U. and El-Dinary, P. (1999) Children’s learning strategies in language immersion classrooms. The Modern Language Journal 83, 319–338. Chen, Y. (2007) Learning to learn: The impact of strategy training. ELT Journal 61 (1), 20–29. Cresswell, A. (2000) Self-monitoring in student writing: Developing learner responsibility. ELT Journal 54 (3), 235–244. Dubé, F., Dorval, C. and Bessette, L. (2013) Flexible grouping, explicit reading instruction in elementary school. Journal of Instructional Pedagogies 10, 1–12. Gu, P. (2007) Strategy-based instruction. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on English Education in Japan: Exploring New Frontiers. Osaka: Yubunsha. Gunning, P. (1997) The learning strategies of beginning ESL learners at the primary level. Master’s thesis, Concordia University. See http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/517/ (accessed 6 June 2016). Gunning, P. (2011) ESL strategy use and instruction at the elementary school level: A mixed-methods investigation. PhD thesis, McGill University. See http://digitool. library.mcgill.ca/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=103480&local_base=GEN01MCG02 (accessed 6 June 2016). Gunning, P. and Oxford, R.L. (2014) Children’s learning strategy use and the effects of strategy instruction on success in learning ESL in Canada. System 43, 82–100. Gunning, P. and Turner, C. (2018) The development of strategy assessment methods and  tools for young language learners in classroom contexts. In R.L Oxford and  C.M.  Amerstorfer (eds) Language Learning Strategies and Individual Learner  Characteristics: Situating Strategy Use in Diverse Contexts. London: Bloomsbury. Gunning, P., Lalonde, R., Schinck, M. and Watts, W. (2000) A New Twist to English, Cycle 2, Book 1. Montreal: Lidec. Gunning, P., White, J. and Busque, C. (2015) Reading strategy instruction in intensive English. Unpublished data, Montreal. Gunning, P., White, J. and Busque, C. (2016) Raising learners’ awareness through L1-L2 teacher collaboration. Language Awareness 25 (1–2), 72–88. Harris, V. (2007) Exploring progression: Reading and listening strategy instruction with near beginner learners of French. Language Learning Journal 35 (2), 189–204. Lan, R. and Oxford, R. (2003) Language learning strategy profi les of elementary school students in Taiwan. IRAL 41, 339–379. Lassire, M., Arseneault, J., Gunning, P. and Brook, J. (2002a) Strategies for Success in ESL. Formation Continue. Quebec: Ministère de l’Éducation. Lassire, M., Arseneault, J., Gunning, P. and Brook, J. (2002b) Strategy posters and component cards. In Strategies for Success in ESL. Formation Continue. Quebec: Ministère de l’Éducation. See http://eslinsight.qc.ca/?-Strategies-Posters-Cycle-Twoand-Three (accessed 29 June 2016). Lee, K.R. (2007) Strategy awareness-raising for success: Reading strategy instruction in the EFL context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland. Macaro, E. and Mutton, T. (2009) Developing reading achievement in primary learners of French: Inferencing strategies versus exposure to ‘graded readers’. Language Learning Journal 37, 165–182. Ministère de l’Éducation du Québec (2001) Programme de formation de l’école québécoise. Anglais, langue seconde. Enseignement primaire. Montréal, Québec. Moon, J. (2005) Children Learning English. Oxford: Macmillan. Nakatani, Y. (2005) The effects of awareness-raising training on oral communication strategy use. The Modern Language Journal 89 (i), 76–91. Oxford, R.L. (1990) Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Oxford, R.L. (2011) Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies. London: Longman.

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Oxford, R.L., Cho, Y., Leung, S. and Kim, H.-J. (2004) Effect of the presence and difficulty of task on strategy use: An exploratory study. International Review of Applied Linguistics 42, 1–47. Robbins, J. (2016) Monitoring Monkey: CALLA Lesson. See http://calla.ws/demo/ (accessed 29 December 2016). Robbins, J. and Chamot, A.U. (2012) Young EL learning strategies: From abstracts to concrete tools. AccELLerate! 4. See http://www.academia.edu/11868468/Young_ EL_Learning_Strategies_From_Abstract_Concepts_to_Concrete_Tools (accessed 30 July 2016). Rubin, J., Chamot, A.U., Harris, V. and Anderson, N.J. (2007) Intervening in the use of strategies. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 141–160). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vandergrift, L. (2002) ‘It was nice to see that our predictions were right’: Developing metacognition in L2 listening comprehension. Canadian Modern Language Review 58 (4), 555–575. Vandergrift, L. and Tafaghodtari, M.H. (2010) Teaching learners how to listen does make a difference: An empirical study. Language Learning 65, 470–497. Yin, R.K. (2009) Case Study Research: Design and Methods (4th edn). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

11 Guidelines and Materials for Integrating Language Learning Strategy Instruction into the Language Lesson Angeliki Psaltou-Joycey

Introduction and Rationale

Language learning strategies (LLS) enhance language learning by making it more enjoyable, efficient and effective, leading to learners’ self-regulation (Oxford, 1990, 2011). However, beginners and young learners embarking on such a process do not automatically select and use the most appropriate strategies for any given task; they need guidance and direction. Also, as in many second language (L2) situations, learning takes place in formal settings where language teachers are expected to boost their learners’ ability to select and use the most suitable strategies for the demands of any specific learning situation. In short, teachers are expected to create strategic learners. They can do this by either using existing materials or creating their own in order to instruct learners on how to use a particular strategy or a combination of strategies. As teachers play a central role in LLS implementation (Psaltou-Joycey, 2014), it is vital to equip them with an awareness of strategies and the knowledge of how to implement language learning strategy instruction (LLSI) in their classrooms (Rubin et al., 2007). This chapter is addressed mainly to language practitioners and researchers working with them and is concerned with the design of classroom materials that integrate explicit LLSI into the regular foreign language classroom. Two examples of these materials can also be found in Foreign Language Learning Instruction: A Teacher’s Guide (Psaltou-Joycey, 2015) which is described in more detail later in the chapter. The materials in it have been developed after analyzing the coursebooks currently used in state schools in Greece, a process which proved most helpful in deciding both what to include in A Teacher’s Guide and how to relate it to the coursebooks. 171

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LLSI Considerations and Contexts Factors influencing LLSI

LLSI ‘is not a mechanistic experience, neither for the student nor for the teacher, but requires reflection and evaluation’ (Rubin et al., 2007: 142). Interrelated factors, such as the learning context, the nature of the task, the learners’ age and individual learning style preferences, and teacher and learner beliefs about language learning and learning goals all influence the way LLSI is implemented. Age-related concerns are especially relevant to the design of the instruction, the types of strategies incorporated in it and the content of selected materials. Learners’ factual and linguistic knowledge may place restrictions on ways of implementing various strategies, such as the use of background knowledge or the use of the target language for instruction. However, success with LLSI largely depends on teachers being willing to incorporate it into their ordinary lessons, although objective factors may sometimes make such a decision difficult. For instance, the curriculum may be quite inflexible about the language material to be covered, not allowing time for any extra activities, or it may be very traditional and not designed to promote student autonomy and strategy use. Other factors that can make teachers reluctant to implement LLSI can include: teachers’ satisfaction with their current teaching style; their beliefs about teacher/student roles; limited knowledge about learning strategies; lack of awareness of the strategies their learners use (O’Malley et al., 1985); inaccurate perceptions about which strategies learners prefer (Bernaus & Gardner, 2008; Griffiths & Parr, 2001; Sen & Sen, 2012); and lack of skill in how to promote strategies (Griffiths & Parr, 2001; Vieira, 2003). Teachers, then, need support in discovering what LLSI is and what it really involves. Training workshops and seminars such as the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA; Chamot, 2009) are one way of showing them how to incorporate strategies in their lessons. However, many teachers cannot attend such seminars regularly, so they lack information about what LLS are, where to find suggestions for engaging in LLSI and how to select relevant materials to help them teach strategies. It is with these teachers in mind that the present chapter has been written. Designing materials for LLSI

Peacock and Ho (2003) consider that a wide variety of tasks and activities is key to targeting the strategies teachers consider crucial for successful L2 learning. However, many teachers encounter difficulty in fi nding materials specifically designed for that purpose. So the next sections focus on how to prepare or fi nd such tasks and activities. The materials should be selected according to the language skill(s) and the strategy(-ies) teachers

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want to teach, always taking into account their learners’ goals and current needs, their age and proficiency level, and the FL learning situation (Griffiths, 2013). In what follows, I set out a framework for materials development that teachers should bear in mind when they design their own materials. Since my suggestions draw on the Greek educational context, a brief outline of English as a foreign language (EFL) in our state schools is provided first. The English as a foreign language context in Greek primary and lower secondary schools

English is a compulsory subject for three hours per week from the third grade (age nine) of the six grades (ages 6–12) in Greek state primary education, and continues in the same way for the fourth, fi fth and sixth grades. It is also a compulsory subject in all three grades of lower secondary education (ages 13–15) – three hours per week in the fi rst and second grades, two hours in the third grade. The expected levels of proficiency upon graduation from primary and/or lower secondary school are A2 and B1 (Council of Europe, 2001), respectively. A framework for materials’ development

Following current thinking (Chamot, 2008; Cohen, 1998; Gunning & Oxford, 2014), our aim is not to teach the use of strategies as an independent unit of a language course but to integrate their teaching into an ordinary lesson: in other words, to provide explicit and integrated instruction. Teachers should consider key questions before embarking on LLSI with their learners and while preparing or adjusting the materials and accompanying activities/tasks (Psaltou-Joycey, 2015). These are: • • • • • • •

strategy and associated clusters; language skill/skills targeted; learners’ education level or age; language proficiency level; description of the activity; teaching objective; teaching material (created/adjusted/existing).

This acts as a checklist for teachers of what is involved in the process of materials selection or design. Teachers first identify the strategy or cluster of strategies they have decided to employ for consolidating one or more of the main language skills, as well as the vocabulary, grammar or revision of taught material in response to the particular difficulties they have observed in the class. Then they consider the learners’ ages, goals and

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proficiency level to decide on the content of the material to be selected and the types of activities that will be planned. Given that LLSI is to be integrated into the ordinary lesson, teachers should also consider the teaching objective of any such lesson besides the teaching of strategies, and think of the teaching material that will be used, such as handouts, pictures, realia, songs, etc. Particular care should be taken to get the balance right between making the activities and materials hard enough to require the use of strategies, while also ensuring that they are easy enough to be within the learner’s grasp and not too daunting. For example, if the learner knows all the words in a reading text, they will not need strategies. On the other hand, if they know too few words, they will not be able to make sensible guesses. This issue of tailoring the LLSI to the level of the learner is a key theme in the next section. LLSI Implementation

Even after the teacher has decided on a particular strategy category – whether memorization, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective or social – there still remains the choice of the individual strategies to be included in each category, as not every strategy is suitable for all age groups and proficiency levels, let alone learning styles. For example, using rhymes as a memory technique may excite young learners but not young adolescents or adults. Using coursebook materials

Coursebooks, a resource central to teaching, are potentially useful for introducing LLSI. By looking at the activities in foreign language (FL) coursebooks for a given educational situation, an interested teacher can fi nd out if and how strategies are promoted, albeit implicitly. For instance, if an activity tells learners to ‘read about different customs around the world’ and asks them if ‘people do the same in Greece’, it implicitly promotes the strategy of cultural understanding by using comparison and contrast (Kolovou & Kraniotou, 2009: 34). Recognizing the strategies promoted implicitly in coursebooks is a good starting point for LLSI because, by ensuring they are then made explicit to the learners, teachers help them become aware of the learning process and act more independently. Moreover, teachers can work out what activities are favoured in each different grade, how the same language skill or type of strategy develops from one level to the next, or whether there is simply reinforcement of the existing strategies. Strategies for the primary education level

In examining the EFL primary coursebooks for Grades 4–6 (ages 10–12), Psaltou-Joycey (2014) found that priority is given to strategies

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promoting vocabulary learning and reading comprehension, whereas other skills are only weakly supported. An emphasis on such strategies for A1–A2 level learners is found in Harris et al. (2001) and Macaro (2001). They argued that vocabulary memorization strategies are a good starting point for beginners as they have time to think about which strategies to use, in contrast to listening strategies, for example. O’Dell (1997) also recommends emphasis on vocabulary instruction in the early stages of language learning. Moreover, research from psycholinguistics has provided evidence that lexical set phrases are processed more readily than language generated independently (Ellis et al., 2008, in Mattheoudakis & Alexiou, 2015), because lexical phrases and chunks are learnt more easily as the process of language deconstruction is easier than language construction (Lewis, 2002). A strategy frequently found in the coursebook activities throughout the primary grades is guessing intelligently, followed by using resources (such as supplementary books, dictionaries or the internet), translating, repeating, rote memorization, asking for help and cooperating with others. Understandably, at this stage the priority is to help pupils not to panic when they encounter unfamiliar language in reading material but instead to guess meanings, use resources like dictionaries and ask their teacher and peers for help. In terms of memorization strategies, students move on from rote learning to more complex strategies, introduced gradually as the grade level develops. For instance, activities to promote grouping of vocabulary items in semantic mapping are found in the 5th and 6th grades (ages 11–12). The use of background/world knowledge, ‘I use my knowledge on the topic to understand the text’, is encountered only in the 6th grade (age 12). This late introduction of background knowledge is surprising as its activation is important from a young age to reinforce guessing or cultural understanding. Research has challenged the common belief that young learners cannot cope with metacognitive strategies by showing that they are indeed capable of dealing with them (Chamot & El-Dinary, 1999; Psaltou-Joycey & Sougari, 2010; Vandergrift, 2002), so their incorporation in coursebooks is to be welcomed. Indeed we found self-evaluation included in the coursebooks for primary grades quite extensively. Shortage of activities to foster compensation strategies – apart from guessing – is understandable as the learners’ low proficiency level makes it hard for them to overcome gaps in their linguistic repertoire by selecting synonyms, paraphrasing or using circumlocution. However, through LLSI, teachers can help learners to use mime and gestures more regularly, and occasionally even resort to using the L1 or word coinage. Indeed, learners need to develop such strategies early on so that they do not feel frustrated by not being able to express themselves. Acting out word meanings, for example, can be fun for young learners. An example of preparing

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learners for such an activity, created by my colleague Eleni Agathopoulou, is given below: The teacher explains that the class will be divided into groups to practise how to make others understand the meaning of words, phrases etc. by acting them out. The teacher also explains that this is a very useful strategy to compensate for words we need to use and we do not  know/remember when interacting in a foreign language. The learners are told that the activity can be viewed as a game aiming at finding the best way(s) to act out the meaning of pictures. (PsaltouJoycey, 2015: 63)

What must be subjected to serious scrutiny, though, is the lack of attention given to affective strategies, which were reported as the leastused category by the Greek EFL teachers (Psaltou-Joycey et al., 2016, 2018), a fi nding that parallels the absence of affective strategies from coursebooks. Considering that young learners have to cope with a new FL environment where they need emotional support, use of affective strategies is imperative. This is also borne out by research fi ndings showing that young learners favour the use of affective strategies more than older learners (Magogwe & Oliver, 2007; Platsidou & Kantaridou, 2014; Psaltou-Joycey & Sougari, 2010; Psaltou-Joycey et  al., 2014). Admittedly, a lot of activities found in teaching materials for this educational level incorporate rhymes, songs, humour and pictures, which create a relaxing, non-threatening classroom atmosphere, but all this is done implicitly without explicit teacher guidance on how to handle feelings of anxiety, frustration or panic when confronted by the unfamiliar language. I believe, therefore, that primary teachers should be encouraged to teach both compensation and affective strategies to build up their learners’ confidence in communicating in the FL. Such strategies help increase learner motivation and, as I will argue below, develop cultural knowledge and understanding which should start from an early age. Two strategies that cut across the distinction between aff ective and social strategies and that should be incorporated in explicit LLSI as early as possible are: (a) discussing your feelings with someone else (parents, friends, siblings, teachers, schoolmates); and (b) developing cultural understanding. As they both involve feelings, empathy, emotional support and social relations, both of them should be given attention at primary level, although some provision for (b) exists in the coursebooks. The former helps learners lower the anxiety they may face in language learning; the latter contributes towards avoiding the creation of prejudice(s) and of stereotypes towards other cultures and peoples, as such beliefs are more difficult to change later on in life. An illustration of discussing feelings is provided in the Teacher’s Guide

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section. We will fi rst explore progression, however, from the primary school level to the secondary level. Strategies for the lower secondary education level

In the EFL textbooks, especially the teacher’s book, for the three grades from 13- to 15-year-olds, we fi nd explicit LLSI for learners to develop their linguistic awareness and ‘learn how to learn’ (PsaltouJoycey, 2014). The strategy of guessing from context has a central role at this educational level too, thus being used as a main strategy at both levels. Compensation strategies become more demanding linguistically as they move from miming/gesturing and taking risks, to paraphrasing and using synonyms. These strategies allow learners to maintain communication despite language gaps, and their deployment enables learners to develop other language skills like listening to the responses given. As well as rote memorization, learners gradually engage in more sophisticated types of language learning and use (for example, semantic mapping) and they are also encouraged to recognize and use formulas and patterns, not only for grammar but also for ready-made expressions when they speak. Similarly, besides using pictures and titles for making inferences, at secondary level learners are also asked to make inferences from tables, graphs or diagrams. They are now expected to make associations with Greek words (although this should also be possible at earlier stages in their language learning). Use of resources such as the dictionary is encountered only in the 1st and 2nd lower secondary grades, probably because dictionary consultation is considered an ongoing procedure in FL learning and, therefore, after some practice, it is considered as ‘known’. Learners are now asked to make notes when reading, listening or writing. Also a first attempt at summarizing is made in the 2nd grade. As summary writing is a complex procedure (involving critical analysis of information, ability to distinguish between more or less important elements, organization and rephrasing of the selected items), its cautious use in the FL class with 14-year-olds reflects the shift towards engaging learners in more demanding tasks. Students continue to use metacognitive strategies such as selfevaluation but also develop planning (for writing) and monitoring their production, such as for correct use of grammar rules. No particular changes in social strategies were noted and learners continue to be encouraged to ask for help and cooperate with others. All in all, the knowledge I gained from the examination of coursebooks helped me make decisions about what to include and how to proceed in the volume Foreign Language Learning Instruction: A Teacher’s Guide (Psaltou-Joycey, 2015), which was developed as part of a largescale project in Greece under the academic leadership of Zoe Gavriilidou. The Guide is briefly presented below.

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The Teacher’s Guide

The Teacher’s Guide was developed to provide a source of original materials and activities for LLSI, to be consulted and used by primary and lower secondary education teachers ‘if they seek information about acquiring knowledge, understanding, and skill regarding implementation of explicit language learning SI through their everyday teaching practices’ (Psaltou-Joycey, 2015: 11). It encourages teachers to teach their learners to employ LLS by using easy-to-follow steps. Although the materials were written for EFL teachers in Greece, those in other educational contexts can use them either as they are in the Guide, or by adapting them according to their needs and preferences. Part I of the Guide provides an up-to-date theoretical overview of LLS and of LLSI, whereas Part II presents materials developed for explicit and integrated LLSI. It is not meant to replace the class coursebook but to supplement it with LLSI-directed ideas, and to show teachers how to adapt existing coursebook materials. Hence, most activities are linked to the grade coursebooks currently in use in primary and lower secondary schools in Greece. Cross-references are provided between the Guide’s activities and the specific page numbers in the coursebooks to which they relate. This constitutes a major innovation as the materials presented in the classroom and the suggested activities can be more readily adopted by teachers. There are also unexpected benefits for students. Harris (2007) found that learners had problems using reading strategies with unfamiliar authentic material and that it was more effective to introduce strategies initially with the usual coursebook material. To enable teachers to quickly select the most appropriate activity, each one is labelled with a title relevant to its content, for example ‘Expressing emotions’, ‘School life around the world’ and ‘Don’t take it for granted!’ The materials have been selected and written following the CALLA stages for LLSI described in the Introduction to this book, namely: • • • • •

preparation/awareness raising; modelling; practice/scaffolding; evaluation; expansion/transfer.

The same procedure is recommended for anyone who decides to create their own materials, since it has a solid theoretical rationale and, from a practical viewpoint, a common format helps learners handle the processes of learning and using strategies. An abridged example from the Guide in Table 11.1, created by Kazamia, a university instructor of English for special purposes, illustrates the above stages (Psaltou-Joycey, 2015: 67–68).

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Table 11.1 LLSI for affective strategies Expressing emotions Main strategy: Discussing one’s feelings about learning English (affective) Language level: A1–A2 Skills practised: Speaking Time of activity: 20 minutes Preparation First the teacher explains that learning a new language can cause uncertainty or even uneasiness and this can by implication lead to a negative attitude towards learning English … Discussing one’s feelings with peers, teachers and family is a strategy that can uncover negative states of mind and deal with any unpleasant and discouraging feelings. Also when this is carried out in class, learners may realize that similar feelings are experienced by their peers, so it is a natural reaction … In order to familiarize learners with the strategy of expressing their feelings, the teacher introduces a list of adjectives in the target language denoting emotional states and explains their meaning. Then the teacher asks learners to classify each adjective as positive under ‘the sunny column’ or as negative under ‘the stormy column’. Modelling The teacher can show pictures of faces (emoticons) and ask learners to identify the feeling pictured in each portrait. Then the teacher selects an adjective and picture and expresses his/her own feelings when s/he studied grammar. ‘When I studied grammar I felt _______’. Practice/scaffolding The teacher introduces the sentences ‘When I … I feel …’ and asks learners to use one of the adjectives presented. They start describing the feelings triggered by the learning situations they are involved in and they gradually develop ‘feeling awareness’. Evaluation After the activity, the teacher asks the learners whether they liked the discussion on feelings and suggests that it would be beneficial to repeat it not only in class but also at home. Expansion/transfer When the teacher identifies learning situations which seem to cause negative feelings s/he can use the activity again. Its use is also recommended when learners are successful in learning situations so that positive feelings are spelled out; this can increase learners’ motivation and selfconfidence. It also provides the necessary follow-up practice. Note: Suggestions are also made about using the activity to supplement material already found in the coursebooks for 4th and 5th grade primary school children Psaltou-Joycey (2015: 67).

A second abridged example from the Guide (Table 11.2) of an activity created by Kantaridou and Papadopoulou, both university instructors of English for special purposes, promotes LLSI with higher language proficiency learners (Psaltou-Joycey, 2015: 125–129). Paying attention to meaning can help not only with reading and listening comprehension, as the Guide suggests, but is also useful when checking one’s written work. Too often students simply read their work through without understanding that they need to read it several times with a different focus each time: for example, once for meaning and once for familiar grammatical mistakes. To date, positive feedback has been received from teachers who have accessed the Guide. The step-by-step instructions and the links with the EFL coursebooks have been appreciated and have encouraged teachers to introduce LLSI in their classes. Although this informally acquired feedback needs further evidence, the Guide appears to be a useful tool for

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Table 11.2 LLSI for metacognitive strategies Don’t take it for granted! Main strategy: Paying (selective) attention (metacognitive) Assisting strategies: Getting the idea quickly, reasoning deductively (cognitive) Language level: B1 Skill practised: Reading Time of activity: 15 mins Description … Selective attention is a metacognitive strategy which learners should develop and use for reading as well as for listening comprehension. It helps them comprehend a text by realizing that they do not need to know every individual word to get to understand an oral or written text … Preparation Prior to the activity, the teacher explains to the learners that they will examine a text with deliberate meaning errors which they will need to identify. Then s/he explains that this strategy heightens their selective attention, which will make them alert to any errors or help them spot specific information. Modelling The teacher illustrates what the learners are to do from an excerpt/summary of the movie ‘Madagascar’. S/he stresses that they are looking for plot and logical mistakes, not grammar mistakes. Adapted from http://www.jumpstart.com/parents/dreamworks/madagascar/synopsis/ madagascar-summary. Prompt: Spot 4 mistakes Living in New York’s Central Park Zoo, Marty and his friends – Alex the Lion, Gloria the Hippo, and Melman the Giraffe – have spent all their years inside this concrete jungle. The adventure ends when Marty joins from the zoo with a quartet of penguins – Skipper, Rico, Kowalski, and Private – and his three friends follow him, trying to make him leave but to no avail. On reaching Grand Central Station, the animals are mistaken to be friendly and are shipped off to a Kenyan wildlife park by the zoo authorities. Key Living in New York’s Central Park Zoo, Marty and his friends – Alex the Lion, Gloria the Hippo, and Melman the Giraffe – have spent all their years inside this concrete jungle. The adventure begins when Marty escapes from the zoo with a quartet of penguins – Skipper, Rico, Kowalski, and Private – and his three friends follow him, trying to make him return but to no avail. On reaching Grand Central Station, the animals are mistaken to be aggressive and are shipped off to a Kenyan wildlife park by the zoo authorities. Practice/scaffolding The teacher presents learners with a story by Paulo Coelho. To activate their background knowledge, s/he asks them if they have heard of him and if they have read anything by him. S/ he asks them to find three meaning discrepancies. The excerpt from Coelho was accessed from https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2012/02/24/thepower-of-the-words/. Evaluation After the activity, the teacher asks the learners whether they found the strategy helpful and if they intend to use it in the future. … She also asks them if ‘paying attention’ helped them comprehend the story better and/or more easily. Expansion/transfer Alternatively, in order to further develop selective attention, the teacher can give learners wellknown myths or fairy tales involving reversals of plot. This may be a challenging activity as it will go ‘against the grain’ of the familiar myth. The material for Aesop’s fable was accessed from http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/schoolradio/pdfs/ aesop/aesops_fables.pdf. As well as promoting the development of selective attention and paying attention, the activities also train learners in scanning (getting the idea quickly) and reading texts for specific information. Note: The teaching material for the Practice/Scaffolding stage of the activity can be found in the Teacher’s Guide (Psaltou-Joycey, 2015: 127–129).

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initiating LLSI and, hopefully, it will serve as a model for teachers designing their own materials. Conclusion

In this chapter I have focused on designing teaching materials for implementing explicit, integrated LLSI in primary and lower secondary education by providing guidelines and examples of activities, many of which were drawn from existing materials in coursebooks but were adapted specifically for LLSI. To identify which strategies are promoted in a FL class in the educational context of Greek state schools, I have consulted the coursebooks currently used in these classes. This allowed me to identify differences between the two educational levels in the strategies and language skills implemented and, more importantly, areas of neglect in strategy use, particularly, affective strategies. Finally, I have argued in favour of increasing affective strategy use at both educational levels as this contributes to learners’ self-confidence and willingness to learn by lowering their affective fi lter in FL learning (Krashen, 1982). I end my contribution by posing the following questions for future investigation: (1) How much and how often do strategies have to be practised in order to be fully acquired to the point that learners can select the appropriate strategies independently? (2) How can LLSI best be implemented in such a way as to override teachers’ beliefs that it is time consuming and not suitable for all types of learners? (3) How can we minimize teacher time in preparing their own strategydirected materials for LLSI? Acknowledgements

The Teacher’s Guide was developed as part of the THALES project (MIS 379335), run under the National Strategic Reference Frame (NSRF) and entitled: ‘Adjustment of the Scale in the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) with the Purpose of Setting the Learning Strategy Profi le of Primary and Secondary School Learners of English as a Foreign Language and that of Muslim Learners of Greek as a Second Language, as well as Investigating the Teaching Strategies Employed by Teachers in the Classroom’. The project was co-funded by the European Union and National Resources. I would like to thank Eleni Agathopoulou, Thomaï Alexiou, Edgar Joycey, Zoe Kantaridou, Vassilia Kazamia, Lydia Mitits, Iris Papadopoulou, Anna Sarafianou, Areti-Maria Sougari and Athina Vrettou for designing the activities of the Guide, and Zoe Gavriilidou for supervising the whole project.

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Platsidou, M. and Kantaridou, Z. (2014) The role of attitudes and learning strategy use in predicting perceived competence in school-aged foreign language learners. Journal of Language and Literature 5 (3), 253–260. doi:10.7813/jll.2014/5-3/43 Psaltou-Joycey, A. (2014) Language learning SI: The English language coursebooks in the Greek state schools. Journal of Applied Linguistics 29, 6–23. Psaltou-Joycey, A. (ed.) (2015) Foreign Language Learning SI: A Teacher’s Guide. Kavala: Saita Publications. Psaltou-Joycey, A., Agathopoulou, E., Joycey, E., Sougari, A.-M., Kazamia, V., Petrogiannis, K. and Gavriilidou, Z. (2018) Promotion of language learning strategies in the classroom: EFL teachers’ perceptions. The Language Learning Journal 46 (5), 557–568, DOI: 10.1080/09571736.2018.1503114 Psaltou-Joycey, A., Penderi, E. and Gavriilidou, Z. (2016) Development of a questionnaire to investigate FL teachers’ promotion of language learning strategies. European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL 5 (1), 193–211. Psaltou-Joycey, A. and Sougari, A.-M. (2010) Greek young learners’ perceptions about foreign language learning and teaching. In A. Psaltou-Joycey and M. Matthaioudakis (eds) Advances in Research on Language Acquisition and Teaching: Selected Papers (pp. 387–401). Thessaloniki: Greek Applied Linguistics Association. Psaltou-Joycey, A., Sougari, A.-M., Agathopoulou, E. and Alexiou, T. (2014) The role of age, gender and L1 strategies in the L2 strategies of primary school children in Greece. In G. Kotzoglou, K. Nikolou, E. Karantzola, et al. (eds) Selected Papers of the 11th International Conference on Greek Linguistics (pp. 1436–1448). Rhodes: University of the Aegean, Faculty of Humanities, Dept. of Mediterranean Studies. Rubin, J., Chamot, A.U., Harris, V. and Anderson, N. (2007) Intervening in the use of strategies. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 141–160). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sen, H. and Sen, M. (2012) A comparison of EFL teachers’ perceptions of language learning strategies (LLSS) and learners’ reported use of LLSs in their English language classes. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 46, 1846–1854. Vandergrift, L. (2002) ‘It was nice to see that our predictions were right’: Developing metacognition in L2 listening comprehension. Canadian Modern Language Review 58 (4), 555–575. Vieira, F. (2003) Addressing constraints on autonomy in school contexts: Lessons from working with teachers. In D. Palfreyman and R.C. Smith (eds) Learner Autonomy Across Cultures: Language Education Perspectives (pp. 220–239). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

12 Differentiation in Language Learning Strategy Instruction Anna Uhl Chamot

Anna Uhl Chamot worked on this partially finished chapter until a month before her death on 2 November 2017. It represents her last thoughts about Language Learning Strategy Instruction, a topic she had been dedicated to for much of her academic career. The chapter is reproduced exactly as she left it, including gaps in the references which she intended to follow up. Introduction

In a learner-centered language classroom, teachers soon realize that their students are very different. Language learners differ from each other in multiple dimensions, ranging from obvious differences in motivation and ability to more subtle ones such as attribution and degree of selfefficacy, as discussed by Macaro in Chapter 5. Other differences can be linked to individual learning approaches, social and cultural factors, psycholinguistic issues, and even mismatches between the teacher’s instructional methods and the student’s learning needs. So it is not surprising that students learn in individual ways and that their development of proficiency in a second or foreign language (L2/FL) progresses in individual ways. This realization can be a source of frustration – or can inspire teachers to try to match their instruction to students’ learning needs, an approach that has become known as Differentiated Instruction (DI) (ref.). Techniques for DI suggest ways in which student differences can not only be accommodated but can also strengthen the classroom community. Unlike Individualized Instruction or personalized instruction (ref.), DI is characterized by a strong focus on cooperative learning that takes into account students’ individual background knowledge, skill levels and interests. Differentiated instruction is typified by flexible groupings and varied tasks within and among groups. Teachers are called upon to link assessment to instruction and modify instruction as needed. Furthermore, there 184

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is a focus on different products for different students, so that students can fi nd ways to effectively demonstrate what they know. (Quiocho & Ulanoff, 2009: 2)

Differentiation is most frequently carried out in terms of content, process and/or product (Blaz, 2006, 2016). In the language classroom, the content consists of the language to be acquired (and, in content-based language programs, the subject matter content as well). Process includes language skills (listening, reading, speaking, writing) and, most importantly, language learning strategies. Product refers to assessment, or how students demonstrate what they have learned. Differentiated classrooms include student choice of content, process and/or product, with descriptions focusing on language activities that can be differentiated (for example, see Blaz, 2006, 2016). However, there do not appear to be descriptions of how a language teacher might differentiate actual learning strategy instruction, rather than differentiating only language instruction. The purpose of this chapter, then, is to explore ways in which both L2 and FL teachers can implement DI for Language Learning Strategies Instruction (LLSI), that is, process rather than language task or assessment. The suggested guidelines are based on the principles underlying the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) instructional model (Chamot, 2009; Chamot & O’Malley, 1994) and are organized within a metacognitive framework, described in the next section. Following that is a section with practical guidelines and ideas for differentiating the teaching of language learning strategies. Obviously, the suggested guidelines need to be tested in real language classrooms and research gaps need to be addressed, so several research questions are posed at the end of the chapter. A Metacognitive Model of Differentiated LLSI

Metacognition is often described as thinking about thinking. It involves the self-regulation of executive processes. Metacognition is the foundation of learning strategies and their most important component. Without metacognition, learners tend to use inappropriate, often repetitive strategies for particular learning tasks, are unaware that the strategies are not working and are unable to evaluate their strategy use (O’Malley & Chamot quote here). Metacognition is thought to be developmental, but its development depends on a number of individual factors. A metacognitively aware person understands his/her own thinking and learning, plans a challenging task, is aware of its progress and evaluates the completed task. The process is recursive, meaning that if the plan is not working well, learners can return and modify it, and if the evaluation is not satisfactory, they can make changes to improve it. As mentioned above, experts in DI suggest that differentiation can be made in three areas: in the content of what is taught; in the process that

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Table 12.1 A model for developing metacognition • Task/content: Metacognitive Knowledge, or the understanding of one’s own knowledge store, thinking and learning. Metacognitive Knowledge is the Declarative Knowledge component of metacognition (cite Christine Goh). It includes self-knowledge, world knowledge (both personal and academic), task knowledge and strategy knowledge. • Process: Metacognitive Strategies used before and during a learning task. Metacognitive Strategies are part of the Procedural Knowledge component of metacognition. They include strategies such as goal-setting, planning, monitoring and problem identification/solution (see Rubin, this volume). • Product/assessment: Metacognitive Strategies used to evaluate a learning task once it is completed. These are also part of the Procedural Knowledge component of metacognition. The major strategy is evaluating, although alternative terms are often used, such as self-evaluation, self-assessment, editing, and the like.

students use to learn the content; and in the product or assessment of student learning. With a focus on teaching learning strategies, these three points for initiating DI could be described by the metacognitive model described in Table 12.1. By using this framework, it becomes apparent that it is not sufficient to focus only on learning strategies for language learners, but it is essential also to develop their metacognitive knowledge (often referred to as metacognitive awareness). How can the language teacher make students aware of all that they know about themselves, language, how they learn and think, and what strategies they are already using? Although many students may have already developed their metacognitive awareness, many others may be at the initial stages only. In fact, it is thought that metacognition is developmental (Flavell?) and, as in L2 acquisition, the stages and chronology are not predictable (cite Larsen-Freeman?). Educators agree on the importance of prior knowledge as a foundation for new learning, but this assumes that learners are aware of and can access their prior knowledge. Translated to the L2/FL context, it seems that a good starting place for differentiated LLSI is with helping students discover the learning strategies they are already using, learn how to talk and write about them, and share them with classmates (and the teacher). However, this is merely the fi rst step. All learners need to expand their range and depth of language learning strategies knowledge and use. Here the teacher is essential in introducing students to new learning strategies and guiding their continuing practice with a variety of strategies so that they can develop the expertise to select strategies that not only work well for them but that are also appropriate and effective for the language learning task. Classroom Activities to Differentiate LLSI

By focusing first on metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive strategies, language teachers work towards two goals: developing learners’ metacognition both through increasing understanding of their own

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thinking processes and developing an approach to problem-solving with universal applications. A third goal is to help learners explore the many cognitive, social and affective strategies that can assist them with challenging language tasks. This section suggests various classroom activities designed to accomplish these three goals. These examples assume that the target language is English and that the students are either secondary school level or above. The activities are intended to be conducted in English with support from the teacher for vocabulary, spelling, and the like. They should be confi ned to brief periods of about 15 minutes, continuing the activity on subsequent days. Activities to develop metacognitive knowledge

To help students become more aware of their own approaches to learning, ask them to make a Favorites List that rank orders by favorite to least favorite all the subjects they are studying in school, in both the L1 and the L2. Teachers make copies of the Favorites lists, returning the originals to students. The discussion that follows is critical for helping students understand the deeper reasons why they like or dislike a subject. The teacher’s probing questions can help – for example, ‘Why do you like mathematics? Are you good at mathematics? Why are you good at mathematics? What’s easy about mathematics? What’s hard?’ Similar questions should be asked about less favorite subjects. Students can respond to questions verbally or in writing. Teachers need to be alert to any mention of strategies by students as they discuss how they solve problems in the class under discussion, and write them down on the student’s Favorites list. This activity should help learners realize that we enjoy doing tasks in which we are successful, but shun those in which we experience failure. To move from students’ consideration of their learning in general to specifically learning English as a new language, ‘English Tasks’ can be a useful activity. Students work in groups to list all of the different tasks they work on in the English class, such as reading stories, doing grammar exercises, learning vocabulary, role-playing, answering questions, writing paragraphs, viewing videos and listening to radio broadcasts. Each group’s list can be passed to a different group for checking. The teacher amalgamates the lists into a single list, adding any missing tasks, and prepares a grid such as the one in Table 12.2 to provide copies to students. In the following discussion, the teacher should highlight any learning strategies mentioned by students as well as adding suggestions. Reference should be made to the Favorites list of other school subjects and how students solved problems similar to some of those posed by certain English tasks. Transfer of strategies from the L1 to English should be encouraged. This is a good moment for a brief explicit learning strategies lesson that names, explains and describes the usefulness of certain learning strategies

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Table 12.2 English tasks: hard or easy? Name of task

Easy? Why?

Hard? Why?

What I can do to make hard tasks easier

Answering questions Grammar exercises Listening to radio broadcasts Reading stories Role-playing Viewing videos Vocabulary learning Writing paragraphs Other

for either general or specific tasks. The teacher can prepare a list of the strategies discussed, using one of the classification systems developed in the literature. It can be added to as new strategies are discussed in later classes. Teachers should use their discretion about listing less effective strategies, although students can be very attached to these and believe that they are effective for them! Finally, the fourth component of metacognitive knowledge is task knowledge. Task knowledge is usually defi ned as task analysis, meaning gaining an understanding of the task’s purpose, classification and demands (Rubin, 2015, 2017). By analyzing a task, students gain insight into how to complete the tasks successfully and what strategies can help. As Rubin points out, fi nding a purpose for completing an English language task may not be immediately obvious to students – they complete tasks because the teacher tells them to! The teacher can intervene by asking students why they think an English task might benefit them (or whether an alternative task might benefit them more). If the task involves interacting with a text (written or oral), the text can be classifi ed within one of the traditional rhetorical styles: exposition, narration, argumentation or description. Each of these has its own typical text structure, which can aid in comprehension when discerned in advance. For younger and beginning-level students, a good starting place is to distinguish between ‘story texts’ and ‘informational texts’. Analyzing the text before reading or listening to it can be done by providing the title and perhaps a descriptive sentence. Students can report on the comprehensibility of a text with and without task analysis. The foregoing teaching suggestions are designed to develop students’ metacognitive knowledge. The following are additional suggestions for developing the second component of metacognition – metacognitive strategies.

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Table 12.3 A teacher’s think-aloud ‘I’m going to write a short description of how I spend my day at school. Before I get started, I need to do some planning. First of all, why am I doing this? Two reasons. First of all, I want to show you how I use three strategies to help me do a good job on an English task. My second reason is that one of my students said, “Miss, you are always asking us to write about our day – but what about your day?” So, those are my goals. Now I look at the task – what do I have to do? I have to write about my day in order, starting from when I get to school and ending when I go home. So that’s my plan.’ The teacher begins writing about arriving at school, cup of coffee, greeting friends, preparing for first class, welcoming students. From time to time, she indicates she is monitoring by making remarks such as: ‘Hmm, is that important? Maybe not. Oh, I mustn’t forget that – it was so funny … And at lunchtime Mrs. Grayson told me all about her daughter’s wedding and showed me photos – oh wait, that has nothing to do really with my day, so I’ll take it out.’ The teacher can interrupt her composing to ask students questions such as: ‘What was my plan? How did I monitor? What did I just do? Why do you think I did that? Do you ever do the same thing?’ The teacher can ask for help with the evaluation strategy (having deliberately scattered a few misspellings and/or grammar errors in the text) by having students work in pairs or small groups to act as editors. At the end, the teacher says: ‘Now I’m going to do my final evaluation’. She reads aloud what she has written, then reacts dramatically: ‘Oh, no! I was supposed to write about my day – not just my day at school! I think I need to start over again with a new plan – though I can use what I’ve already written as the middle part.’ In this way, the teacher demonstrates the recursive nature of the metacognitive strategies of planning, monitoring and evaluating. She should also freely move between the strategies as needed.

Activities to develop metacognitive strategies

The major metacognitive strategies are planning before embarking on a task, monitoring the tasks while in progress, and evaluating the task once it is completed. This does not mean that it is a lock-step process. On the contrary, it is recursive, as explained earlier, so that learners are free to return to any prior strategies or even to start all over again. As with all strategy instruction, the fi rst step is to discover the students’ prior knowledge about the strategies to be taught. One way to do this is for teachers to perform a ‘think-aloud’ in which they embark on a language task and mention their thinking as they demonstrate how they might complete the task. The example in Table 12.3 is for writing a threeparagraph short essay describing the teacher’s typical day in school. Using a SmartBoard or similar technology, the teacher writes the text on the computer and it appears on a screen for students to read.

13 Teaching Language Learning Strategies Using Technology Jill Robbins

Introduction

This chapter explores the ways in which multimedia online resources and social media interaction can supplement traditional materials for teaching language learning strategies in the classroom. Language learning is increasingly taking place either completely online, or face-to face in classrooms equipped with digital materials. A growing number of selfdirected learners are using internet-based resources to teach themselves a language, and language teachers, whether of young children or adult learners, are making effective use of technology to enhance language learning (Robbins, 2010), although the cost of online courses is a limiting factor for some learners in the developing world. As Hauck and Hampel (2008) point out, however, research into strategy use in online settings has until recently been scant. Furthermore, there are to date only a limited number of online language courses that integrate Language Learning Strategy Instruction (LLSI) into their core content. The projects described in the fi rst part of this chapter are free resources which provide LLSI as a support to English language learners all over the world. The second part of the chapter is more exploratory and considers the growth of social media and what this might mean for LLSI. Both Part 1 and Part 2 of the chapter begin by summarizing some of the relevant research fi ndings in that particular application of technology before going on to consider practical ideas. The chapter starts, however, by reviewing some general studies into Language Learner Strategies (LLS), LLSI and the use of technology. In writing the chapter, I draw on my experience of participating in research on language learning strategies with O’Malley and Chamot and of teaching the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) to both second and foreign language teachers in university and in-service contexts (Chamot, 2009; Chamot et  al., 1999; Chamot & O’Malley, 1994).

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Technology and language learner strategies

Learning through technology appears to be an ideal environment for self-directed, autonomous learning. It affords an almost limitless pool of resources that the learner can use at anytime and anywhere – as long as they know how to make the most of them. And it is here that strategies come into play since learners need metacognitive strategies to guide them as to how best to exploit the materials and cognitive strategies in order to support them in grappling with the language itself (see Hurd & Lewis, 2008, for a detailed description of strategies for skills development in independent learning settings). Furthermore, as we shall see, the growth of social media means that learners increasingly need to develop a wide range of affective and social strategies. In an early investigation, White (1995) compared strategy use in classroom settings to the distance learning context. Distance learners reported four times more use of metacognitive strategies compared to classroom learners, particularly the self-management strategies needed to understand how they learn best and how to set up the necessary optimal learning conditions. Motivation to continue accessing the materials is also important. Lai and Gu (2011: 1) found a link between motivation and positive attitudes towards using technology: ‘language learning motivation and perceived usefulness were the two dominant predictors of technology use.’ Thus, if highly motivated learners who are familiar with technology are more likely to use digital resources for learning, then online instruction might be a good way to introduce learning strategies that may further develop these learners’ capability for independent learning. Indeed, it seems that without explicit strategy instruction, learners may struggle if they try to exploit online resources without the necessary strategies. Lai (2013: 115) points out that instructors have an ‘important role to play’ in helping learners develop selfdirected online learning skills through, among other techniques, explicit strategy instruction. Yet valuable opportunities are often missed. For example, Teo (2012) reports on computer-assisted dynamic assessment of learners in Taiwan. Dynamic assessment incorporates responses to the learner’s answers, and clues about where errors occur. In this case, the feedback came from a computer after learners answered a comprehension question. The feedback was intended to improve learners’ metacognitive strategies, and yet it did not refer to learning strategies and neither did the program itself instruct learners in their use. How then can LLSI be integrated into online language learning courses?

Part 1: LLSI and Online Language Learning Programs

One of the disadvantages of online resources, before the interactive aspects of Web 2.0 became available, was the fact that there were limited opportunities for social interaction both with peers and with the teacher

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(Lamy & Goodfellow, 1999). It was one of the challenges encountered by the INSTAL project (Individualizing Strategies for Adult Learners in Language and ICT-Learning). Harris (2003) explains that the goal was the creation of a free-standing strategy instruction digital program to complement the specific language learning content in distance learning programs. Aside from the fact that the instruction was not embedded in the context of the specific language to be learned, there was no opportunity at that time for learners to interact with each other or receive feedback from an instructor. Harris argued that in such circumstances learner self-management becomes all the more important, especially if the LLSI is to support the learner over time. As Hauck (2005) later emphasized, it involves not only knowing what will help you best achieve a task in the virtual learning environment but being able to create those conditions for yourself. A study by Ranalli (2013) also investigated a stand-alone program but this was a short five-week automated, online prototype program of second language (L2) strategy instruction aimed at helping English as a Second Language (ESL) students develop vocabulary learning and dictionary use skills. Ranalli looked at error identification and correction strategies among the learners. A significant gain was found among those receiving the strategy instruction via the online program. Other approaches to strategy instruction have been tied to specific course content. Allen et al. (2014) report on a computer game based program of writing strategy instruction directly linked to the language being learned. The program used the Writing Pal, an intelligent tutoring system, to provide explicit writing strategy instruction. After receiving the instruction, the students identified and practiced the writing strategies in a game-like system. L2 students’ survey responses showed they perceived the program as enjoyable and as contributing to their learning of the material (Allen et al., 2014). Online LLSI has not been limited to the most familiar cognitive strategies. Cohen and Ishihara (2005) report on an online program of strategy training for learning pragmatic strategies for speaking Japanese (available on the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) website: carla.umn.edu). They found that independent students faced two kinds of problems with online instruction: technical and instructional. The technological problems included the quality of the audio provided, and navigation through the materials. The instructional issues involved the need for more detailed explanations on how to use the course and how to self-evaluate. Some ways of overcoming such issues will be discussed in the next section. Even so, students made progress in learning to perform target language speech acts using the online program. The learners watched videos of exchanges between native speakers of the target language and learned how to respond in situations like those shown. Communication strategies were also presented as an optional response in place of the native speaker responses. Spanish pragmatic language instruction with a focus on learning strategies was also reported in Cohen and Ishihara (2005). Videos were

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presented showing exchanges between speakers of various regional varieties of Spanish. Assessment of the Spanish pragmatic language instruction was conducted in the context of a simulated immersive environment, similar to Second Life, where the learner took on the role of an avatar and interacted with characters representing computer-generated avatars. The ‘Dancing with Words’ website for learning pragmatic strategies in Spanish (Sykes & Cohen, 2006) is also available on the CARLA website. The CARLA studies highlight key issues in delivering LLSI through technology: the importance of clear instructions; the value of video for modeling how to use strategies; and the potential of up-to-date technological innovations for engaging student interest. Murphy (2008) reviews the development of ‘informed strategy instruction’ modules across a range of authors. The sequence of four stages common to all of them is similar to the sequence of steps in CALLA, summarized in the Introduction to this book and on which the LLSI in the online course described below is based. The CALLA approach was chosen not only because it has an established instructional philosophy but also as it has a well-developed sequence for presenting strategy instruction while teaching through authentic content. For example, the processes of awareness raising and of modeling are important both when discussing and demonstrating the language in communicative situations and when presenting and modeling new strategies. Similarly, practice is needed both in the language and in the strategies, and finally learners need to evaluate their linguistic performance and content understanding, as well as their strategy use. However, one of the difficulties of online courses is that, whereas classroom teachers have the opportunity to perform think-alouds to demonstrate strategy use and can observe students’ practice, online instructors need other means of modeling strategy use (such as through video clips). They must also find ways of confirming learners’ comprehension and use of the strategies through interactive opportunities. As will be shown, comment forums and social media permit learners to interact with each other and with online teachers and their use should be considered for future courses. LLSI through the Voice of America language learning courses

The next section presents LLSI delivered through two programs developed by Voice of America (VOA). It will primarily center on Let’s Learn English, an online multimedia course in English as a second or foreign language, which was designed with an integrated LLSI component. Examples of media used to model, explain, practice and assess strategies are provided. VOA’s online materials for teaching short stories are then briefly described as a second instance of online LLSI, this time reflecting the focus in CALLA not just on the language but also on the academic content. The course Let’s Learn English is for beginning learners of English and is provided as a free service by a US government-funded media

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organization (Voice of America) that began in February 2016. The international target audience of the course consists primarily of adult learners who are studying independently, but it is also designed to support teachers who are using the course as a supplement to other materials in their classrooms. The countries in which large percentages of the audience live include Brazil, Cambodia, Mexico, Pakistan and Vietnam. English learners living in the United States also make up a large part of the audience. Therefore care has to be taken to avoid specific situations and language that would not be generally useful in most contexts. An important feature of the LLSI in this course is that it is integrated into the main content of the course, rather than as an ‘add-on’ or afterthought. Cohen (2008: 127) explains that the challenge for self-access website designers ‘is to make sure that technology is accompanied not only by content but also by information about how to make use of the content strategically’. As shown in Table 13.1, the program presents the new language and related strategies through short conversational video episodes, each providing an interesting communicative situation at work, at home or in the city. Students are supported in understanding the language in the video and using it in their own lives through a web page for each lesson where the text instruction summarizes the video, provides a transcript of the conversation, defi nes new vocabulary and gives a writing prompt relating the topic to their own lives. Importantly, given previous research fi ndings, the lesson web page also gives learners clear directions on how to use the different elements of the course and how to assess their learning using a selfscoring multimedia listening quiz. Reference to strategies appears in the quizzes and in the lesson videos so that learners meet them repeatedly in a variety of contexts, thus facilitating transfer. In addition, a lesson plan for classroom teachers outlines the CALLA phases and demonstrates how to teach the key strategy of each episode. The following section provides examples of each LLSI phase, Table 13.1 Topics and strategies taught in Lessons 1–8 in Let’s Learn English Lesson

Title

Functional communication

Learning strategy

Lesson 1 Lesson 2

Welcome!

Meeting people

Set a goal

Hello, I’m Anna!

Welcoming and leave-taking

Preview

Lesson 3

I’m here!

Giving a telephone number, addresses and calling someone you know on the telephone; apologizing

Look for ways to practice

Lesson 4

What is it?

Greeting people

Focus

Lesson 5

Where are you?

Asking about location, naming places and activities

Plan to learn

Lesson 6

Where is the gym?

Informal greetings; asking questions and clarifying information about location, naming places

Questioning for clarification

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highlighting appropriate technological features that can be exploited to enhance each one, beginning with a description of the opening page. Preparation phase: The opening web page

It is essential to appeal to learners through a welcoming, friendly and easily accessible portal and, as we have seen, to provide clear navigation tools through the materials. Thus, each lesson is delivered in the context of a web page with the embedded main lesson video and supplementary materials. Figure 13.1 shows the top of the web page for Lesson 1. At the right side of the main content section, a sidebar provides immediate links to an activity sheet for additional independent practice, a quiz, and other related lessons. Below the main video is a summary of the plot of the episode. A transcript of the conversation in the video is accompanied by a downloadable audio fi le and defi nitions of new words. Because the course is directed at both independent learners and classroom instructors but does not have a separate teacher site, the lesson plan is provided alongside the learner resources and a description of the lesson objectives.

Let’s Learn English is a new course for English learners. Certified American English teachers designed the course for beginners. The course continues for 52 weeks. Each week, there will be a new lesson with video showing the lives of young Americans. The lesson includes instruction in speaking, vocabulary and writing. There are also printable worksheets, assessments and lesson plans for individual learners and English teachers. We encourage you to follow the weekly lessons and share your progress with us through comments and email.

Figure 13.1 Let’s Learn English webpage. © Voice of America

Lesson Plan - Let’s Learn English Lesson I - Welcome! Quiz - Lesson I: Welcome

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Presentation phase: Raising awareness and modeling

Since research has shown the importance of self-management (see Rubin & Acero Rios, this volume), especially for learners in a distance learning context, the strategy Set a goal is taught in the first lesson of the course. Figure 13.2 shows the learning strategy explanation section of Lesson 1. The text names the strategy and gives an example of how it is used. In most lessons, the main video models the strategy in a conversational context without explicitly naming it. The benefits of using the strategy are then explained in the accompanying text. A supplementary video may expand on the explanation and prompt learners to apply it. Using interactive technology to present strategies in this way has the benefits of showing how they are applied in actual communication. Ample time is also provided for learners to reflect and individually respond to the LLSI. To overcome the limitation of not having a teacher on hand to consult, learners are asked to write an email explaining how they apply the strategy to their own learning. Members of the VOA Learning English team respond to the emails and comments on the website. Occasionally other learners also respond to comments in the online forum. Email messages from learners in response to the ‘Set a goal’ strategy lesson include both broad and specific goals. Figure 13.3 shows learner responses ranging from the well-meaning but rather vague to the more clearly defi ned and achievable SMART goals, as described by Rubin and Acero Rios in Chapter 15 of this volume. Responses from the team at VOA may include links to articles on the topic of setting realistic goals. Other metacognitive strategies to promote an effective approach to their study of English are taught early in the course and include ‘Plan to learn’. Subsequent lessons move on to present more specific strategies, initially integrated into the conversational interaction in order to maintain the authentic nature of the conversational models. For example, after asking a neighbor for directions to the gym in her building, the main character asks the neighbor to repeat part of his previous statement by

Figure 13.2 Learning Strategy Instruction text. © Voice of America

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Figure 13.3 Learner responses to ‘Set a goal’

asking, ‘The gym is across from what?’ to clarify the directions. Having modeled the simple communication strategy of repeating the sentence but with a question word after it, students are then asked to practice it. Practice phase: Video tutorials and activity sheets

During the Practice phase of each lesson, which includes two video tutorials and an activity sheet, learners apply the strategies they have learned. The Speaking Practice video models pronunciation of the new vocabulary and presents a language function from the model conversation. The Pronunciation Practice video explains contractions, reduced forms and intonation points evidenced in the lesson video. In the Speaking Practice video tutorial shown in Figure 13.4, the strategy Ask questions to clarify is explained. Consecutive screens then prompt the learner to ask a question to clarify. As the video plays, a chime indicates when the learner is to speak. After a short time, the missing word appears, completing the sentence. Then oral confirmation of the correct word is heard so that the learner has immediate feedback.

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Figure 13.4 Tutorial video on questioning for clarification. © Voice of America

An activity sheet with a communicative learner activity accompanies each lesson. The lesson plan may use that activity as the basis for a further learning strategy practice activity. As shown in the activity sheet for Lesson 21 (Figure 13.5), students are often encouraged to cooperate with each other on an activity. It is recognized that this is a strategy that needs to be taught, so the accompanying lesson plan explains how to conduct a think-pair-share activity to teach and practice the strategy Cooperate. Evaluation phase: Quizzes and immediate feedback

Each lesson has a multimedia quiz that checks comprehension of the main language functions and grammatical points. The quiz items are also used to measure comprehension and transfer of the learning strategy instruction; for example, by asking learners to identify the strategy being used in a new situation. One of the advantages of online learning strategies instruction is that learners can receive immediate feedback through Let’s Learn English

Look at the list of skills below. Match the pictures with the correct names of the skills. Then mark which skills you can and can’t do. can can’t

can can’t act

use a camera

+32 ?

can can’t fix things

make a plan

code

work with people

solve math problems

write

present an idea

Now ask two friends about the things they can and can’t do. Make a list of the skills they have. If they have skills that are not shown above, add them to the list. Then talk with your two friends about cooperation to do something together using your skills. Skills: Can you code?

How we can cooperate:

Can you act?

No, I can’t. Can you write? Yes, I can.

Yes, I can. Awesome! I can use a camera. We can make a movie.

Answers for above

Figure 13.5 Activity sheet for Lesson 21. © Voice of America

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the quiz. For example, lesson 30 teaches the strategy, Make an inference. This strategy is exemplified in the conversation by Pete in this exchange with Anna: Pete: Anna: Pete: Anna:

Anna, you love to eat seafood. Did you grow up on the water? No, I didn’t. But I love the water. And I love being on the water. You know how to sail? Well … this afternoon I am going on a boat. (Later we see her in a paddle boat) Pete: You are full of surprises. What kind of boat? Is it a motorboat or a sailboat? Anna: It’s a special boat, Pete. Well, thanks for your help. See you later! Pete: See you, Anna! Wow, Anna’s a sailor! Who knew?

The accompanying quiz question, shown in Figure 13.6, includes a clip of the above interaction and asks learners to identify the strategy. Expansion phase: Lesson plans

In addition to the situations shown in the quiz, lesson plans give teachers ideas for expanding students’ strategy use in other content areas or communicative contexts. A further activity could be to ask students to think of three similar situations where the strategy could be used or to

Figure 13.6 Quiz item on learning strategy ‘Make an inference’. © Voice of America

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write their own conversation showing it in use. The instructor could then provide the learner with feedback. It is hoped that by systematically teaching the strategies, learners will be in a better position to make the most of the linguistic material and activities in the program and will feel more empowered as effective independent learners. To date, about 40,000 people return to the course every week. Voice of America’s American Stories

Voice of America offers a further resource for LLSI that is publicly available online. American Stories focuses on literature, not just the language. The series presents classic American short stories. A voice version of the story is provided on the web page along with a comprehension quiz and a CALLA lesson plan. As with the Let’s Learn English lesson plans, each of these stories teaches one or two target strategies – for example, Focus and Predict in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Purloined Letter (Voice of America Learning English, 2014a, 2014b). The Presentation phase of the lesson models how readers can concentrate on details, then think about their meaning, and fi nally make predictions based on them. Figure 13.7 shows a chart that the teacher can use as part of the lesson. Used together, these two programs make a powerful contribution to enabling learners to transfer strategies across a wide range of contexts. It would be interesting to note whether learners are able to transfer the strategies they have acquired to their personal use of social media. It is to this area that we now turn.

Figure 13.7 Excerpt from The Purloined Letter lesson plan. © Voice of America Source: Voice of America Learning English (2014b).

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Part 2: LLSI and Social Media

Implementation of LLSI through technology on a large scale, as shown in Let’s Learn English, requires a team of content developers, including writers and website designers, with the capacity for hosting multimedia materials. However, the development of the internet has created a wealth of other opportunities for language learning. Nevertheless it is only relatively recently, that studies have been carried out to explore the strategies learners apply when using social media. Are the strategies they use the same as or different from those familiar to us from, for example, O’Malley and Chamot’s or Oxford’s (1990) categorization frameworks? The chapters in Part 2 of the book have considered the applicability of existing frameworks to strategies for learning grammar, Critical Cultural Awareness and pragmatics. Here we review some studies that investigate students’ strategies when they use social media to learn languages and we then move on to consider some practical implications for LLSI. Social media and learner strategies

Hauck and Hampel (2008) argue that initially Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), consisting of games and conventional activities to complement classroom lessons or coursebooks, reflected a cognitive, constructivist view of language learning. In contrast, Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) embraces new internet-based technologies and sees learning more as a social activity with learners building a community of fellow users. In a study using telecollaboration to link up learners in France, the UK and the United States, Hauck and Hampel (2008) used Oxford’s (1990) framework and Ellis’s (1994) work to show that; those strategies that learners employ in the context of traditional language learning are potentially also crucial in online language learning contexts. (Hauck & Hampel, 2008: 286)

However, they also found that additional social and affective strategies were needed to cope with the specific challenges of online interaction – with the anonymity or depersonalization of the virtual learning environment and unfamiliarity with the technology. To encourage interaction with their peers, the French native speakers’ strategies included using photos and personal data to foster familiarity with their online partners and using humor and frequent contributions to keep the momentum going. To reduce anxiety about oral performance one learner increased her written contributions so she could use them as a rehearsal for her oral intereactions in the teleconferencing part of the exchange. It would be useful to know more about what students do if they are at a loss for words when they are chatting online. They may perhaps make use of fillers to avoid embarrassing ‘silences’ or ask their

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interlocutor for help or even, as in the Hauck and Hampel study, learn simply to accept silence. On a personal anecdotal level, I have seen students using stickers (an image that may include an animation or text in English or Chinese) to communicate, especially when they lack the vocabulary they need. This type of nonverbal communication could expand on the concept of using gestures as a communication strategy. Harris (Chapter 3 in this volume) argues for LLSI in collaborative strategies and Hauck and Hampel’s study suggests it could be tailored to helping learners establish an identity as a group. The sense of a community of language users was an important fi nding in Sockett and Toffoli’s research. In order to get a sense of what students are doing as they engage in more informal language learning contexts using technology, Sockett and Toffoli conducted surveys of student contact with English when they went online (Sockett, 2011; Toffoli & Sockett, 2010). Students reported communicating with other English users on Facebook and their fi ndings also indicate that watching television series via streaming websites greatly increased the amount of time dedicated to English use and provided opportunities to learn useful colloquial vocabulary. Sockett and Toffoli (2012) went on to conduct a more detailed study of all of the online activities in English of a group of French students. Based on the students’ logs, it showed how they moved from being English learners to being English ‘users’. Sockett and Toffoli concluded that: ‘the study participants are “real” users and active participants in various types of virtual communities, including social networks, private closed groups of friends, ad hoc learning groups and communities of fans, users and viewers of various sorts’ (Sockett & Toffoli, 2012: 143). The virtual relationships created the equivalent of an immersion environment for the students. One could imagine this as an iPhone in a hot tub – the learner can soak in all the English she wants through her connection to the world online. So informal language learning should be seen as a complex dynamic system in which the outcomes depend as much on the ‘character of the interactions between components as they do on the character of the components themselves’ (Sockett & Toffoli, 2012: 140). A further finding of interest was that participants in the study appeared to be able to exploit the opportunities provided by the wide variety of online tools available to them; for example, the use of a website providing the lyrics for English songs. First, students listened to the song for the gist and then read the lyrics while listening to the song to confirm the meaning. Students felt that being able to understand song lyrics contributed to their listening comprehension skills because it made them more familiar with the pronunciation of the words. An added benefit was that phrases in song lyrics tend to appear repeatedly and thus reinforce learning of the pronunciation. One implication of Sockett and Toffoli’s work is that some strategies may help at a particular stage of language proficiency but be a

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hindrance at higher levels of proficiency. For example, using the subtitles while watching a movie can help the beginning learner, but the advanced learner should work towards lessening their dependence on the subtitles to understand the dialogue. This implies that learners must develop their own self-regulation strategies so they can plan their learning to suit their needs and monitor and evaluate their progress. The next section considers how LLSI can help them to do this. LLSI for social media

To my knowledge there have been few intervention studies specifi cally designed to teach students the strategies to exploit social media. Research carried out in Turkey by Mutlu and Eroz-Tuga (2013) used an online blog and discussion forum with the goal of promoting autonomous learning. It essentially involved social media use by learners, combining online learning with discussion and real-time application of strategies to communicate in English. Students’ work was shared in a blog, which meant the students were co-creators of content for the course. Their writing had an authentic audience, and gained status by being published online. The experimental treatment was found to significantly increase the university students’ use of language learning strategies while it also developed their motivation for autonomous learning. A parallel group of students continued to be dependent on their instructor for guidance and did not participate in language learning activities or social media use in English outside of the classroom. However, although they refer to their study as strategy instruction, they tell us little about its design and nature, reflecting Plonsky’s concern (Chapter 1 in this volume) that many intervention investigations fail to provide a detailed account of the LLSI. We are simply told that it took place over a five-week period, that the strategies were integrated into the weekly units of the coursebooks and that students were informed of the types of strategies, how they could be used and why they might help their language development. No explanation is given about which strategies were selected and why or how the strategies were introduced, modelled or practiced. Yet if other researchers are to replicate the study, this is exactly the information that is needed. We turn now to our own tentative reflections on LLSI to support social media use. We begin by considering how this might be carried out in the classroom, using the CALLA model, and end by reflecting on LLSI for social media use online. Social media LLSI in a classroom setting Learning diaries and blogs

The example below illustrates how blogs can allow learners to share how they apply learning strategies to everyday life situations. However, as we shall see, there is no reason why blogs should not be used to share strategies

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specific to social media LLS; for example, strategies to facilitate chatting online in the target language. •

•

Raising awareness and modelling phases. In a graduate course on L2 acquisition, I first asked students to describe how they coped in a variety of language learning situations and modelled strategies they did not mention such as ‘directed attention’. Practice phase. They then wrote and posted learning strategies diaries, keeping track of the learning strategies they applied in their everyday life during one week of the course. Among the topics students wrote about were their attempts to learn how to score a softball game (see Figure 13.8) and efforts to improve their yoga practice. This activity was originally designed as a traditional written assignment. Having the assignment posted on the class blog allowed the students to share their strategies with their classmates and a greater online audience. As co-creators of reading material for the course, they gained status by being published and earned a voice comparable to their instructor’s in determining what their classmates learned about learning strategies, so that it was less teacher imposed. Students of all ages are often much more willing to try out new strategies if they see their peers using them than if the teacher exhorts them to use the strategies. Hauck and Hampel’s (2008) project again encouraged ownership and responsibility, since each small group of telecollaborative partners published the outcomes of their work on a blog. New video blogging tools would permit this assignment to be done using oral summaries. Voicethread (https://voicethread.com/) is one example of an online tool that would permit students and teachers to record oral summaries or carry out verbal assignments and for both

Figure 13.8 Blog post on learning strategies from a student in a teacher education program

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teachers and peers to give feedback. The instructor could give students specific guidelines for responses, such as sharing whether they had tried the strategy or modified it for themselves, and how it had worked for them personally. Self-evaluation is an area of online strategies instruction that can be problematic. Digital technology can address this issue, however, through a follow-up assignment to produce a video or text blog that expresses the learner’s self-evaluation of their strategy use. Student response systems (SRS) could be used to prompt students to give selfevaluation feedback. For example, after an in-class presentation of a strategy or strategy cluster, students could use an SRS to indicate whether they have used the strategy successfully, whether it helped them, and whether they plan to use it in the future. This could stimulate further reflection on the students’ use of strategies. If the classroom LLSI includes recorded language materials, these can also be provided online, perhaps with a self-scoring quiz and strategy use survey, so learners can test their comprehension at a later time and judge whether the strategies they applied during class aid their comprehension of the material when studying on their own. The ability to transfer the strategies to new situations and apply them autonomously is, after all, the goal of LLSI. A teacher might respond to students’ reflections by encouraging them to apply strategies to materials at the appropriate level of difficulty. For example, if a student comments that the material was so easy that the strategy was not necessary, the teacher can guide the student to slightly more difficult materials that would require the application of strategies to aid comprehension.

Exploiting television and online ‘chats’

LLSI within the classroom can support students in making the most of their use of social media when they are outside it. Students could negotiate with their teachers the kinds of social media use where they would find support most helpful. When watching a TV series, for example, do students just switch it on, or are metacognitive strategies like planning and directed attention involved? So they could decide to focus on particular linguistic features – be they grammatical, pragmatic or their typical mistakes. Some teachers already incorporate songs and extracts from fi lms into their lessons, but rather than just focusing on the content, they could discuss the strategies used to access them. Indeed, researching the strategies students use online might be part and parcel of raising students’ awareness as well as increasing our own understanding. Just by sharing their strategies with their peers, students are already modeling some that may be unfamiliar. It may be, for example, that some of them are not only using fi lm and song to focus on colloquialisms and pronunciation, as Sockett and Toffoli (2012) found, but also using their knowledge of genre (horror fi lms, romance, period dramas), or facial expression, gesture and

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background to predict what will happen and the likely content of the conversations. Others may make the most of the mood of the music of a song or their knowledge of the particular singer’s repertoire to help their comprehension. Blogs can be used to report back on how useful they found such strategies when actually online. In terms of interaction strategies, because online chats leave a record that can be shared, teachers can have learners interact with each other either face-to-face or online while practicing a particular strategy. They can then review the success of the strategy for that specific exchange based on criteria chosen by the student or teacher. For example, perhaps to practice and evaluate strategies such as fillers or switching to an easier topic, students or teachers can decide on the criteria for the ‘success’ of the chat in the target language (Speed? Easy to understand? Interest?). Students then engage in a three-minute ‘chat’ in the target language with a fellow classmate and evaluate how successful they were in using the strategies and whether the strategies helped them fulfill the criteria. To further practice the strategy, they could communicate online with another classmate in the target language or a community of fans they belong to. That said, there is a delicate balance to be struck between supporting them in their online use and destroying their pleasure in what is meant to be their own leisure time. Social media LLSI in independent learning settings

We have, I believe, yet to see LLSI programs specifically geared to the most useful strategies for social media and this is an important area for development. Hauck’s (2005) fi ndings suggest that, at least at beginner level, a direct, interventionist but decontextualized approach is more likely to foster reflection and self-management. Indeed, this may be the moment to reconsider some aspects of the INSTAL project. A contentfree, stand-alone website could be developed based on typical problems students experience. For example: • •

When you watch films, if you find they speak too fast for you to understand, try … If you struggle to keep up the conversation during online chat, try …

In the CARLA website (see Cohen, this volume), students can look up a particular Spanish grammar point they are struggling to learn and see one of their peers talking about the strategy they use to tackle it. In this case students could be fi lmed discussing how they apply the relevant strategies to help them tackle that particular problem, or even make their own podcasts about their preferred learning strategies. White’s learner–context interface theory (White, 2003, 2005) may be particularly relevant here. She sees independent language learners as active agents who create a personally meaningful interface between

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themselves and the opportunities offered by a particular learning context, so that they make the best use of the tasks according to their needs, preferences and goals. Any free-standing website would need to incorporate activities that enabled learners to identify their aims and learning styles along with their self-management strategies (see Chapter 15, this volume). An understanding of affective strategies may also be important to help learners cope with the anxiety they may experience online as well as to foster motivation. The problems discussed by Harris (2003), however, remain in terms of the language of the website instructions and the lack of a teacher to mediate the level to focus on and to provide feedback. We still have a long way to go in understanding the strategies students apply when they use social media and how best to support them. We conclude by suggesting some practical areas for development in terms of resources and summarizing some of the research questions this chapter has raised. Areas for Development

• •

•

More activities could be developed to encourage students to carry on two-way communication with the instructor(s) in online instruction programs such as Voice of America’s Let’s Learn English. A learning strategy resource page could be created where the Let’s Learn English video examples are collected and indexed according to the strategy each exemplifies. This would make it easy for learners and teachers to find lessons that teach a particular strategy or meet a particular need or goal, helping learners to direct their own learning and helping teachers with review and curriculum planning. A good example is the CARLA website (http://carla.umn.edu/strategies/sp_grammar/ index.html), discussed above. Additional LLSI materials and resources could also be created to accompany online language learning software such as Duolingo,1 Mango Languages2 and Transparent Language, 3 so that learners can be provided with the strategies they need to use these programs more effectively and make them more meaningful, whether it is simply learning vocabulary or exploiting conversations. Without them, learners may fail to make progress or assume that they are ‘no good’ at learning languages simply because they do not know how to exploit this new technology and fi nd the tasks tedious. It is worth noting that a potentially rich resource is the IRIS project (Marsden et al., 2016), which aims to establish a digital repository of instruments for research into L2 acquisition and teaching. It would be extremely helpful if a similar language learning strategy resource bank of lesson plans, activities and research materials could be created through international collaboration as part of an existing language teacher network.

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Research Questions

(1) How can we use technology to evaluate the effectiveness of online LLSI? For example, would an online forum along the lines of a social media platform encourage more participation? Other platforms such as Twitter, a subreddit or Telegram might provide more real-time responses. Teachers or schools could collaborate, through an online portal perhaps, on the collection of data on the relationship between LLS use and language proficiency and/or self-efficacy gains. (2) How can we enable learners to fully exploit all the technological devices at their disposal? Potentially, most language learners have a huge range of resources available. They have only to google ‘how do you say … in Korean?’ and they will fi nd a wealth of video material. Or they can access fi lms in almost any language they want and select subtitles. What do they do? Do they know how to make the most of these materials? (3) What strategies do learners use when engaging online in social media platforms? How can LLSI support them? Conclusion

Voice of America began as a radio broadcast in the post-WWII era. Now it has evolved to meet the tech-savvy young people who comprise the majority of the population in many developing countries. The VOA Learning English (Voice of America Learning English, 2016) website serves an international audience with millions of page views per month. Mobile devices have made access to the internet nearly universal among learners in the 14–35 age range that is the target of Let’s Learn English. Integration of LLSI in language instruction using new social media platforms would help to improve the effectiveness of language instruction overall by providing models of strategic learning that can be accessed by both learners and teachers, although we need to know more about the strategies learners use in the process. This chapter has explored both familiar and more recent technology applications for LLSI and has suggested possible ways forward for the future. As technological applications continue to develop, teachers need to think carefully about what they can do better through technology rather than just face-to face in the classroom and where teacher support is most needed. As always, teachers will create imaginative ways of getting the most out of advances in technology. Notes (1) Duolingo’s approach is like that of an earlier software provider, Rosetta Stone. The program offers multiple choices for words and the learner chooses the correct meaning. Duolingo was founded by experts in artificial intelligence who used the principles of machine learning to create the language learning platform.

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(2) Mango Languages is an online language teaching tool which uses conversations and voice comparison to teach both language and cultural content. (3) Transparent Language uses what they call the Declarative Method, or building a database of words, to teach languages. The approach is based on principles of cognitive psychology that are also drawn on for the CALLA approach.

References Allen, L.K., Crossley, S.A., Snow, E.L. and McNamara, D.S. (2014) L2 writing practice: Game enjoyment as a key to engagement. Language Learning & Technology 18 (2), 124–150. See http://llt.msu.edu/issues/june2014/varneretal.pdf (accessed 3 July 2016). Chamot, A.U. (2009) The CALLA Handbook: Implementing the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (2nd edn). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education/ Longman. Chamot, A.U. and O’Malley, J.M. (1994) The CALLA Handbook: Implementing the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach. White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman. Chamot, A.U., Barnhardt, S., El-Dinary, P.B. and Robbins, J. (1999) The Learning Strategies Handbook. White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman. Cohen, A.D. (2008) Speaking strategies for independent learning: A focus on pragmatic performance. In S. Hurd and T. Lewis (eds) Language Learning Strategies in Independent Settings (pp. 119–140). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Cohen, A.D. and Ishihara, N. (2005) A Web-based Approach to Strategic Learning of Speech Acts. Minneapolis, MN: Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA), University of Minnesota. See http://carla.umn.edu/speechacts/ Japanese%20Speech%20Act%20Report%20Rev.%20June05.pdf (accessed 6 July 2016). Ellis, R. (1994) The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford University Press. Harris, V. (2003) Adapting classroom-based strategy instruction to a distance learning context. TESL-EJ Special Issue: Strategy Research and Training 7, 1–16. Hauck, M. (2005) Metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive strategies and CALL. In J.  Egbert and G. Petrie (eds) CALL Research Perspectives (pp 65–86). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hauck, M. and Hampel, R. (2008) Strategies for online learning environments. In S. Hurd and T. Lewis (eds) Language Learning Strategies in Independent Settings (pp. 283– 302). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Hurd, S. and Lewis, T. (2008) Language Learning Strategies in Independent Settings. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Lai, C. (2013) A framework for developing self-directed technology use for language learning. Language Learning & Technology 17 (2), 100–122. See http://llt.msu.edu/ issues/june2013/lai.pdf (accessed 6 July 2016). Lai, C. and Gu, M. (2011) Self-regulated out-of-class language learning with technology. Computer Assisted Language Learning 24 (4), 317–335. Lamy, M. and Goodfellow, R. (1999) ‘Reflective conversation’ in the virtual language classroom. Language Learning & Technology 2 (2), 43–61. Marsden, E., Mackey, A. and Plonsky, L. (2016) The IRIS Repository of Instruments for Research into Second Languages: Advancing methodology and practice. In A. Mackey and E. Marsden (eds) Advancing Methodology and Practice: The IRIS Repository of Instruments for Research into Second Languages (pp. 1–21). New York: Routledge. Murphy, L. (2008) Integrating strategy instruction into learning materials. In S. Hurd and T. Lewis (eds) Language Learning Strategies in Independent Settings (pp. 303–320). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

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Mutlu, A. and Eroz-Tuga, B. (2013) The role of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) in promoting learner autonomy. Egitim Arastirmalari – Eurasian Journal of Educational Research 51, 107–122. O’Malley, J.M. and Chamot, A.U. (1990) Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oxford, R.L. (1990) Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Ranalli, J. (2013) Online strategy instruction for integrating dictionary skills and language awareness. Language Learning & Technology 17 (2), 75–99. See http://llt.msu. edu/issues/june2013/ranalli.pdf (accessed 6 July 2016). Robbins, J. (2010) Integrating technology in the English language learning classroom. In K. Cennamo, J. Ross and P. Ertmer (eds) Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Sockett, G. (2011) Les processus cognitifs de résolution de problèmes pour l’apprentissage des langues dans des environnements multimédia: Apprentissage informel et réseaux sociaux. Les Cahiers de l’Acedle 8 (1), 29–46. Sockett, G. and Toffoli, D. (2012) Beyond learner autonomy: a dynamic systems view of the informal learning of English in virtual online communities. ReCALL: The Journal of EUROCALL 24 (2), 138–151. Sykes, J. and Cohen, A. (2006) Dancing with Words: Strategies for Learning Pragmatics in Spanish. Minneapolis, MN: Regents of the University of Minnesota. See http:// carla.umn.edu/speechacts/sp_pragmatics/home.html (accessed 10 September 2016). Teo, A. (2012) Promoting EFL students’ inferential reading skills through computerized dynamic assessment. Language Learning & Technology 16 (3), 10–20. See http://llt. msu.edu/issues/october2012/action.pdf (accessed 9 July 2016). Toffoli, D. and Sockett, G. (2010) How non-specialist students of English practice informal learning using web 2.0 tools. Groupe d’Etude et de Recherche en Anglais de Specialité (ASp) 58, 125–154. Voice of America Learning English (2014a) American Stories: The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allen Poe. See http://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/the-purloined-letteredgar-allan-poe/3307412.html (accessed 9 July 2016). Voice of America Learning English (2014b) Lesson Plan for Edgar Allan Poe’s The Purloined Letter (J. Robbins, ed.). See http://docs.voanews.eu/en-US-LEARN/2015/05/15/ e07f8f32-7665-450b-b908-a3a8908ddd94.pdf (accessed 6 July 2016). Voice of America Learning English (2016) Let’s Learn English (H. Do, J. Robbins, D. Reynolds, R. Hindman, A. Matteo and P. Musto, eds). See http://learningenglish. voanews.com/p/5644.html (accessed 6 July 2016). White, C. (1995) Autonomy and strategy use in distance foreign language learning: Research fi ndings. System 23 (2), 207–221. White, C. (2003) Language Learning in Distance Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. White, C. (2005) Towards a learner-based theory of distance language learning: The context of learner-context interface. In B. Holmberg, M. Shelley and C. White (eds) Distance Education and Languages: Evolution and Change (pp. 55–71). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Part 4 Implementation: The Teachers Introduction to Part 4 What is important is that teachers are grounded in good conceptual understanding about learning strategies and strong beliefs and pedagogical skills that can continue to support their goal of developing strategic learners. (Christine Goh, Chapter 17 in this volume)

Thus far, the book has sought to address the problem outlined in Chapter One that Language Learning Strategy Instruction (LLSI) studies fail to describe and justify the models of LLSI adopted for their interventions, the choice of strategies taught and the pedagogical activities used. Part 1 discussed various frameworks for LLSI, Part 2 added to the range of strategies to be taught and Part 3 offered practical materials and tasks. Useful though these chapters may be in supporting teachers once they embark on LLSI, none of it is of lasting value unless the teachers are committed to it in the first place. Nor can they be expected to take an active role in researchers’ classroom-based LLSI interventions without such a commitment. So Part 4 addresses a common concern expressed by teacher educators that there is little available guidance on integrating LLSI into pre- and in-service teacher education so that teachers are fully engaged in the enterprise. All three chapters start from the premise that teachers need to use and reflect on their own strategies if they are to successfully foster strategy development in their students. Chapter 14 focuses on the value of teachers reflecting on their practice as strategy instructors, including any mismatch between the theories they appear to espouse and those that underpin their actual teaching in the classroom. Examples of different types of reflection are specifically related to LLSI and the chapter concludes with suggestions for LLSI in affective strategies. Chapter 15 shifts even further towards the practical with examples of how to teach prospective or in-service teachers two key strategies of learner self-management. The fi nal chapter brings together the experience of six teacher educators to develop some common principles for integrating LLSI into teacher education and to provide concrete illustrations of pre- and in-service activities. Again, these include ‘putting teachers in the learners’ shoes’ so that they experience the 211

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satisfactions and frustrations of the language learning process. The authors conclude that the most fruitful form of teacher education is where researcher and teacher collaborate to develop classroom-based interventions, and they describe the benefits of a number of studies where this has taken place. The value of such research studies links us to the fi nal chapter by Christine Goh, who undertook the daunting task of drawing together the research questions that end each chapter of the book in order to outline key areas for future investigation, based on her extensive knowledge of the existing literature.

14 Teacher Education: Formative Assessment, Reflection and Affective Strategy Instruction Christina Gkonou and Rebecca L. Oxford

Introduction

This chapter is about using formative assessment to help teachers assess their language instruction, and particularly their language learning strategy instruction (LLSI). We strongly contend that excellent language teaching involves teachers helping their students to optimize their learning strategy use by means of some degree of organized LSSI. Teachers’ self-assessment is an essential part of this process as it helps them not only to improve their teaching but also to enable their students to learn more effectively. As strategy use and strategy effectiveness are highly personalized, teachers’ self-assessment involves analyzing the impact of their teaching on each individual student in the class, as it cannot be assumed that any given strategy works the same way for all learners. To understand formative assessment, it helps to first remind ourselves of the defi nition of summative assessment. Summative assessment refers to information gathering that occurs at the end of a unit of instruction, with such information employed ‘to measure or “summarize” knowledge and skills learners have acquired from that instruction’ (Katz, 2012: 67). In contrast, formative assessment can involve a panoply of related approaches that are used during instruction itself. The intention of a formative assessment is to supportively monitor learning and to ‘fi ne-tune instruction so that it meets students’ evolving needs’ (Katz, 2012: 67). It does sometimes include evaluation which, as the name indicates, embodies a judgement of value, such as acceptable/unacceptable, helpful/unhelpful or excellent/good/fair/poor.1 On the other hand, sometimes formative

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assessment is purely descriptive, aiming to paint a picture rather than to put forth a value judgement. In this chapter we mention formative assessment that is descriptive, as well as formative assessment that is evaluative. Some language teachers in a wide range of settings include, either consciously or intuitively, learning strategy instruction in their own practice. Strategy instruction occurs primarily to cater for individual learner differences, needs and difficulties with the target language input, or to help learners overcome obstacles in the language learning process. These questions arise: How might teachers use formative assessment to discover and describe their own teaching of language learning strategies and to evaluate this strategy instruction? What can teachers find out about themselves as strategy instructors when they reflect on their own teaching practice, either through ‘reflection-on-action’ or ‘reflection-in-action’? The fi rst part of the chapter addresses these questions in discussing teacher self-reflection. Learners’ language improvement is often intuitively obvious throughout the course of study, although changes in the use of learning strategies over time might not be so evident. In some cases, teachers might notice strategy changes that are not followed by or associated with clear improvements in language use; such teachers usually want to know what is going on and what they can do to help their students. For all teachers, it is useful to ask the following question: How can formative assessment help teachers discern changes in learners’ strategies and language achievement and improve their own teaching? The second part of the chapter focuses on this question. The links to ‘evidence-based’ teaching may also be helpful in terms of the role and involvement of teachers in research. Part 3 addresses formative assessment in the realm of affective strategies. This is because affective strategies, which learners use to manage their own emotions, might be particularly difficult to assess given the inherently inner and hidden nature of emotions, the linkage between these emotions and learners’ identities, and the difficulty in verbalizing not only emotions but also affective strategies. The question is: How can teachers use formative assessment to identify strategy shifts and changes in language achievement in relation to ongoing affective strategy instruction? Part 1: Teachers’ Formative, Reflective Assessment of their Own Practice: Focus on Reflection-on-action and Reflection-in-action

Language teachers’ formative assessment of their own practice as strategy instructors naturally requires reflection. The concept of reflective practice has regained prominence in the area of world languages and

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second languages, since it was first discussed by Schön in the early 1980s (see, for example, Borg, 2003; Farrell, 2008; Mann & Walsh, 2013, 2017; Richards & Farrell, 2011; Richards & Lockhart, 1994) and is widely considered a means of teachers’ continuous professional development. Espoused theories versus theories-in-practice

Some people think that reflective practice merely means the process of thinking about and articulating one’s beliefs about teaching (including strategy instruction) in order to inform aspects of classroom practice. This viewpoint implies that articulating instruction-related beliefs directly informs teaching practice. This might not be true, however. Teaching practice does not always follow or reflect espoused beliefs. In their seminal book, Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness, Argyris and Schön (1974) caution that espousing a theory (articulating a set of beliefs about instruction or about one’s own way of teaching) is not the same as enacting that theory while teaching (theoryin-use). See Table 14.1. Espoused theories are teachers’ ideas about instruction or about their own instructional practice, ideas that they freely articulate when asked. For example, Marika Warren (teachers’ names in this chapter are pseudonyms) might say to students, teachers, administrators and parents that she teaches language learning strategies to foster students’ individual growth and development. This is her espoused theory. However, she actually conducts strategy instruction sparingly and in a lockstep fashion without showing any clear knowledge of or concern for individual students’ needs and interests. That is her theory-in-use. If analyzed honestly, Ms Warren’s theory-in-use – what she actually does – reveals the following beliefs. First, a small set of learning strategies will fit all learners and does not require much instructional effort. Secondly, teachers should not take much time to teach learning strategies for these reasons: (a) teachers do not have time to pay attention to learners as individuals, as they are too busy and oppressed to deal with each student separately; (b) teachers are not paid enough for ‘extra duties’ like strategy instruction, and the school should leave teachers alone; and (c) language teachers should teach languages, not strategies. There is thus a dramatic contrast between Ms Warren’s espoused theory and her theory-in-use.

Table 14.1 Espoused theories and theories-in-use Types of theories

Definitions

Espoused theories

A set of beliefs that is articulated about instruction in general or one’s way of teaching

Theories-in-use

A set of beliefs that is enacted during teaching

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By way of contrast, let us consider Gerald Smith, a retired Navy colonel who now teaches German. He espouses a detailed, rather oldfashioned theory of language teaching and learning. First, students learn languages best when they feel pressured by having several quizzes or a test every week. Secondly, the classroom must be shipshape (highly organized, with desks lined up in perfect order and books neatly opened on the desk or put away). Thirdly, discipline must be very fi rm at all times. Fourthly, the audiolingual method is essential because it demands extensive memorization and habit formation. Fifthly, all students should be in the business of developing useful learning strategies, and the teacher should help them by offering regular, integrated strategy instruction. Mr Smith’s theory-in-use overlaps greatly with his espoused theory but goes further. In his theory-in-use, the classroom is indeed constantly in order, sometimes extreme order, and the teacher is always very strict about students’ memorization, but the secret to Mr Smith’s successful teaching is his belief about how to interact with students – unreservedly and with warmth, despite strictness. Mr Smith is constantly available to his students and serves as an ever-flowing fount of information, learning strategy suggestions, encouragement and good humor. He even makes audiolingualism friendly. His students never cause discipline problems because they like Mr Smith and would do anything for him, not because he is a ‘traditional’ teacher or a stern disciplinarian. Most of his students fi nd that they do well in his class due to his welcoming nature and his supportive, warm emphasis on learning strategies and matching these to individual student needs. These matters, all positive, go far beyond his espoused theory. In short, teachers must not settle for articulating their beliefs, because espoused theories often differ somewhat from theories-in-use. Reflective teachers must look deeply inside themselves and observe their practice carefully. Theories-in-use, compared with espoused theories, are more indicative of what happens in the classroom and in teachers’ relationships with their students. Schön’s concept of reflective practice

The concept of teachers’ reflective practice originally flowed from two key works by Donald Schön, The Refl ective Practitioner (1983) and Educating the Reflective Practitioner (1987). Many teacher preparation programs for world languages and second languages try to shape future teachers into ‘reflective practitioners’. In an excellent chapter, Merriam and Bierema (2014) link Schön’s theory of reflective practice with forms of experiential learning. In Schön’s view, two key concepts in reflective practice are reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action. Another concept, reflection-for-action, will be discussed more fully in Part 2. These three concepts are all defi ned in Table 14.2.

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Table 14.2 Reflection-on-action, reflection-in-action and reflection-for-action Types of reflection

Definitions

Reflection-on-action

Reflection that occurs after an instructional experience, with the intention of helping teachers improve their own future practice

Reflection-in-action

Reflection that occurs during an instructional experience, with the intention of helping teachers improve their own practice while in the midst of it

Reflection-for-action

Reflection that is systematic, evidence-based and data-driven, with the intention of helping teachers improve their own practice

Refl ection-on-action involves having an experience and thinking about it afterwards. For example, a language teacher might conduct a formal strategy instruction session (or might instead informally weave strategy instruction into an ordinary lesson) and then think about it after it happened. Some questions that teachers could consider when reflectingon-action include: Did I make sure that my learners understood the strategies I taught this week? Did I give learners enough practice with newly taught strategies? Was my modeling of new strategies clear? Which aspect of my teaching of strategies do I need to improve? In assessing the experience while reflecting-on-action, the teacher might decide to make certain adjustments during the next strategy instruction. Reflection-in-action, in contrast, occurs as the teacher is engaged in an experience or practice, which can happen either very rapidly or over an extended instructional time. This type of reflection, Schön (1987) states, involves the teacher’s reflecting during instruction and reshapes what the teacher does while doing it. According to Schön (1983), a teacher who reflects-in-action becomes a researcher in the practice context, not relying on received wisdom and set methods but instead developing strategies and theories during the process of teaching itself. Reflection-in-action is especially relevant in situations of uncertainty, value conflict and uniqueness (Schön, 1983) and this may be especially relevant to LLSI. Because it has no specific bounds and mandated directions, conducting strategy instruction can often bring up feelings of uncertainty on the part of the teacher and learners and might even generate value conflicts about ‘right’ ways to learn. Furthermore, a sense of uniqueness, linked with unpredictability, naturally arises because strategy instruction treats learners as unique individuals, at least in the best situations. The following are questions that teachers could ask themselves during reflection-in-action: Are my learners clear during the current activity about why and when they should use specific strategies? Should I give my students more practice with strategy X now, before proceeding to the teaching of strategy Y? Can I quickly think of another way of presenting strategy X right now as my students seem confused? As described here, reflection-in-action has obvious relevance to teachers who help learners develop new strategies or sharpen

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their use of their existing strategies. 2 It might be viewed as a lively dance that can go in varied directions, depending on the need. ‘Reflection-inaction is what distinguishes the more expert practitioner from the novice. It characterizes practitioners who “think on their feet,” who experiment, change direction, and immediately respond to a changing context of practice’ (Merriam & Bierema, 2014: 116). How teachers can be encouraged to use reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action

In practice, reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action could be explained as reflection after something has been taught and reflection while something is being taught, respectively. With regard to reflectionin-action, during or straight after the teaching/learning session, teachers could observe themselves and take notes on ideas and examples from their current practice that they could draw on for future lesson planning, such as: This example/model helped learners to understand the new strategy or This practice activity was confusing. Consider designing a simpler task, perhaps involving pair work. Headings could be written immediately on completion of the session, to assist teachers in informing future lesson plans. This type of reflection could also take place intentionally and more systematically, with teachers setting up checkpoints and writing questions to themselves about their strategy instruction prior to entering the class so that it is incorporated into lesson preparation. Indeed, a section in formal lesson plans could be devoted to aspects of strategy instruction as useful checkpoints during reflection-in-action. Examples of possible checkpoints in lesson plans are: I want to see if my modeling of the use of strategy X is helpful for my students or I think this is a useful strategy but I want to see how many students will use it. Reflection that will occur strictly outside class and after the end of the teaching/learning session is reflection-on-action. This reflection type gives teachers the opportunity and time to ponder and mull over what has happened in class, what they have learned, why things happened in a certain way and what they can use in their future planning. Reflection-onaction could be achieved by analyzing and evaluating the notes taken in or immediately after class and exchanging ideas about strategy instruction with colleagues. Reflection-on-action should encourage teachers to think about their own specific contexts, situate strategy instruction and use, and hence tailor their strategy instruction to the needs of their particular group of learners. Here, teachers could consider the following: This strategy works well with this group of learners. I would like to try it with group X, too or Ask teacher Y his view on this practice task for that strategy. Reflection-on-action enables teachers to consider trying something new in an attempt to respond to their students’ ever-changing needs and the particularities of their contexts.

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Part 2. Expanding Teachers’ Reflective Practice to Include Systematic Data: Focus on ‘Reflection-for-action’

Part 1 centered on teachers’ reflection-on-action and reflection-inaction. This part focuses on ‘reflection-for-action’, which necessitates systematic data for instructional decision-making. Important questions are: How can formative assessment help teachers use student data to discern, as systematically as possible, changes in learners’ strategies and language achievement? How can such student data enable teachers to be more successful as strategy instructors? How can teachers use formative data about themselves to improve their strategy instruction? Clarifying terms

Farrell (2013a, 2013b) suggests three main types of teachers’ conscious reflective practice. Two of them, both taken from Schön (reflection-onaction and reflection-in-action), were defi ned and described in detail in Part 1. The third, reflection-for-action, was defi ned briefly (see Table 14.2 in Part 1) and is the focus of the present part of the chapter. Reflectionfor-action could be the outcome of the other two types of reflective practice, although, because of its systematicity, it might go beyond them. Reflection-for-action encourages teachers to take action to improve teaching based on systematic data. Reflection-for-action, as an aspect of reflective practice, was first discussed within second language acquisition (SLA) by Farrell (2013a, 2013b), and not within general education as was the case with the other two types of teacher reflection. However, we think that the general absence of the term ‘reflection-for-action’ outside the SLA field, as well as the lack of widespread usage of that term among language teachers, does not mean the phenomenon is unknown outside and inside the field. The generally accepted term now (at least the term mandated in many schools in various so-called ‘developed countries’) is ‘data-driven teaching’ or ‘evidence-based teaching’, which parallels Farrell’s recommendation that teachers should gather, reflect on and act on systematic data. Therefore, we think that the lack of currency of the ‘reflection-foraction’ term might reflect a semantic gap. In reality, much teaching of math, science, social studies and language is now officially called ‘datadriven’, at least in many countries. Teachers’ reflection-for-action based on student data

Farrell’s ‘reflection-for-action’, including the use of systematic data about learners in an evidence-based way, can be highly positive. It can be especially valuable if … •

teachers plan (or participate in the planning of) the student assessment, and this is done as far as possible collaboratively;

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the assessment is truly formative rather than being summative-applied-to-seemingly-formative-purposes; the assessment involves measuring students’ learning strategy use and their language achievement, and there is an effort to link strategy data with achievement data; the student data are at least partly qualitative (e.g. diaries, self-observations and open-ended questionnaires) rather than rigidly quantitative; teachers feel they ‘own’ the data of their students and can use it authentically for students’ good; and if teachers are required to share the data with administrators at the school level or higher, they still believe that the data are primarily for classroom purposes rather than institutional purposes.

We believe that Farrell (2013a, 2013b) would advocate this form of ‘reflection-for-action’, which would help teachers effectively assess students’ strategy use and language achievement and which would allow teachers to (re)consider their own instructional practices. This form of assessment, which produces systematic data for real use, would have a strong, positive impact on teaching and on student learning and academic achievement. However, we must also present a real-life cautionary tale about a different side of ‘reflection-for-action’ (data-driven instruction). Farrell would be dismayed at this true story, just as we are. In a version of the data-driven model used in many parts of the United States, the ‘systematic data’ are often the results of extensive, predominantly quantitative testing – often standardized testing – instead of data gathered for the purpose of helping students and teachers. One problem is that the teachers have no role in planning such assessments, although they are often expected to administer them. Administrators generally buy expensive standardized tests from prosperous testing companies. Administrators mandate that the teachers use the assessment data for instruction and require teachers to prepare students for repeated standardized testing. This preparation is colloquially called ‘teaching to the test’, and its purpose is to help the school’s results look good, so that the school will avoid losing funding. This mode involves using data from summative testing in a formative, day-by-day manner. Specifically, it uses standardized tests as a content-and-format template for teaching and drives teachers and students in an administratively desired direction in an ongoing way. The goal of the test might be measuring target language achievement and/or gauging achievement in subjects like math or history in a second language setting. In some standardized tests there is a place for students to write a word, a line or a math problem justification, but most items involve merely fi lling in multiple-choice bubbles. Unfortunately, no part of the typical standardized test asks students about their learning strategies; attention is given to achievement, not to the strategies used in order to achieve or improve.

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This strange situation, in which bubbles (rather than instances of learning) are the coin of the realm, is all too frequent. Here is an example. We both know a former teacher, Mr Z, who taught English and math simultaneously to speakers of other languages (ESL math) in a metropolitan area in the United States. He had a master’s degree and certification in teaching both math and ESL. He also had extensive teaching experience in his home country and overseas. He loved his students, and they loved him. However, Mr Z’s professional and personal life became hellish because of the excesses of data-driven teaching based on standardized testing in his school. Because of requirements from above, all of his ESL math teaching time was eventually absorbed by activities related to testing, including going to repeated faculty meetings about testing, listening to administrative demands for certain levels of student performance, rewriting the whole curriculum to fit the testing system, teaching math and English to match the test framework, and teaching his students testtaking strategies (how to fi ll in bubbles, guess, and skip certain item types in favor of others). He was not encouraged to teach learning strategies, only test-taking strategies. He eventually felt he could no longer help his students because of the implacable, non-student oriented way ‘data-driven teaching’ was implemented in his school and beyond. Like other teachers who were despondent due to the testing situation, Mr Z decided to retire several years early. Although he was a talented and caring teacher, he felt broken. Sadly, his school was no different from other schools in the city and the region. The key to data-driven, evidence-based instruction or reflection-foraction involving student data is that the focus must be on what students and teachers need most, not what a testing company wants or what a school demands. Evidence-based instruction using student data must serve the purposes of teaching and learning. It must help learners become more strategic and successful and must allow teachers to be authentically effective. Reflection-for-action in relation to teacher self-assessment

Let us look for a moment at teacher self-assessment as part of ‘reflection-for-action’. Teacher engagement with self-reflective practice might help to draw teachers’ attention to their unconscious, intuitive and impulsive actions and decisions, some of which might relate to the teaching of learning strategies. It might also facilitate the understanding and evaluation of such actions and decisions. With such information, the teacher might confirm the value of current practices or discover a possible need to change them in order to respond to student needs and mediate learning outcomes. It is our contention that such an approach, based on concrete classroom evidence and systematic reflection, is central to the evaluation of LLSI and all instruction. We also feel that reflection needs to take place formatively and at multiple intervals, rather than merely summatively,

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to allow for regular evaluation and increased improvement in teaching strategies to students. One way of accomplishing this is to urge language teachers to make use of narrative inquiry (that is to say, data collection tools that promote reflection and inner dialogue, such as journals or diaries and field notes; see Barkhuizen et al., 2014) and its affordances. For example, teachers could note down in a personal diary their thoughts on aspects of strategy instruction that they found challenging or intriguing and that they would thus be keen to explore further. They can decide on the frequency, for example at the end of each lesson or teaching week, or as soon as a conclusion on learning strategy instruction can be reached. Field notes are also a useful tool for teachers when observing their students – their behaviors, reactions and body language. Field notes based on teacher observations might involve individual students, small groups or the whole class. It is worth highlighting that teachers should have a clear focus during their observations, limiting the key items to just a few, for example: (a) focusing on one specific strategy-related activity that they are curious to check for effectiveness; or (b) assessing their modeling or explanation of the use of a particular strategy. As experience and expertise increase (see Berliner, 2001; Tsui, 2003), observations and field notes will allow teachers to notice little nuances and evaluate even more specific aspects of strategy instruction. A further dimension is to assess the impact of teachers’ strategy instruction on their students’ strategy use and linguistic proficiency. This can be achieved by triangulating their own intuitive feeling with concrete evidence from the learners themselves via tests and student questionnaires, short interviews and performance assessments. In particular, diary entries and observation field notes could be meaningfully ‘coded’ by drawing up a list of common strategies that were taught to students and proven to work for them on specific types of tasks. However, certain strategies may not work for certain students, at least for certain tasks, and this needs to be taken into account when planning future lessons. Specific strategies can be then selected from the list, and this is where teacher creativity can flourish since, for example, they can ask students to practice the use of certain strategies individually or in study circles. Although we understand that such data collection and data analysis require time and effort, in our experience they are compensated for by the learners’ progress. Data collection and data analysis help teachers respond to individual student needs and outcomes, improve teacher– student relationships given that teachers are better able to understand their learners, and facilitate teacher professional development. We believe that students benefit greatly from discussing strategies and exchanging ideas with their classmates. These actions enhance peer support and consolidate a sense of solidarity among students, which is crucial for affective strategies.

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Part 3. Affective Strategies and Formative Assessment

The introduction indicated that affective strategy assessment is difficult. In fact, affective strategies might be the most difficult type to assess, and this section explains why. In particular, it portrays possibilities for teachers’ formative assessment to identify affective strategy changes and alterations in language achievement in association with ongoing affective strategy instruction. Affect or emotion: What is it, and why do we promote emotion-regulation strategies?

A core feature of affect or emotion is its highly subjective nature which defi nes how individuals experience an emotion, how they behave as a result of it, and how they react physiologically to it (Barrett et al., 2007; Gross, 1998, 2015; Mauss et al., 2005). This fundamentally subjective nature of emotion naturally determines the way it should be assessed and subsequently regulated. To date, emotion regulation has received little attention within educational or SLA research, with key scholars acknowledging that affect should be given its due (see Oxford, 2016, 2017) and welcoming suggestions for further developments in the area. For instance, Boekaerts et al. (2000) explain that an intriguing question for future research on the structure and process of self-regulation is ‘How should we deal with emotions or affect?’ Some experts […] view emotions as part and parcel of the self-regulatory process […] By contrast, other models […] do not assign a functional role to affect. (Boekaerts et al., 2000: 754)

Emotions are, however, at the center of all human behavior. Therefore, they are the nexus of learning and teaching. Teachers’ formative assessment of strategy change and language achievement in relation to ongoing affective strategy instruction

Affective strategy instruction aims toward (a) helping learners understand and use appropriate strategies for emotion regulation and, just as important, (b) enabling learners to improve their language proficiency. Emotions permeate all aspects of the language learning process. However, one language skill that might be profoundly influenced by strong emotions is speaking, because it requires a higher degree of learner self-exposure and is therefore more face-threatening. Here is a form of teacher assessment and intervention involving strategy instruction: (1) Teachers can fi nd out what worries their students about speaking in class by talking to them in one-to-one tutorials or organizing

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(4)

(5) (6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

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discussion groups during the lesson. This awareness raising is an introductory phase of affective strategy instruction. Once teachers gather this information, they should select activities or design their own activities that cater both for speaking/language practice and positive emotions in class. Teachers can give students suggestions about trying certain strategies for managing their emotions during the activities. They should model the strategies and name and explain these strategies after modeling them. It would also be helpful to ask students if any already use a given strategy. In our experience, a student (rather than the teacher) can often model a given strategy for the rest of the class. Students like to hear from other students who are strategic in their learning. Teachers should then ask students to do the activities in class and practice them over time. While students do the activities, teachers should take careful note of how students react in terms of emotions during a given activity, perhaps more realistically, after that activity. Emotions are sometimes unobservable to teachers. It might be helpful to ask students after an activity the strategies they used during the activity. Strategy use in speaking and writing is sometimes (but certainly not always!) observable, while strategy use in listening and reading is defi nitely not visible, so asking students about their strategy use is a good idea. Alternatively, if the instructed strategies are expected to be observable, the task could become three-way. Two students do the activity while the third student takes notes on the strategies used. Teachers might still need to ask students afterwards what additional strategies they used, given that many strategies are unobservable and given that strategy use will go far beyond what has been shared through strategy instruction. Teachers could also give a very quick, three- to five-minute strategy survey (covering affective strategies and various other strategies for speaking, such as planning, monitoring, use of appropriate vocabulary, discussing with a partner and paying attention) immediately after the speaking activities to obtain students’ perspectives on the strategies they just used. Class feedback should enable students to evaluate their own performance and reach a better understanding of their emotions. If teachers are willing, strategy instruction could be integrated into a whole series of lessons; teachers could gain more insights into the usefulness and effectiveness of their strategy instruction if they supplement their treatment with two in-house speaking tests, one pretreatment and one post-treatment. Although we acknowledge that language tests can be stressful for students, they, along with field

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notes and other observations, can help teachers measure their learners’ language achievement. Here we are thinking especially about in-house speaking tests, created by the teacher who would know the students and could design tests specifically for them. Part 4. Where Do We Go Next?

LLSI is an exciting field for researchers and practitioners alike. We have so far highlighted the need for teachers to reflect on their teaching of strategies. In this fi nal section we would also like to reflect ourselves on possible future directions that assessing strategy instruction could take. Below are some questions that teachers, researchers and research students could address in their work: •

•

•

•

How could LLSI be formatively assessed in ways that capture contextualization and situatedness, i.e. in ways that take into account the characteristics and requirements of specific teaching and learning contexts? In what ways (other than those suggested in this chapter, such as narratives) could formative assessment of LLSI be performed? In what ways could the assessment types discussed in this chapter be integrated in teacher education programs (both pre-service and inservice)? How could teacher education programs cater for LLSI? How could such programs encourage future teachers and in-service teachers to use these types of assessments as they conduct LLSI? With regard to affective strategies in particular, how could other data collection tools such as classroom observations and follow-up, stimulated-recall interviews with teachers be part of assessment for LLSI, as presented in teacher education programs? How could highly innovative, scenario-based strategy assessments, such as the Managing Your Emotions for Language Learning questionnaire (MYE; Gkonou & Oxford, 2016, 2017), become more widely known and used in teacher education programs, so that language classrooms will ultimately benefit?

Notes (1) When an evaluative judgement of quality of performance is made in relation to a criterion (for example, an objective or standard, which can be either quantitative or qualitative), it is an example of the criterion-referenced approach. When an evaluative judgement of quality of performance is made in relation to other people in a norm group, this is called the norm-referenced approach. The norm-referenced approach is not often used for formative assessment. It is more common for summative assessment. (2) Reflective practice is also related to issues of tacit knowledge (knowing more than we can say) and of automatized knowing, as found in Schön (1983). Schön (1983, 1987) coined the term ‘technical rationality’ to contrast with reflective practice.

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References Argyris, C. and Schön, D. (1974) Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Barkhuizen, G., Benson, P. and Chik, A. (2014) Narrative Inquiry in Language Teaching and Learning Research. London: Routledge. Barrett, L.F., Mesquita, B., Ochsner, K.N. and Gross, J.J. (2007) The experience of emotion. Annual Review of Psychology 58 (1), 373–403. Berliner, D.C. (2001) Learning about and learning from expert teachers. International Journal of Educational Research 35 (5), 463–482. Boekaerts, M., Pintrich, P.R. and Zeidner, M. (eds) (2000) Handbook of Self-regulation. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Borg, S. (2003) Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, and do. Language Teaching 36 (2), 81–109. Farrell, T.S.C. (2008) Refl ective Language Teaching: From Research to Practice. London: Continuum Press. Farrell, T.S.C. (2013a) Refl ective Writing for Language Teachers. London: Equinox. Farrell, T.S.C. (2013b) Refl ective Teaching. Alexandria, VA: TESOL International. Gkonou, C. and Oxford, R.L. (2016) Questionnaire: Managing Your Emotions for Language Learning Version 4.1 and 4.2. Colchester: Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex. Gkonou, C. and Oxford, R.L. (2017) Questionnaire: Managing Your Emotions for Language Learning Version 4.1 and 4.2. In R.L. Oxford (ed.) Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies: Self-Regulation in Context (2nd edn) (pp. 317–333). New York: Routledge. Gross, J.J. (1998) The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology 2 (3), 271–299. Gross, J.J. (ed.) (2015) Handbook of Emotion Regulation. New York: Guilford Press. Katz, A. (2012) Linking assessment with instructional aims and learning. In C. Coombe, P. Davidson, B. O’Sullivan and S. Stoynoff (eds) The Cambridge Guide to Second Language Assessment (pp. 67–73). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mann, S. and Walsh, S. (2013) RP or ‘RIP’: A critical perspective on reflective practice. Applied Linguistics Review 4 (2), 291–315. Mann, S. and Walsh, S. (2017) Refl ective Practice in English Language Teaching: Research-Based Principles and Practices. Abingdon: Routledge. Mauss, I.B., Levenson, R.W., McCarter, L., Wilhelm, F.H. and Gross, J.J. (2005) The tie that binds? Coherence among emotion experience, behavior, and physiology. Emotion 5 (2), 175–190. Merriam, S.B. and Bierema, L.L. (2014) Adult Learning: Linking Theory and Practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Oxford, R.L. (2016) Toward a psychology of well-being for language learners: The ‘EMPATHICS’ vision. In P. MacIntyre, T. Gregersen and S. Mercer (eds) Positive Psychology in SLA (pp. 10–87). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Oxford, R.L. (2017) Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies: SelfRegulation in Context (2nd edn). New York: Routledge. Richards, J.C. and Farrell, T.S.C. (2011) Practice Teaching: A Refl ective Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J.C. and Lockhart, C. (1994) Refl ective Teaching in Second Language Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schön, D. (1983) The Refl ective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books. Schön, D. (1987) Educating the Refl ective Practitioner. New York: Basic Books. Tsui, A.B.M. (2003) Understanding Expertise in Teaching: Case Studies in ESL Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

15 Empowering Teachers to Promote Learner Self-management Joan Rubin and Claudia Acero Rios

Introduction

Enabling students to become more effective language learners has become a critical need in many countries as the benefits of bilingualism become increasingly apparent for full participation in international markets. This chapter directly speaks to the concerns of many language teacher educators who have promoted Language Learner Strategy Instruction (LLSI) with their students, but noted that they often fail to integrate it into their lessons in spite of exposure to the extensive literature on its value (see, for example, Chamot, 1999, 2009; Cohen & Weaver, 2006; Ellis & Sinclair, 1989; Ellis & Ibrahim, 2015; Grenfell & Harris, 1999; Oxford, 2017; Rubin, 2015; Rubin et al., 2007; Willing, 1989) and a wealth of practical suggestions. A further problem that has been reported is that just teaching individual cognitive or socio-affective strategies does not help learners become more capable of managing their own learning. To address this lack of success, some scholars argue that it is critical to also introduce student teachers to the metacognitive strategies of planning, monitoring and evaluating (Oxford, 2011; Vandergrift & Goh, 2012). Similarly, the learner self-management model elaborated by Rubin (2001, 2005) emphasizes their importance. The obstacles to incorporating learning self-management (LSM) strategies into teachers’ classroom practice have been well documented (Rubin, 2010). They include both students and parents’ beliefs that the teacher’s job is to teach the language, not the skills of learning how to learn. The same emphasis is also reflected in textbooks that only focus on presenting the language itself and not on the process of learning. Although some helpful strategies are included, such as mind maps and lists of some text types, no attempt is made to show how they relate to the learning process and thus might facilitate independent learning – for example, how a mind 227

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map might help with memory challenges. Nor is there any discussion indicating how awareness of the characteristics of text types might enhance reading or listening. These barriers occur despite the albeit limited number of books containing practical ideas on how to present strategies in the classroom (Chamot, 1999; Mendelsohn & Rubin, 1995; Oxford, 1990). We suspect that the underlying problem resides in the fact that teachers may not understand how LSM strategies work, why and when they might be useful for language learning, or how to integrate them into their lessons. With Borg’s (2009) review of the importance of teacher cognition, it becomes especially critical to help teachers understand the rationale behind the inclusion of LSM as a new and important addition to their language teaching. One important way of doing so is to provide them with opportunities to use the metacognitive strategies of self-management in the preparation, implementation and evaluation of their own lesson planning. Promoting teacher use of these strategies will not only encourage greater teacher autonomy (that is, self-directedness in continually learning how to teach) but, as Vieira (2007) points out, teacher and learner autonomy are inextricably linked. So the integration of LSM procedures into the process of LLSI can not only provide teachers with useful tools to critically reflect on what happens in their classrooms but also provide their learners with techniques for reflecting on their own learning. Furthermore, when teachers and learners fi nd that using these strategies helps them reach their learning and teaching goals they are often more willing and encouraged to fi nd and use other teaching and learning strategies. For example, our experience shows that when teachers help students think about their learning strategies and which ones work best for them (metacognition), the resulting success raises their awareness of the need to be in touch with their own development as teachers. Thompson and Rubin (1996) found that students who learn to set SMART goals in one setting recognize the value of using the strategy in other settings. Clemente and Rubin (2008) provide another example of how, when counselors scaffold their learning, their learners are more able to set realistic goals. The next section offers a detailed description of a program directed at promoting LSM, alongside better English skills. A Teacher Education Program for Self-directed Learning

The Master’s program in English Language Teaching for Self-directed Learning is an online teacher training program at the Universidad de La Sabana in Bogotá, Colombia. The program teaches the principles of Selfdirected Learning (SDL), encourages its use for action research, and reinforces it via scaffolded interactions between students and their professors. To date, about 200 in-service teachers have been enrolled in the program in nine cohorts. The in-service teachers come from several regions of Colombia with a few from the United States, Korea and England, and it

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includes teachers who work for private or public institutions, teach at all levels of education, and deliver their teaching in face-to-face and in online learning environments. The strategies of LSM are integrated into the Master’s program through its various components, such as the courses in language and selfdirected learning, reflective pedagogy, technologies to enhance selfdirected learning, and action research. We will briefly outline the nature and purpose of the action research component since it encourages inservice teachers to consider measuring the impact of incorporating LSM strategies into their lessons in order to address their classroom problems. We will return to the action research component towards the end of the chapter, when we will describe two of these in depth. Action research to support implementation of learner self-management strategies

In the action research component of the program, teachers are organized into small teams based on the identification of similar classroom problems so that they can directly apply the strategies of LSM. Once in their teams, they are asked to identify which aspects of LSM strategies will help them address their problems. Teacher counselors then lead the teachers towards identifying creative and innovative teaching and learning solutions so that they not only better understand self-direction concepts in foreign language learning but also are guided in the development of their research competencies (Acero & Bryan, 2011). Usually, their projects include six to eight interventions and they are responsible for the design of the interventions, the pretests and posttests, and data analysis. The entire process generally takes place over the course of the year. Below are some examples of action research projects that include an LSM strategy to improve a classroom situation: • •

• • •

Teaching learners to set smart goals to increase their self-efficacy; students participating in test design: a step forward for alternative assessment. Using task analysis to improve the reading skills of English language learners. Does teaching task analysis of academic lectures (e.g. What is the structure of a lecture? What kind of linguistic features are used? What kind of vocabulary is used?) improve the listening comprehension of these lectures? Goal setting, task analysis and genre analysis: three strategies to guide students to be more effective readers. The effect of the self-assessment cycle in the literal reading comprehension of high school students. The use of a self-collection vocabulary strategy to enhance the vocabulary learning of A1 English as a foreign language (EFL) students.

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Complete research projects are available at https://intellectum.unisabana.edu.co (links to Trabajos de Grado, Posgrado, Maestría en Didáctica del Inglés para el Aprendizaje Auto-Dirigido). The work of each research team builds a learning community that enriches the teachers’ experiences as they share insights and fi ndings. For example, they fi nd it very helpful to compare the impact of their LSM strategies across several different teaching contexts. Impact on teachers’ planning practices

For some in-service teachers their action research projects demonstrated clearly that they were able to design, evaluate and modify their LSM lessons. Given these positive results, we note that when teachers receive extended a continual scaffolding from knowledgeable counselors, they are able to incorporate LSM strategies into their lesson planning with great success. The next section offers ways of presenting two strategies to inservice teachers in order to help them. Teaching Two Key Strategies of Learner Self-management

This section focuses on just two strategies of planning: problemidentification/problem-solution (PI/PS) and SMART goal setting. In our teacher training, we have found these to be the easiest to teach; they quickly enable the users to focus on the learning process as well as to understand ways to address their issues. The two are interrelated, since one way to identify a goal is by noticing one’s problems. Equally, using SMART goal setting to establish measurement criteria enables the user to identify and monitor problems, as well as to evaluate afterwards their success at addressing them and perhaps think of other ways of tackling them. Strategy 1: Problem-identification and problem-solution strategy

We present the PI/PS strategy as a starting point that will facilitate the incorporation of LSM procedural strategies into lesson planning. Frequently, teachers search for strategies or techniques to improve their teaching by using ‘free lesson plans’ websites or publishers’ sites offering the best tips to improve a class, or by consulting a colleague, or in less frequent cases by reading a research report. It might be more productive for teachers if they observed their own classrooms to determine what their students’ learning problems are and what changes their teaching requires to support their students’ learning processes and improve their teaching practices. What this means is that in addition to being experts in their subject matter, teachers should also be knowledgeable about what

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learning implies and recognize that each one of their students learns in a different manner. So, rather than just reading and talking about new pedagogical ideas, teachers should reflect on what they observe in their own classrooms in order to be able to recognize problematic situations that deserve change, and seek out opportunities to improve their daily teaching practice (adapted from Darling-Hammond, 1998). As a starting point, teachers can focus on specific problems they have in teaching a particular skill, content or system and then consider possible solutions. PI/PS was first detailed in Chamot et al. (1999) who described it as part of metacognition for students, and Rubin (2001, 2005) who later incorporated it to apply to all of the LSM processes. Using the PI/PS strategy as a ‘systematic framework’ allows teachers to clearly define recurrent problematic classroom situations, analyze the causes of these problems and consider to what extent their teaching strategies actually fit their students’ language knowledge and degree of SDL skills; in other words, by applying PI/PS teachers are monitoring and evaluating their teaching performance. Once they become aware that not every teaching strategy works for the same group of students, teachers become more flexible in adapting their teaching style to better fit their learners’ needs, interests and learning styles. Teaching thus becomes a very dynamic process that keeps its actors alive and in constant change. It is clear that continuously looking for problems and solutions may not be an easy task and can affect the teachers’ ‘comfort level’ that using the same lesson plan over and over again gives. In order to keep an organized record of their teaching approach, we have developed the protocol in Figure 15.1 to help in-service teachers identify their teaching problems. Teacher protocol for PI/PS Use this protocol to: • systematically monitor and evaluate your teaching performance; • determine to what extent your teaching strategies actually fit your learners’ knowledge and their degree of self-directed learning; • pinpoint what changes you need to make and where your teaching has improved; • keep organized records of your teaching practice. Teacher: Institution:

Course: Date:

What problems did you have in teaching a particular skill in your most recent class? What did you do to address that problem? Did it work? How do you know it worked?

If it did not work, what else did you do? Did that work? How did you know? Can you think of some other solutions to your problem that might work?

Figure 15.1 Teacher protocol for problem identification/solution

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The frequency of using this protocol depends on how often the teacher introduces new material and then uses it as an instrument to evaluate their own performance. With some adaptation, depending on the learners’ age and degree of independence, this same protocol could also be used by the learners themselves later on to guide them in the process of becoming more aware of their learning process and hence more autonomous – for example, by replacing ‘teaching’ with ‘learning’ in the question ‘What problems did you have in teaching a particular skill in your most recent class?’ Becoming aware of their own difficulties and reflecting on ways of addressing them is a vital starting point to not only relying on teacher assessment but also taking responsibility for monitoring and evaluating their own progress. Strategy 2: SMART goal setting to improve language lesson planning

The SMART goal strategy (see Locke & Latham, 1990) is well documented in the literature in several fields ranging from management, health and personal development to education, where it is discussed as a useful tool for language students to help them acquire LSM skills. Focus on SMART goals has been shown to increase student motivation by fostering feelings of greater self-efficacy, resulting in increased language learning (Abe et al., 2014). However, little mention is made of its use by language teachers while planning their lessons, although O’Neill and Conzemius (2006) do document its use in general education situations. In the next section, we suggest that, since SMART goal setting serves as a useful monitoring tool not only for students but also for teachers, they should consider using this strategy in their lesson planning. In so doing, they will better understand how to help their students learn how to use SMART goal setting more effectively themselves. Definition of SMART goals

Since our defi nition of SMART is different from some others, here is the one we use: S stands for specific, M for measurable, A for achievable, R for relevant and T for time-based. We have found that Specifi c and Measurable criteria reinforce each other since people often set quite general goals at fi rst. However, once teachers or students come up with a measurement or way to assess achievement of their goal, they often realize that they must revise their goals, making them much more specific. The Achievable criterion requires that teachers consider whether they have the time and knowledge to achieve their goal within the set Timebased period. Finally, Relevant involves consideration of whether the goal is one that is important to the person setting the goal. Of course, both teachers and students need to set goals that are SMART for them

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personally. Often they tend at fi rst to state several long-term or complex goals, but in order to be able to apply goals effectively it is recommended that users break them down into one goal at a time. That way, it is much easier to apply the SMART goal measurement criteria and determine whether the goal is actually achieved. As an illustration of the detail we expect in setting SMART goals, Table 15.1 provides an example developed with the help of one of the student teachers as part of an action research project. There are several benefits for teachers in using SMART goals setting as part of their lesson planning. It enables teachers to defi ne and clarify what they can actually expect from their students and from themselves. The measurement feature of SMART goals facilitates teacher observation and monitoring of themselves and their students to determine more specifically which teaching strategies and materials work for which students and, when they do not work, encourages reflection on what other teaching strategies or materials might be needed. It also sets time limits so that a teacher can track how long it takes their students to accomplish the goals that they set. Of course, their SMART goals should be linked to the students’ learning goals.

Table 15.1 Real-life SMART goal setting example Question(s)

Answer(s)

Specific

What’s my specific goal?

Lose 8 pounds in my stomach.

Measurable

How am I going to measure it? The measure should be something I can observe myself.

Measure my waist and note my weight today and then see what it is in a month.

Achievable

What abilities do I need to reach my objective? Do I have them?

Persistence and discipline. I have 50% of these abilities.

If I lack ability, what can I do to get it?

I lack discipline. What I can do is to establish weekly goals, keeping in mind that my objective is to lose weight. I can also improve my meals at night and work out. I may need to find the right diet.

Relevant

Where and when would this achievement be useful for me?

This goal is related to my health and physical appearance. My shirts don’t fit and as a young executive, I need to pay attention to my presentation as this is an important element of my work.

Time based

Bearing in mind my age, my prior knowledge and experience and what I still need to know, how long will it take me to achieve my goal?

I will need two months.

Note: Thanks to Oscar Español, from Bogotá, Colombia for his answers.

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Examples of SMART goals

There are two kinds of goals: product and process, both of which are important. A product goal is related to the language – such elements as grammar, vocabulary, speaking, listening, reading and writing skills. An example of a teacher’s product goal is: ‘My students will be able to write a 100 word essay by describing their home town by next week.’ This goal is SMART because: it is Specific (100 words including adjectives to create a picture in the readers’ mind); it is Measurable (100 words and 10 adjectives that create a picture); it is Achievable (I will have enough class time to present the appropriate vocabulary for a descriptive essay); it is Relevant (it is part of the curriculum and my students are studying to be writers and need this information so that they can talk about themselves); and it is Timebased (in a week). It should be noted that different product goals could be developed for the structure, organization and mechanics of an essay. A process goal is related to the LSM learning process (learning to identify problems and solutions, learning to set SMART goals, learning to do task analysis, to monitor and evaluate their learning). Task analysis is a process whereby teachers consider the characteristics of the task and how their teaching can address these characteristics (see Rubin, 2015, for further elaboration). An example of a teacher’s process goal is: ‘My students will be able to set SMART goals after four classes focused on this strategy.’ This goal is SMART because: it is Specifi c (ability to state SMART goals); it is Measurable (I will use a scoring rubric to measure if my students’ goals are SMART; see Table 15.2 for an example of a SMART goal setting scoring rubric); it is Achievable (I have several teaching strategies in mind to present this process which I think will work); it is Relevant (I believe this strategy will help my students deal with language learning problems, and my curriculum requires promotion of learner strategies or learner self-direction and this will help the process); and it is Time-based (four classes focused mainly on this strategy). Appendix 1 provides a set of questions for teachers to ask themselves while developing a sequence of lesson plans so they can evaluate whether they have set SMART goals. This same protocol can be used by learners to evaluate their own SMART goals, although it may need some adjustment according to each learner’s age, proficiency level, and degree of autonomy. In Table 15.2 we offer a sample scoring rubric which can be used to evaluate SMART goal setting. Finally, here is some key practical advice we give our teacher students: •

•

Make sure you have both product and process goals. While textbooks and syllabi are often the source for product goals, the only way that teachers can begin to understand and facilitate the use of LSM is by including process goals in their lesson planning. Become aware of individual student reactions to your lessons and, if negative, consider other solutions. These could help you focus on what your goals might be.

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Table 15.2 Sample scoring rubric for SMART goal setting Criteria

Best (4)

3

2

Poor (1)

Specific

The goal is very specific.

The goal is not very specific or there are really several goals.

The goal is vague or not clear.

The goal is not a goal or no goal is given.

Measurable

Clear and explicit criteria for measurement are stated.

Criteria are not very clear or very explicit.

Criteria given are hard to apply.

No measure of stated goal is given.

Achievable

The learner provides specific evidence why the goal is achievable citing their own knowledge and time constraints.

The goal identifies steps to reach goal but no reasons why it is achievable.

The goal seems unachievable and unrealistic.

The goal is not achievable or realistic or no answer is given.

Relevant

The learner provides detailed reasons why the goal is relevant to his or her interests.

The learner provides sparse evidence why the goal is relevant and personal.

The learner says the goal is relevant but provides no evidence.

There is no indication that the goal is relevant or no answer is given.

Time based

A clear and realistic time for accomplishing the goal is stated.

A specific time for accomplishing the goal is stated but it doesn’t seem realistic.

The stated time is vague or unrealistic given the stated goal.

No time for accomplishing the goal is stated.

Source: Rubin (2015: 73).

•

•

•

•

Interview your students about what problems they are having; ask them to be as specific as possible. You can do this in several ways – by a survey or by asking them to write a journal focusing on their problems and solutions (see Rubin, 2003, for some questions to elicit PI/PS). See if there are patterns to these problems. Check to see if certain teaching strategies are not well received (by some/all students), check to see if certain kinds of activities do not engage some learners, check to see if you are regularly allowing learners to begin to make choices, and notice whether you regularly allow students to state their own goals. Consider discussing problems and solutions with your colleagues. It may well be that other teachers have similar problems and you may want to work on these collaboratively during the same period. Or maybe one of your colleagues has found a solution to a problem and you want to set that as a process goal. Include self-assessment of your lesson plan. Determine how you will know that your learners are beginning to be able to use the process goals you set. One way to do this is to use a rubric to measure your goal setting in lesson planning.

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Two Examples of Action Research

To exemplify how some teachers put this advice into place while conducting their action research, we cite two action research projects we directed in which in-service teachers, enrolled in the Unisabana Master’s program, used PI/PS and SMART goal setting in their lesson planning. They used PI/PS to identify classroom problems and then introduced SMART goal setting to determine the impact of this intervention. The design of these research projects included pre- and post-measurement of speaking and writing skills, measures of self-efficacy, and measures of SMART goal setting skills. The results were that students who did better in their SMART goal setting also improved their speaking, writing and self-efficacy. The fi rst example is the case of a high school teacher who observed that his students, who came from a low-income section of Bogotá, had trouble with conversations in English, and determined that he would introduce them to PI/PS and SMART goal setting. During the intervention the teacher also introduced his students to the structure of a conversation, so that instead of just memorizing it, they began to understand that conversations had a defi nite structure consisting fi rst of greetings, then some small talk, then optionally some more detailed items, and fi nally various ways to end a conversation. Students used the parts of a conversation as one of their goals each time. Having presented, modeled and scaffolded the LSM strategies, the teacher was delighted to fi nd  that he began making real progress in addressing this class’s problem. His students began to use English, not only in class but also to each other outside class, to the amazement of other teachers in this high school. Of particular interest here is that the teacher not only introduced these two strategies to the students but also used them in his own lesson planning. He set two SMART goals for his own lessons: a product goal (that his students should be able to speak more English) and a process goal (that they should be able to set SMART goals). The teacher’s SMART goals helped him consider how to present the material and determine appropriate evaluation criteria for both goals. He also used the PS/PI and SMART goal setting strategies to identify implementation issues with his classroom planning and adjusted his approach to the lessons. As an example of his growing understanding, the teacher noted in his journal: I have noticed that learners need to know how to develop their own journals, so I have to do it next class. Additionally, I have to encourage learners to set their SMART goals through considering … scaffolding. Also the importance of telling learners what is the objective of the class helps learners set their SMART goals. (L. Lopez, Teacher Notes, 18 October 2012, as cited in Jaramillo et al., 2013)

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The second project also introduced SMART goal setting, but in this case focused on improving the writing of short texts and increasing student motivation. The students in this project were in the 6th grade (ages 10–12), in Sincelejo, Sucre, a city located in the northeastern part of Colombia. The teacher reported that through the implementation of the LSM strategy his students were more motivated to improve their writing skills by establishing realistic and achievable goals, which later facilitated their self-monitoring. By using SMART goal setting for his own planning, he was able to scaffold his teaching so that students moved from dependent behaviors to more independent ones. The end result was that his students were able to improve their writing. In his research report completed in 2014 and available at the university repository at https://intellectum.unisabana.edu.co (links to Trabajos de Grado, Posgrado, Maestría en Didáctica del Inglés para el Aprendizaje Auto-Dirigido), the teacher reported that: the scaffolding through learning logs promoted students’ positive behavior towards the learning process of writing. It was found that participants made positive comments and responded to scaffolding instruction positively. Learning logs not only stimulated the students’ reflection on learning, but also attracted and increased their attention and interest to self-directness … (Perez Galvis, 2014: 55)

The teacher also reported that ‘goal setting [was] an important component of participants’ motivation, self-regulation, and achievement. It kept students focused on tasks and help[ed] them monitor their progress’ (Perez Galvis, 2014: 46). It is clear that both the projects described were of value not only to the students but also to their teachers, and that all of them learned a great deal about managing their own learning. Conclusion

This chapter has suggested that one productive way to improve teachers’ understanding of LSM strategies is by encouraging them to use the two metacognitive strategies of PI/PS and SMART goal setting in their lesson planning. We have argued that it is only when teachers can identify problems and set and monitor their own goals that they can enable their learners to do the same. We hope that our protocols can help both preand in-service teachers learn more about LSM. We have also designed a lesson plan protocol to foster LSM procedural strategies (see Appendix 2) which may help teachers establish SMART teaching goals for their lessons, focus on both process and product goals, identify and reflect on a teaching problem and consider potential solutions, and evaluate their teaching and lesson plans. Our lesson plan protocol also encourages teachers to continue being better learners.

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In detailing a teacher education program designed to encourage LSM, we have shown just how difficult teachers fi nd this but have also indicated how action research projects can help. We conclude by suggesting areas in which research might identify and address other possible ways forward. In so doing, we hope that we ourselves are modeling the problem identification/problem solution strategy. Research Questions

Based on our own research and experience, we suggest the following possible areas of future investigation: (1) In addition to the suggestions above, what additional information, activities and resources could help teachers integrate LSM into LLSI most effectively? (2) What are some of the contexts (for example, direct classroom teaching, self-access centers, online courses, self-access courses, etc.) in which this works best? (3) To what extent does encouraging student teachers to use PI/PS and SMART goal setting for their lesson planning result in an increase in their understanding of how to implement LSM? (4) After using these two strategies and other metacognitive strategies, do teachers become better learners? (5) Does the implementation of these two LSM strategies help students increase their self-efficacy and improve their language proficiency? References Abe, I.I., Ilogu, G.C. and Madueke, L.I. (2014) Effects of goal setting skills on students’ academic performance in English language in Enugu Nigeria. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research 3 (2), 93–99. Acero, C. and Bryan, N. (2011) Defining and Implementing Teaching Strategies to Foster Self-directed Language Learning in Colombia. Research Project Scaffold. Unpublished internal document, Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Universidad de La Sabana, Chía, Colombia. Borg, S. (2009) Introducing Language Teacher Cognition. Leeds: School of Education, University of Leeds. See http://www.education.leeds.ac.uk/research/fi les/145.pdf (accessed 7 July 2016). Chamot, A.U., Barnhardt, S., El-Dinary, P.B. and Robbins, J. (1999) The Learning Strategies Handbook. White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman. Chamot, A.U. (2009) The CALLA Handook: Implementing the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (2nd edn). White Plains, N.Y.: Pearson Education/ Longman. Clemente, A. and Rubin, J. (2008) Past, present and future of a Mexican self-access center: The case of the SAC at UBAJO. MEXTESOL 32 (2), 23–38. See http://www.workingnet.com/joanrubin/pdfs/ClementeRubin.pdf (accessed 7 July 2016).

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Cohen, A.D. and Weaver, S.J. (2006) Styles and Strategies-based Instruction: A Teachers’ Guide. Minneapolis, MN: Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, University of Minnesota. Darling-Hammond, L. (1998) Teacher learning that supports student learning. Educational Leadership 55 (5), 6–11. Ellis, G. and Ibrahim, N. (2015) Teaching Children How to Learn. Manchester: IATFL. Ellis, G. and Sinclair, B. (1989) Learning to Learn English: A Course in Learner Training. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grenfell, M. and Harris, V. (1999) Modern Languages and Learning Strategies in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Jaramillo, L., Castrillón, L. and López, L. (2013) Teaching learners to set smart goals to increase their self-efficacy. Master’s thesis, Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Universidad de La Sabana. Locke, E.A. and Latham, G.P. (1990) New directions in goal-setting theory. Current Directions in Psychological Science 15 (5), 265–268. Mendelsohn, D.J. and Rubin, J. (1995) A Guide for the Teaching of Second Language Listening. San Diego, CA: Dominie Press. O’Neill, J. and Conzemius, A., with Commodore, C. and Pulsfus, C. (2006) The Power of Smart Goals. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press. Oxford, R.L. (1990) Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. Boston, MA: Heinle/Thompson. Oxford, R.L. (2011) Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies: Selfregulation in Context (2nd edn). New York: Routledge. Oxford, R.L. (2017) Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies. New York: Routledge. Perez Galvis, L.A. (2014) Fostering self-effi cacy for descriptive writing in a group of participants from the sixth grade in A1 level through scaff olding strategies. Master’s thesis, Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Universidad de La Sabana. Rubin, J. (2001) Language learner self-management. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 11 (1 and 2), 25–27. Rubin, J. (2003) Diary writing as a process: Simple, useful, powerful. Guidelines (RELC Journal, Singapore) 25 (2), 10–14. Rubin, J. (2005) The expert language learner: A review of good language learner studies and learner strategies. In K. Johnson (ed.) Expertise in Second Language Learning and Teaching (pp. 37–63). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Rubin, J. (2010) Language teacher education: Challenges in promoting a learner-centered perspective. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses Special Issue on Learner Autonomy 61, 29–42. Rubin, J. (2015) Using goal setting and task analysis to enhance task-based language learning and teaching. Dimension 2015, 62–74. Rubin, J., Chamot, A., Anderson, N. and Harris, V. (2007) Intervening in the use of strategies. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: 30 Years of Research and Practice (pp. 141–160). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thompson, I. and Rubin, J. (1996) Can strategy instruction improve listening comprehension? Foreign Language Annals 29 (3), 331–342. See http://www.workingnet.com/ joanrubin/pdfs/CanStrategyInstructionImprove.pdf (accessed 16 June 2016). Vandergrift, L. and Goh, C.C.M. (2012) Teaching and Learning Second Language Listening: Metacognition in Action. New York: Routledge. Vieira, F. (2007) Teacher autonomy: Why should we care? Paper given at 41st International Annual IATEFL Conference, Aberdeen. Willing, K. (1989) Teaching How to Learn: Learning Strategies in ESL. Sydney: NCELTR.

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Appendix 1: Developing SMART Goals for Teachers Protocol

Use this protocol to help you: • • • •

understand the procedural skill of SMART goal setting; be more focused on your learners; acquire learning self-management strategies; increase your motivation as your teaching skills improve.

Appendix 2: Lesson Plan Protocol to Foster LSM Procedural Strategies

Use this protocol to • • • •

establish SMART teaching goals; focus on both process and product goals; identify and reflect on a teaching problem and consider potential solutions; evaluate your teaching and lesson plan.

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Teacher’s name:

Institution:

Class/course:

Number of students:

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Students’ language level according to CEF: A1 □ A2 □ B1 □ B2 □ C1 □ C2□ Language goal (product goal) This goal should be SPECIFIC and ACHIEVABLE. What part of your language curriculum or course will serve as the basis for this goal? What do you want your students to know and be able to do at the end of the lesson? What important content and concepts will students gain? What competences will they be able to meet at the end of the lesson? Do you have enough knowledge, time and resources to accomplish this goal?

Assessment of language goal What MEASURES or evidence will you use to assure yourself that your students have reached this lesson goal?

Learning to learn goal (process goal) This goal should be SPECIFIC and ACHIEVABLE. What learning to learn goal do you want your students to be able to use: SMART Goal Setting, Problem Identification and Problem Solution (appropriate learning strategies), Task Analysis (Task Purpose, Task Classification, Task Demands), Self-monitoring or Evaluating? Do you have enough knowledge, time and resources to accomplish this goal?

Assessment of learning to learn goal What MEASURES or evidence will you use to assure yourself that your students have reached this lesson goal?

Lesson topic What is the lesson about? Am I choosing the topic according to the language curriculum? The textbook? Or my students’ interests? Or the availability of materials at the appropriate level? How can I make it RELEVANT for my two goals?

TIME frame How many classes do you think you will need to present the lesson? Which days do you plan to present it? How much class time will this lesson take?

Materials and resources To be used by the teacher What kind of materials are you going to use to support your teaching (video, audio, worksheets, copies, online resources, etc.)? Are the materials appropriate to your students’ language and learning needs?

To be used by the students What materials are there that your students can choose from?

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Preparation Time allotted: __________ For language goals

For learning to learn goals

Tell students your language goal (what) and purpose (why) for this lesson Explain why the goal is relevant Brainstorm what students know about the language goal Ask learners to set their own language goal for this lesson Discuss ways for the learner to measure his/ her own goal Encourage them to check that the goal is SMART

Tell students your learning to learn goal (what) and purpose (why) for this lesson Explain why the goal is relevant Ask if they have ever set personal goals Brainstorm what students know about learning to learn goal Ask learners to set a learning to learn goal for this lesson Discuss ways for the learner to measure his/her own goal

Practice Time allotted: _____ *Find or create activities that help learners practice developing each goal

Expansion Time allotted: _____ *Use knowledge and skills gained with other similar materials *Use knowledge and skills with similar materials on a topic of their choice

Learner Self-Evaluation (Learner Problem Identification/Problem Solution) Time allotted: _____ Possible techniques to encourage self-evaluation: *Journaling *Focus groups * Students brainstorm how to self-evaluate their language and learning to learn goals *Finding or creating instruments/forms to help learners evaluate their ability with each goal *Suggest possible learning to learn strategies for learners to consider

My lesson plan evaluation/reflection on problems and solutions Once you have identified any problems in presenting this lesson, can you think of ways to address them? Using your evaluation criteria, did you accomplish both of your teaching goals? Did your activities help your students achieve the language goals proposed? Learning goals? What problem/s did you have in your lesson? What did you do to address it?/them? Did the way you addressed the problem work? What other solutions might work? Did the lesson take more time than initially planned? If yes, what do you think was the cause? It is helpful to incorporate these solutions in your next lesson plan. What problem(s) do you anticipate that your students may face in the lesson? Can you some think of some possible solutions to overcome it/them?

16 Teacher Education for Language Learning Strategy Instruction: Approaches and Activities Anna Uhl Chamot, Vee Harris, Carol Griffiths, Pamela Gunning, Martha Nyikos and Birsen Tutüniș

Introduction

This chapter is longer than the others in the book since a number of the authors were keen to contribute and the editors wished to draw on their considerable experience in teacher education. Although as teacher educators we were all committed to engaging teachers in Language Learning Strategy Instruction (LLSI), we had found that at times we had to start from scratch when it came to devising materials and activities for our work with both pre- and in-service teachers. It is interesting to note that this is a common problem across subject areas. For example, Lunenberg et al. (2016) observe that, although governments in Norway and Belgium have taken on some responsibility at a national level for supporting teacher educators, very often it is left to the individual institutions to decide how, or even if, they will help them prepare for their role. So we wanted not only to share those ideas that we have found most successful but also to outline some key principles underlying them so that colleagues could adapt them to their own contexts. The chapter begins by outlining some of the challenges language teachers encounter and specifically the obstacles that they face when embarking on LLSI. It then moves on to describe LLSI sessions in preservice courses, in-service workshops and short courses. It concludes with what we feel is the optimum form of teacher education, namely ways in which teachers and researchers can collaborate in and mutually benefit from classroom-based research on LLSI.

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In referring to examples contributed by the authors of this chapter, we fi rst identify the author by her full name, and subsequently by her fi rst name only. The activities are drawn from: (1) Sessions for prospective teachers studying at university level. Examples are from Vee Harris in the UK, and Anna Uhl Chamot and Martha Nyikos in the USA. (2) Short-term LLSI teacher workshops. Examples here are from Carol Griffiths and Birsen Tutüniş in Turkey, and Vee in the UK. (3) Martha Nyikos’ intensive, one-week, credit-bearing summer course for practising teachers at the University of Minnesota, which allows the course to be co-constructed between the teacher educator (Martha) and the teachers (participants). The course is based on Styles and Strategies-Based Instruction (SSBI) developed by Cohen and Weaver (2006). (4) Teacher development through collaboration with LLSI researchers. Examples here are from Pamela Gunning, Joanna White and Christine Busque in Canada, Anna in the USA, and Vee in the UK.

Challenges

Language teacher education and indeed teacher education in general has changed dramatically over the last 60 years. Key concerns emerging from the literature internationally include the reductionist nature of lists of teacher competencies (Mahony & Hextall, 2000), the restricted role of the universities in the teacher education process (Mutton et  al., 2016; Zeichner & Bier, 2014), and the limitations on teacher autonomy as a result of government-imposed curriculum and assessment guidelines and legislation (Beauchamp et  al., 2015). Policies are frequently outcome rather than process driven and, as Gereluk (2005) notes, this promotes competition rather than collaboration among subject areas. In the face of such challenges, it is hardly surprising that, as Rubin and Acero Rios note (this volume), teachers feel it is safer to rely on textbooks that develop the language itself rather than the strategies for learning it. Such a reliance may also stem from teachers’ own internal pedagogical beliefs, which need to be unpacked and reformulated. We have seen, for example, a strong argument for teachers to engage in reflective practice (Gkonou & Oxford, this volume) and self-management (Rubin & Acero Rios, this volume) if they are to develop self-regulation successfully in their learners. Teachers are also subject to external pressures from both parents and students who may perceive that the teachers’ role is to teach the language rather than strategies. Griffiths (2018), for example, found that some adult learners abandoned strategy instruction courses in favour of those competing courses which focused on grammar and vocabulary.

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Earlier we referred to the lack of provision for the professional development of teacher educators. We conclude this section with an interesting exception: the Quebec Education Programme (QEP), catering for the Francophone population which has little or no exposure to English apart from school, where it is taught as a school subject for one to two hours weekly. The QEP offers support specifically for LLSI. Strategies are integral to the curriculum and indeed are a key feature of all competencies; for example, students must use strategies to initiate and maintain oral interaction. There are also extensive resources to support teachers such as a LLSI handbook (http://www.eslinsight.qc.ca/) and a teacher training module (Lassire et al., 2002). It is somewhat discouraging to note that, in spite of these initiatives, certain issues remain unresolved. Although teachers must provide students with feedback on how their students use strategies, it was considered inappropriate to attach grades to strategy use. It was argued that strategy use is idiosyncratic and intricately linked to learning styles and the prime aim of strategy assessment and feedback should be self-regulation and lifelong learning. Unfortunately, the result is that there is no direct traction on teachers to integrate strategies into the lesson, since some of them feel that they do not have to teach them as they are not tested (Gunning & Turner, 2018). The issue this raises of how best to persuade busy teachers to embark on LLSI is one we will return to when we consider next some principles and approaches to pre- and in-service teacher education. Common LLSI Principles

We offer below some principles for teacher education based on our own self-evaluations and those of prospective teachers or practising teachers (see, for example, Gunning et al., 2016; Harris et al., 2001). When we came together to share our practice as teacher educators, although we come from a range of different countries, we found considerable similarity in the tasks and materials we had developed independently from one another. Four common principles seemed to underlie them. To some extent, these principles resonated with the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA), perhaps unsurprisingly since the rationale for CALLA is based on an understanding of the learning process, whether of the learners or of their teachers. The first principle is the value of direct, experiential learning. For students, it means undertaking a task and reflecting on the strategies they used to complete it. For the teachers (both pre-service and in-service) it means being confronted with a series of immersive, visceral simulations and tasks that place them directly in their students’ shoes. A lesson in an unfamiliar language, for example, can fire up within us the strategies we developed at one time for a language we have now mastered, but where we have possibly forgotten what allowed us to do so in the fi rst place. In addition, directly experiencing the

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frustrations and satisfactions of tackling a language reduces the tendency of teachers to become so focused on their teaching that they lose sight of their students’ learning processes and feelings. This first principle broadly relates to the CALLA phase of ‘raising awareness’ and is immediately followed up by ‘modelling’, when the participants share with their colleagues the strategies they used. Finally, the instructor models any they do not mention. These tasks and subsequent discussions are of limited value, however, unless they are followed up by reflection, where reactions to them are articulated and implications for classroom practice discussed. The importance of what Martha terms ‘metacognitive moments’ will be a recurrent theme of the chapter. The second principle is the shift from declarative knowledge (knowing that you have certain valuable strategies at your disposal and what each strategy entails) to procedural and conditional knowledge (knowing how to use them and when). This ‘practice’ phase allows teachers to translate the personal learning experiences they have just been through into instructional approaches for their students, where they plan language lessons that incorporate LLSI. Collaborating with colleagues to rehearse how best to integrate LLSI into long-term planning highlights the importance of a systematic approach to LLSI, rather than brief explanations of strategies delivered at random. The third principle is the importance of self-evaluation. Just as learners must assess their own performance and strategy use, teachers need to learn to evaluate and improve their LLSI lessons. To do so means assessing the impact on the learners, often as part of a shared dialogue with them. Identifying the effectiveness of the LLSI may be important in persuading students and teachers alike, even if it is only putting up a bar chart showing students’ vocabulary test results before, during and after they have worked on their memorization strategies (see the example of one of the teachers in Grenfell & Harris, 1999). The fourth principle underlies the other three: a supportive, unthreatening and collaborative environment is essential if both new and even experienced teachers are to question their beliefs and experiment with unfamiliar approaches to teaching. Often colleagues, more than the teacher educator, can be the greatest resource. Just as learners often follow their peers’ recommendations about strategy use more than the teacher’s, so prospective teachers are often more willingly convinced by each other’s experiences and opinions. From Principles to Practice

In this section, the authors of the chapter provide specific examples of LLSI teacher development activities that they have found successful either in pre-service teacher preparation or in-service teacher professional development or both. The contexts can be viewed as on a continuum, moving from ‘one-off’ workshops to intensive courses over a series of weeks and

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culminating in what we believe is often the most effective form of teacher professional development, namely teachers and researchers working alongside each other to implement LLSI and assess its impact. That said, teachers are very busy people, with multiple demands on their time and energy. As a result, short-term workshops may still have a useful role to play. Similarly, the curriculum of language teacher education programmes is overcrowded and, as a result, teacher educators may only be able to devote a limited number of sessions to LLSI. There are, of course, obvious differences between teachers-in-preparation and practising teachers with years of experience. A clear advantage for practising teachers is that they can immediately put the ideas into practice in their classrooms and evaluate the impact. However, prospective teachers in university settings have the benefit of having more time to read about LLSI and discuss it with their classmates and instructors. Nevertheless, as is evident below, sometimes the same activity can be used for both, although the teacher educator may have different expectations for the responses from the participants. The examples below are presented according to the CALLA headings. While perhaps replicating the ‘top-down’, teacher-centred model discussed in Gu’s chapter, using the CALLA phases has the advantage of offering participants a coherent, organizing structure as they begin to understand what strategies are and how to develop them. More work is needed, however, to identify teacher education activities that will support them in moving on to the more flexible, collaborative model described by Coyle in Chapter 4. To recognize the differences in context, the CALLA phases are subdivided under separate headings for pre-service and in-service teachers. Providing a selection of tasks under each heading allows readers to choose those that best meet their own particular situation. On the other hand, there is some loss of continuity as we do not follow one particular teacher educator’s activities through all the CALLA phases. 1. Raising awareness phase

The purpose of this phase is not only to elicit the participants’ prior knowledge about their own learning strategies but also to encourage them to reflect on whether they have ever considered their students’ learning strategies before and what, if anything, they have observed. Pre-service teacher preparation

Anna, Vee and Pamela all begin their sessions by putting the prospective teachers in the students’ shoes. Anna explains how she encourages them to discuss a recent everyday challenge, how they have solved it and the learning strategies that helped. By way of an example, she describes a class in salsa dancing in which she initially felt totally lost, but made

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effective use of strategies like positive self-talk (affective strategy of ‘I can do this if I try’) and selective attention (‘watch the teacher carefully when she changes from one step to another’). Vee presents prospective teachers with a very simple child’s poem in Dutch to translate within five minutes. When they fi nd (to their surprise) that they can do this, they discuss in pairs how they managed it. This means they start to think about and share strategies such as looking at the picture accompanying the poem for clues, identifying cognates and using knowledge of text type. The debriefi ngs after practical tasks enable participants to reflect on what they have learned and the classroom implications. Vee also directs them to the CARLA website (http:// carla.umn.edu/strategies/sp_grammar/), which is again illustrative of how students can benefit from sharing their strategies. Although this web resource focuses on university students’ Spanish grammar strategies, the ideas can be applied to many other languages and to many levels of proficiency. As we shall see when we discuss the modelling phase, Pamela also uses a task in an unfamiliar language, in this case a story told in Russian. In-service professional development

Martha takes advantage of the ‘lead-in time’ before her course to require the participants to read three research articles on LLSI and view three videos of other teachers in action. She uses various activities to raise awareness particularly of the participants’ memorization strategies, since memorization plays such a key role in language learning. For example, they play the Kim game in groups where they have two minutes to look at 20 objects on a table and then write them down from memory; some are everyday objects but some are culturally unfamiliar. One member of the group is an ‘ethnographer’, charged with observing everything including the strategies used to memorize objects and even when the participants pause or look around. After two minutes’ observation and two minutes’ individual recall on paper, the participants return to the objects to see what they forgot and again the ethnographer records their reactions. The groups then discuss with their ethnographer if they observed their strategies correctly, which brings home to these practising teachers that they cannot by mere observation know all the strategies their learners use. The participants also share why some memorization strategies were more successful than others (for example, weaving the items into a story) but most importantly how posttask debriefi ngs add to students’ metacognitive awareness and strategic approaches. Martha believes that it is important to leave space after any task for what she calls the ‘metacognitive moment’, where the prospective teachers can reflect on the strategies that helped them and self-prescribe how they can learn better. She provides extensive examples of how they can build such ‘Metacognitive moments’ into their lesson plans, so that their students can learn to analyze their strategies and

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to make the link between the tasks they are undertaking and the strategies that will help them. Another of Martha’s activities focuses on affective strategies. She asks the participants to listen to her reading a newspaper article called ‘Avid Sports Fans’ and write down at the outset on a scale of 1–5 how motivated they are, with 1 indicating low motivation. The article turns out to be about hormonal changes in sports fans according to whether their team is winning or losing. Martha stops after each paragraph and asks the participants to observe whether their motivation level has changed, heightening their awareness that motivation fluctuates even within an activity. They also ‘take their emotional temperature’ during the task so they experience some of the anxiety their students may feel. A further activity is to summarize orally for a classmate the article in a language that they have not yet fully mastered and to note what strategies they use to get their points across. Afterwards during the debriefi ng many note how perseverance to express their meaning brought out strategies they had never thought of. With this comes the realization that beyond the cognitive strategies, developing social and affective strategies which are a good fit for a task can take a concerted effort. They go on to compare their listening and speaking strategies to the strategies expected for their particular learning style (Cohen & Weaver, 2006). Working with practising teachers offers Carol and Birsen the opportunity to encourage teachers to use the English Language Learning Strategy Inventory (Griffiths, 2003) to assess their own and then their students’ strategy usage and rate its effectiveness. The items include many out-of-class activities such as watching TV and movies and writing letters in English. They make the most of the continuity between workshop sessions by asking teachers to use the time between them to try out a range of activities in their classrooms and discuss at the next session how they affected the learning outcomes. 2. Presentation/modelling phase

The purpose of this phase is not only to model the thinking processes involved in using strategies but also to identify ways to make the processes accessible to learners, whatever their level of attainment. Pre-service teacher preparation

Pamela immediately follows up the video of a story told in Russian in the awareness-raising phase by drawing parallels with the classroom. Once the prospective teachers have listened to the story and discovered the comprehension strategies they used to understand it, she describes how she used a similar task with a Grade 3 class. After she had told the pupils a simple story in English, they came up with strategies that were comparable to the prospective teachers’ strategies. To indicate to the participants

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Figure 16.1 Strategy poster for young students

the degree of scaffolding young learners require, she shows them a classroom poster similar to that in Figure 16.1, which she made for the Grade 3 class, in which her students’ strategies were described in very simple words in the target language with accompanying pictures. In-service professional development

Like Pamela, Martha constantly relates ‘hands-on’ tasks to the classroom implications. She illustrates how language learners may need

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guidance on task-appropriate strategies, since strategizing is so new to them that they can readily feel defeated, as in this example: Teacher: What do you do if you still can’t learn something? Student: I stare at it.

Martha’s questioning techniques model how participants can encourage their students to fi nd a cluster of strategies that fit the task and foster those ‘metacognitive moments’. For example, ‘how did that help us remember the phrase?’ ‘What do you do if that is too cumbersome?’ ‘What other things helped you comprehend?’ ‘What will you do next time?’ 3. Practice phase

In this phase of a session or course, the ‘hands-on’ tasks are no longer similar to those used with students. Rather, the purpose is to provide teachers with opportunities to practise integrating LLSI into their language lessons so it becomes part and parcel of the way they plan their lessons. Pre-service teacher preparation

All the contributors provide scaffolding in one form or other to support the lesson planning process. Appendix 1 presents the headings of a possible lesson planning template, drawing on those used by Anna and Martha. At this stage, the template is quite directive and ‘top-down’ in order to support the participants in coming to grips with the idea of strategy instruction. However, before offering the participants the template, they should be encouraged to try to devise their own headings independently so that they at least appreciate the issues involved. At a later stage, once they have developed in confidence, these new teachers may move on to the more flexible, collaborative LLSI model described by Gu in Chapter 2 and by Coyle in Chapter 4. Martha suggests that teachers write into their plans how they will guide their learners, using metacognitive prompts such as: • • •

How can I help myself remember this new vocabulary item/conjugation/sentence pattern? What already-learned information can I link it to? Does this remind me of something in its appearance or rule that I can use to categorize it or associate with it?

Aware that all too often prospective students confuse teaching strategies with learning strategies, Pamela asks them to use what they have learned so far to define the differences between the two areas – for example, teacher as compared to student-initiated. They then draw on these

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Figure 16.2 Matching cards to descriptions

distinctions to identify the features of strategic teaching. Along with Anna and Martha, Pamela’s students have to microteach a LLSI lesson to their peers. To help them prepare for it, in Step 1 they first choose a strategy and then match it to possible descriptions on cards, as in Figure 16.2. In Step 2, they practise thinking aloud to demonstrate the use of the strategy or cluster of strategies before fi nally microteaching it. A checklist of LLSI lesson planning features to look out for when feeding back their observations to their peers can help them prepare, as discussed in the section on the Self-evaluation phase below. In-service professional development

Vee offers the participants some initial scaffolding for lesson planning through a series of steps for fostering strategies for checking written work, based on activities devised by Linsey Hand, one of her ex-student teachers. Vee starts by asking the teachers to write a short description in a language that they have not yet fully mastered. They are asked to check their work carefully and then they brainstorm how they went about it. This fi rst step is used to raise their awareness that checking written work is far from being the simple process they assumed it to be. They discover how a number of strategies are involved such as reading it once for meaning (‘Does it make sense?’), then again for spelling (‘Does it look right?’), and even once more for grammar (‘What are my most frequent mistakes?’). They are asked to reflect on how they would integrate these

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Table 16.1 Matching activities to CALLA phases Match the activities to the stages in the CALLA cycle e.g. 1B (1) Awareness raising

B

(2) Modelling: – ‘spot my most frequent errors?’ – ‘does it look right?’ (3) Practice (4) Evaluation

strategies into a sequence of lessons. To support them, in Step 2 they are given a series of activities but in the wrong order such as: (A) students are offered a choice of several spellings (for example, beleive/ believe, tomorrow/tomorow) and must choose the correct one; (B) teacher asks students to check their partner’s written essay about their recent holidays and the class brainstorms afterwards the strategies involved in checking written work; (C) teacher puts up examples of the five most frequent errors from recent homework. Students must not only correct them in pairs but also identify which are the errors they most frequently make and the strategies they use to correct them. They then match these activities to the appropriate phases in the CALLA cycle (an extract is shown in Table 16.1). The scaffolding for the lesson planning is then withdrawn and in Step 3 the prospective teachers are simply given the CALLA phases and asked to devise their own activities and for a different skill area. Finally, they collaborate with a fellow teacher to develop other strategy-embedded activities, perhaps at a different level or for strategies they think would be useful for a particular class they are teaching. In Carol and Birsen’s follow-up workshops, teachers share the classroom activities that they have developed since the last time. One teacher explained how she used the game-based learning platform KAHOOT (https://kahoot.com/what-is-kahoot/), which involved students using their smartphones to create their own fun learning game using multiplechoice questions. It enabled the students to make use of their metacognitive strategies such as planning, monitoring and evaluating. Another teacher gave a writing class activity (a mini-presentation and group discussion) followed by a debriefi ng as an example of how to help students to articulate goals and develop strategies for achieving them. 4. Self-evaluation phase

At this stage in the sequence of activities or workshops, the participants discuss not only how to help their students evaluate their strategy

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use but also how to assess their own skill in teaching language learning strategies and its effectiveness in enhancing students’ language learning. Pre-service teacher preparation

One of the advantages of pre-service teacher education is that prospective teachers have the opportunity to watch experienced teachers’ lessons. During Anna’s course, they spend 30 hours observing one or more language teachers and writing a journal recounting their experiences. The journal describes whether and how the language teacher teaches strategies, as well as discussing an interview with one of their students, including questions about the student’s language learning strategies. The experience helps the prospective teachers shift away from a subjective evaluation of their own teaching with its tendency to focus only on their ‘performance’ and whether they ‘got through’ their lesson plan. By analyzing why an LLSI lesson did or did not work and understanding more about the differences between pupils, the participants develop the ability to focus on the impact of their lessons on the learner, rather than on their own feelings. Vee’s prospective students also have a written assignment to complete, choosing a project from a number of topics, including learner strategies. The project involves them in planning and teaching a series of LLSI lessons, in evaluating pupils’ responses, and in writing up their experiences in a coherent, reflective account. They are encouraged to use a range of resources for such evaluations, including tests, interviews, questionnaires and their own field notes. Again this helps them to understand the learners’ perspective, to assess the impact of their LLSI lessons and to prepare them for their own action-based research. In-service professional development

In both pre- and in-service settings, Martha scaffolds an assignment by first asking the students if anyone has strategies that they have thought of that might help other students tackle it (Nyikos, 1991). She then asks them what they do when they are: (1) looking at an assignment and deciding what to study; (2) making notes; (3) revising for a test in the same area. In Step 2 they keep their answers and check to see if they actually do what they say they do for their next assignment – for example, what they do to combat frustration. In Step 3 they rewrite their original summary to note more accurately how they study and what is or is not effective. The participants in her course also keep a reflective e-journal to track their reactions to the activities they have experienced and how they will apply it in their own teaching and Martha provides them with regular online feedback.

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As we have seen in the Kim game described above, the use of an ethnographer shows the participants that they cannot know all the strategies students use simply by observing them during group work. So Martha suggests that participants encourage their students, just before handing in a test, to make a note next to those items where they think they were successful and explain why, and next to others where they think they were unsuccessful. These statements are worth extra points, which encourages strategy selfevaluation and offers a unique window for the teacher to understand which successes and failures are consciously processed by their students. For example, some strategies are quite useful in themselves, but fail the learner because they are not a good fit to the task or should be coupled with other strategies. 5. Expansion/transfer phase

The purpose of this phase is to help teachers include opportunities for transfer in their LLSI. Pre-service teacher preparation

Anna’s prospective students work in grade-level groups to brainstorm activities for transferring strategies to new tasks and new contexts that they think would be effective with their students. They then try them out and report back to the class on how well they worked and what changes they made to improve the activity. For example, one participant asked pupils to interview parents about the learning strategies they used when they were in school. Probably the most impressive project was an illustrated learning strategies book containing individual pupils’ descriptions of how they used learning strategies in both language and other school and life tasks. This book was intended to be passed down to the pupils in the teacher’s class next year to help them learn how to be better language learners. In-service professional development

In order to model the way learners can transfer strategies to address their own particular learning problems and to set themselves realistic goals, whether within or outside the language classroom, Vee ends a workshop for teachers by suggesting that they share in pairs their thoughts under the following headings: • • •

What can I do in the classroom next week? What can I do after some preparation, perhaps over the holidays? What can only be done after a discussion with the rest of the language department?

Reflections

Just like the participants in our courses, we have spent time evaluating our own teaching and reflecting on possible ways forward. Although

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overall feedback has been very positive, it seems clear that language teachers, just like language learners, need more than a brief introduction to strategy instruction (Harris et al., 2001). Both pre- and in-service language teachers have commented that they would like not only longer classes and/or workshop sessions, but also follow-up discussions in which they can share with their peers any difficulties encountered and how they can be addressed. This need to share successes and disappointments probably applies to any initiative in language teaching (or indeed teaching in general). It is all the more important given that so much teacher education is school based and the role of the mentor in supporting and then assessing a prospective teacher’s classroom performance has grown (see, for example, Hagger et al., 1993; Imig et al., 2011; Jones, 2001). Action-based research projects carried out as part of a Master’s degree, for example, are clearly of value (see Grenfell & Harris, 1999; Rubin & Acero Rios, this volume), but in the next section we explore what is perhaps an even more effective solution to the need for ongoing teacher education. As Gu points out (Chapter 2): Instead of the traditional unidirectional workshops for teachers, teachers need to be provided with sustained opportunities to set their goals, access resources, situate research-based knowledge within their own contexts of work, monitor and reflect on the outcomes, and be given contextualized support. How Language Teachers Contribute to LLSI Research

As researchers as well as teacher educators, we are convinced that studying possible promising approaches to teaching language learning strategies is best conducted with real students in second or foreign language (L2/FL) classrooms. This type of research involves extensive collaboration with the teachers who usually carry out the LLSI. So we conclude the chapter by describing a number of such research activities undertaken by several of the authors, which perhaps provide a way of bringing together theory and practice. The fi rst three examples are of researcher–teacher collaborations involving Grade 6 (ages 11–12) Francophone students from Quebec, Canada, and show how such collaboration benefited pedagogical practices. When Pamela asked the English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher to identify a pedagogical problem, her reply was that it was difficult to get Francophone students to interact in English (Gunning & Oxford, 2014). The LLSI project addressed this, teaching the students a selection of communication strategies. However, reflecting on the initial phase of the LLSI, Pamela and the teacher observed that when they had asked the students which strategies they had used for the task, the students tended to list them off parrot-fashion. So during subsequent post-task reflections after each activity, the teacher insisted on

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requiring specific details of how they used the strategies and when. For example: Student: I used ‘Ask for help or clarification’. Teacher: Who did you ask for help? (name of student) Student: Teacher: What English expressions did you use to ask for help? (giving an example) Student:

In the second project, the aim was to enable students to transfer reading strategies across the L1 and L2. Because it was designed to dovetail with the school’s cross-curriculum project to focus on reading strategies, the school’s administrators invited the researchers to planning meetings, thereby highlighting the relevance of their research to all the staff. Findings based on video-recordings, interviews, questionnaires and observations revealed some of the difficulties of cross-language collaboration, including the ESL and French teachers’ lack of awareness of each other’s curriculum, lack of a shared L1/L2 strategy terminology and lack of time to discuss together. For a follow-up study, the researchers therefore conducted a curriculum analysis which identified where the L1 and L2 overlapped, and created a common strategy classification for both English and French (see Gunning et al., 2016). The administration responded to the time issue, giving the teachers the necessary space to work together. The issue of lack of time for L1 and L2 teachers to collaborate also emerged from Vee’s project described later in this section (Harris, 2008). In the third and ongoing L1/L2 teacher collaboration study, Gunning and White created a common L1/L2 teacher LLSI planning template (see Gunning et al., 2016) to facilitate consistency in planning and teaching. Interviews with the teachers indicate how it facilitates planning together through understanding what each other is doing when. The fourth example of researcher–teacher collaboration is Anna’s Project for Accelerated Literacy (PAL) conducted with L1 low-level literacy high school students (ages 14–19) in ESL classes in Washington, DC (Chamot, 2000). These students were recent immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries in Mexico and Central and South America, who had been classified by their schools as ‘low-literacy’ because of interrupted and limited educational opportunities in their home countries. Twelve ESL teachers collaborated in the credit-bearing course over its three years, which involved weekly classes on, for example, L2 literacy development, instructional techniques and LLSI. The curriculum devised for the students was a collaborative effort between teachers and researchers, who managed to bring together different (sometimes conflicting) ideas about literacy development as expressed by the teachers. A consensus was reached so that the lessons included both phonics-based and whole-language components and, for example: • •

Content: the themes, topics, and genres of each reading selection; Patterns: grammatical structures and forms;

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• • •

Writing: mechanics, journals, stories; Reading: literal and inferential comprehension, story elements; Language learning strategies: identifying patterns, cooperating with peers, using cognates, predicting, making inferences, planning, monitoring, self-evaluation.

These mutually developed components were organized into a lesson structure based on CALLA (Chamot, 2009). Each participating teacher’s classroom was observed weekly over a full year of instruction; field notes identified what was taught, student responses and engagement, and the degree of fidelity to the jointly developed curriculum. Teachers learned to identify and teach language learning strategies explicitly through a combination of the weekly classes and debriefi ng with researchers after classroom observation. The result was that by the reading posttest, students could describe, in varying degrees of detail, their thinking processes before, during and after reading a story, and identify the strategies they had used to comprehend it. One of the other important outcomes of this study was that the participating teachers realized the value of LLSI and felt secure in their ability to continue teaching language learning strategies. Our final example shows how the process of learning and professional development is not one-way and the researcher learns as much as the teachers. Vee (Harris, 2007) describes her project to teach 12-year-old students to transfer reading and listening strategies across the L1 and L2. She was baffled why, after an initial promising start, the students seemed to lose interest. It took the two teachers involved in the project to work out from their own observations and from feedback from the students that the students were experiencing cognitive overload. In an attempt to make the reading relevant, it had been decided to use authentic texts from teenage magazines. However, the combination of using difficult material coupled with too many strategies being introduced at once had left the students frustrated. It was the teachers who realized how to rectify the situation by backtracking, so that lessons now began with brief activities to practise a small cluster of strategies with familiar coursebook material and substantial scaffolding. It was only when students were confident with these that they were presented with authentic material to work on independently in their groups. These examples demonstrate how researchers and classroom teachers can collaborate to make important contributions to our understanding of LLSI. They highlight how change, whether in teaching or learning, requires extended periods of time, opportunities to refl ect and the flexibility to backtrack, rethink and then move forward again. Such collaboration will be essential to rise to the challenge of Plonsky’s call in this volume to justify and describe the nature of our LLSI interventions.

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Conclusions and Future Research Directions

The authors in this chapter have shared their experiences as teacher educators in LLSI. They have offered examples of activities that can help language teachers at a range of levels to build an understanding of how and why to integrate LLSI into their lessons. Such an understanding is increasingly important if, in the current climate of school-based teacher education, teachers are to adopt the role of mentor, increasingly taking on the responsibilities of the teacher educator. It is clear, however, that our knowledge base about teacher education for LLSI needs to be expanded. Many research issues arise, but as a starting point we would like to suggest investigations of the following questions in order to help teacher educators prepare both future and practising language teachers to enable their learners to become more strategic in their acquisition of a new language: (1) What are the perceptions of language teachers who have successfully integrated LLSI into their classrooms? Specifically, which aspects of their teacher education had the most impact on their willingness and ability to teach language learning strategies? (2) How can teacher educators support teachers to move on from the teacher-centred CALLA model, as they gain in confidence, to the more flexible, collaborative model described by Coyle in Chapter 4? (3) If strategy use is a complex and individual process which does not lend itself to formal assessment, are there alternatives to assessment which would give it high status in teachers’, students’ and parents’ eyes? (4) What are the teacher education policies and practices for LLSI for both pre- and in-service language teachers in a representative sample of international contexts? (5) What online resources for LLSI are available to language teachers (for example, videos of teachers carrying out LLSI), and how best can they be shared? References Beauchamp, G., Clarke, L., Hulme, M., et  al. (2015) Teacher Education in Times of Change. Bristol: Policy Press. Chamot, A.U. (2000) Literacy characteristics of Hispanic adolescent immigrants with limited prior education. In Proceedings of a Research Symposium on High Standards in Reading for Students from Diverse Language Groups: Research, Practice and Policy (pp. 182–202). Washington, DC: US Department of Education, Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs. Chamot, A.U. (2009) The CALLA Handbook: Implementing the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (2nd edn). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education/ Longman. Cohen, A.D. and Weaver, S.J. (2006) Styles and Strategy-based Instruction: A Teacher’s Guide. CARLA Working Paper Series. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition.

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Gereluk, D. (2005) Communities in a changing educational environment. British Journal of Educational Studies 53 (1), 4–18. Grenfell, M. and Harris, V. (1999) Modern Languages and Learning Strategies: In Theory and in Practice. London: Routledge. Griffiths, C. (2003) Patterns of language learning strategy use. System 31 (3), 367–383. Griffiths, C. (2018) The Strategy Factor in Successful Language Learning: The Tornado Effect (2nd edn). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Gunning, P. and Oxford, R.L. (2014) Children’s learning strategy use and the effects of strategy instruction on success in learning ESL in Canada. System 43, 82–100. Gunning, P. and Turner, C. (2018) The development of strategy assessment methods and tools for young language learners in classroom contexts. In R.L Oxford and C.M. Amerstorfer (eds) Language Learning Strategies and Individual Learner Characteristics: Situating Strategy Use (pp. 259–286). London: Bloomsbury. Gunning, P., White, J. and Busque, C. (2016) Raising learners’ awareness through L1-L2 teacher collaboration. Language Awareness 25 (1–2), 272–288. Hagger, H., Macintyre, D. and Wilkin, M. (1993) Mentoring: Perspectives on Schoolbased Teacher Education. Abingdon: RoutledgeFarmer. Harris, V. (2007) Exploring progression: Reading and listening strategy instruction with near-beginner learners of French. Language Learning Journal 35 (2), 189–204. Harris, V. (2008) A cross-curricular approach to ‘learning to learn’ languages: Government policy and school practice. Curriculum Journal 19 (4), 255–268. Harris, V., with Gaspar, A., Jones, B., Ingvadottir, H., Palos, I., Neuburg, R. and Schindler, L. (2001) Helping Learners Learn: Exploring Strategy Instruction in Language Classrooms across Europe. Graz: European Centre for Modern Languages. Imig, D., Wiseman, D. and Imig, S. (2011) Teacher education in the United States of America. Journal of Education for Teaching 37 (4), 399–408. Jones, M. (2001) Mentors’ perceptions of their roles in school-based teacher training in England and Germany. Journal of Education for Teaching 27 (1), 75–94. Lassire, M., Arsenault, J., Gunning, P. and Brook, J. (2002) Strategies for Success in ESL. Formation Continue. Quebec: Ministère de l’Education. Lunenberg, M., Murray, J., Smith, K. and Vanderlinde, R. (2016) Collaborative teacher educator professional development in Europe: Different voices, one goal. Professional Development in Education 43 (4). See http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080 /19415257.2016.1206032 (accessed 13 February 2016). Mahony, P. and Hextall, I. (2000) Reconstructing Teaching: Standards, Performance and Accountability. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Mutton, T., Burn, K. and Menter, I. (2016) Deconstructing the Carter Review: Competing conceptions of quality in England’s ‘school-led’ system of initial teacher education. Journal of Education Policy 32 (1), 14–33. Nyikos, M. (1991) Prioritizing student learning: a guide for teachers. In L. Strasheim (ed.) Focus on the Foreign Language Learner: Priorities and Strategies (pp. 25–39). Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook. Zeichner, K. and Bier, M. (2014) The turn toward practice and clinical experiences in US teacher education. Beitrage Zur Lehrerbildung (Swiss Journal of Teacher Education) 30 (2), 153–170.

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Appendix 1: LLSI Lesson Planning Template Background Language (s), attainment level, age of students: Brief description of teaching situation and previous lessons: Objectives Big idea: Content: including cultural. Language: what should students be able to do by the end of a lesson/sequence of lessons? Strategies: what are some (e.g. 1–3) of the strategies that students should be able to discover?/ practise?/use? and reflect on to complete the lesson tasks? Assessment opportunities for the above: Materials needed: be specific Sequence of 5 recursive steps: Preparation: How will I find out what students already know both in terms of language and strategies? Presentation: What is the best way to present this content so that students understand the Big Idea? How can I differentiate my instruction? Practice: How will students use the language and the strategies to achieve the objectives above? How will I encourage them to personalize their strategies and select the appropriate strategies for the task in hand? Evaluation: What is the best way for students to assess their own understanding of what they have learned including the Metacognitive Moment, e.g. ‘How has this lesson helped you to develop your own strategies?’ Expansion: How can I connect this lesson/unit to students’ own lives, cultures or other areas of study? My own self evaluation of the lesson: What did the students learn/fail to grasp? What needs to be revised next lesson to help them? What would I do differently next time I teach this?

17 What We Still Need to Learn about Language Learning Strategies Instruction: Research Directions and Designs Christine Goh

Introduction

This chapter examines issues arising both from previous chapters in this volume and from past research, and offers suggestions for future research efforts in the field of Language Learning Strategy Instruction (LLSI). It reviews the state of play of current LLSI research and discusses some considerations for broadening the scope of LLSI research as well as refi ning existing strands of enquiry to bring about a renewed agenda for LLSI. The authors in this volume continue the rich tradition of learner strategy scholarship by discussing not only the effects of LLSI but also the factors influencing it, innovative teaching approaches and materials development. Each chapter has made a unique contribution in the way it addresses one or more of these issues, offering various possibilities to language teachers and material writers for enhancing language learners’ experiences, and ideas for researchers carrying out interventions. Collectively, these chapters demonstrate that, more than ever, LLSI is relevant and critical to language instruction. They also point to the need for teachers to be clear about the principles of strategy instruction and creative in the way they are planned and delivered in the classroom and other learning spaces, such as online courses and self-directed learning beyond the classroom. In this chapter, I will further discuss these directions and suggest areas of LLSI research that require new and renewed attention. I will also further suggest that LLSI can benefit from a theoretical framework of the construct of metacognition. When the date is not provided, citations made refer to authors’ chapters in this volume. 262

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Learner Strategy Research

LLSI research is closely associated with descriptive studies of learners’ strategy use in that many of the interventional studies built on what earlier researchers discovered about the strategies that language learners used. For example, there is now rich second language (L2) research literature on the use of top-down and bottom-up strategies for improving and repairing reading comprehension as well as the use of monitoring strategies for reading (Aghaie & Zhang, 2012; Anderson, 1999; Macaro & Erler, 2008) and listening (Goh, 2002; Graham et al., 2010; Vandergrift, 2003). Good L2 writers frequently adopt strategies that help with planning and conceptualizing (Manchón et al., 2007), deal with uncertainty, and create opportunities for writing outside the classroom (Gordon, 2008). Vocabulary learning strategies are related to language proficiencies (Nyikos & Fan, 2007) and have been characterized by Gu (2003) as heavily influenced by personal learning styles, cultural conceptions of learning, differences in methods of instruction and the demands of vocabulary-learning tasks. Cultural (Oxford & Gkonou), pragmatic (Cohen) and grammar learning (Oxford et al., 2007; Pawlak) strategies are perhaps the most neglected areas of LLSI research, and urgent work is needed to provide a robust description of the strategies in these areas of learning and to further develop and assess the impact of the LLSI activities and materials for them. A fundamental consideration in the teaching of any competency or knowledge is an understanding of what that construct or knowledge domain entails. It is therefore crucial that LLSI is based on a set of sound theoretical principles. The way the construct of learner strategies is operationalized will guide instructional approaches and methods. Defi ning learning strategies consistently, however, remains one of the challenges in harmonizing the results of LLSI research and instructional approaches. Some researchers have explained learner strategies according to the broad concept of general patterns of mental behaviours whereas others have defi ned strategies according to a narrower notion of specific cognitive, metacognitive and social-affective behaviours. Researchers and authors in the earlier years used a number of nouns to describe strategies which reflected differing emphases on what strategies were and did: ‘techniques, tactics, potentially conscious plans, consciously employed operations, learning skills, cognitive abilities, language processing strategies and problem-solving procedures’ (Wenden, 1987a: 7). The LLSI literature also presents an array of strategy classifications and taxonomies consisting of generic language learning ones as well as language skill – and knowledge-specific – ones. In identifying strategies for strategy instruction, some experts have recommended a conception of strategies in terms of the key processes that learners needed to engage in. Chamot et al. (1999), for example, proposed the Metacognitive Model

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of Strategic Learning which consists of four metacognitive processes – planning, monitoring, evaluation and problem-solving – and learners were encouraged to work through these processes when engaging with challenging tasks. Conceiving strategic learning as broad metacognitive processes has found some support from recent modelling studies which indicate that cognitive and metacognitive strategies share some overlapping characteristics (Phakiti, 2008; Zhang et  al., 2014). In addition, Cohen suggested that pragmatic strategies may take on a cognitive, social, affective or metacognitive function depending on the nature of the interaction. While the issue with exact defi nitions has not been completely resolved, LLSI now benefits from more rigorous theorizing of the construct of strategies. Importantly, there is also consensus among many learner strategies scholars about the key characteristics of strategies that language learners use (Cohen, 2007). These include the degree of consciousness and attention, the complex nature of strategy use, the influence of internal and external factors, the complementarity of general and specific strategies, and the role of metacognition in managing strategy use. (See Gao, 2007 and Grenfell & Macaro, 2007, for a discussion of the claims and criticisms of LLSI.) Effects of LLSI

Attention on LLSI that began four decades ago has continued to this day with recent research giving renewed impetus to efforts from both teachers and researchers. The confidence among many teachers has been boosted by their own observations of positive changes in learners’ approach and attitude to learning, as well as research that indicates a positive relationship between strategy use and learner proficiency (Cohen, 2011; Oxford, 2011). Plonsky’s meta-analysis of 77 quantitative studies revealed relatively strong effects of LLSI on language learning for various contexts and targeted language skills. He noted the multi-faceted nature of LLSI and highlighted that positive effects were not always consistent across all contexts (for example, ESL versus EFL, classroom versus labbased, as well as education and proficiency levels), treatment characteristics (for example, types and number of strategies and duration of instruction) and targeted performance outcomes (for example, general L2 strategies, vocabulary, grammar and the four language skills). Plonsky (2011), however, noted that treatment characteristics were sometimes not described in sufficient detail and the rationale for them not explained. He further suggested a more fi ne-grained approach to LLSI research that examines interactions among more moderator variables such as learner characteristics, further emphasizing the call he had earlier made for LLSI researchers and practitioners to investigate the effects of LLSI in a theorized and informed manner.

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Types of strategies

There is noticeable unevenness in the types of strategies that LLSI researchers focused on. Plonsky reported that cognitive strategies were taught more often than metacognitive strategies, but research focusing on metacognitive strategy instruction showed larger effects. This is not surprising because metacognitive strategies enable learners to exercise greater control over their language learning and communication processes through planning, monitoring and evaluation. The importance of using metacognitive strategies can be seen in reading (Boulware-Gooden et al., 2007), writing (Bai et al., 2014; Stewart et al., 2015), listening (Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari, 2010), speaking (Cohen, 2011) and test-taking (Cohen, 2006; Zhang et al., 2014). Learners who were taught to plan for a speaking task applied strategies during the task and produced more fluent speech compared with those who did not receive any pretask strategy instruction (Seifoori & Vahidi, 2012). Effective strategy use often involved the use of clusters of strategies (Macaro, 2006). This clustering and orchestration of strategies can be seen in L2 listening (Goh, 2002; Vandergrift, 2003) and reading (Cain & Oakhill, 2012; Zhang et  al., 2014). To choose and evaluate from a range of strategic options, learners would need to rely on their metacognition. LLSI research has also focused more on reading and writing strategies, two areas that have a longer history than speaking and listening. Nevertheless, attention to listening strategies (Rost, 2016) as well as communication strategies for speaking (Nakatani & Goh, 2007) has increased over the years. Between psycholinguistic strategies and interaction strategies for oral communication, there are indications that teaching interactional strategies, such as help-seeking, time-gaining, fluency maintenance, modifying output and modifying interaction (Nakatani, 2005) may be more beneficial to learners’ overall speaking performance than teaching them psycholinguistic strategies for lexical compensation (Rossiter, 2003). In the learning of language knowledge, grammar learning strategies have received less attention compared with vocabulary. Nevertheless, we see growing attention to grammar learning strategies and this momentum is expected to be sustained albeit still in a limited way – for example, Pawlak’s taxonomy of four categories of grammar learning strategies which could be validated through further research. Learners’ affect is an important factor in language learning both in terms of their response to LLSI in other strategy areas and as the focus for an LLSI intervention itself. Learners generally experienced greater confidence and motivation after being taken through instructional programmes that taught them to engage with their listening tasks strategically (e.g. Goh & Taib, 2006; Zeng, 2014). Learners also need to use affective strategies directly which can help them manage their emotions, and LLSI in this area can even be carried out by young learners (Psaltou-Joycey).

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High-achieving learners also used significantly more affective strategies than low-achieving learners (Gunning, 2011; Lan & Oxford, 2003), and learning to use metacognitive and affective strategies is especially important for distance L2 learners as they do not have the benefit of contact with their teachers and would require more independent learning on their own. More research in affective strategies and in particular how they combine with metacognitive strategies would help to shed light on how strategic learners control their emotions and attention. We also need more studies to investigate how affective strategies might be better assessed (Macaro). Contexts and targeted learning outcomes

LLSI research has been conducted mainly among English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) students, and Menegale and Harris have commented on the need for future LLSI research to make adjustments according to subject matter and language. Nevertheless, there has been an increasing body of work in other languages collectively, namely French (Graham et al., 2010; Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari, 2010; Wharton, 2000), Mandarin Chinese (Grenfell & Harris, 2015; Jiang & Cohen, 2012; Sung, 2014), Japanese (Grainger, 2012; Mori & Shimizu, 2007), Russian (Chamot, 1993), Spanish (Chamot, 1993; Olivares-Cuhat, 2002) and Arabic (Baharudin & Ismail, 2015; Ebner, 2012). Studies in these various L2 contexts have suggested that LLSI needs to be customized to suit students’ needs, preferences and styles as well as the language learning situations and environments and indeed the nature of the language itself, particularly if the script is unfamiliar. It is also important to consider cultural impact on learners’ learning and use of strategies (Griffiths et al., 2014). Oxford and Gkonou stress the inextricable tie between learners’ culture and their L2, while Gunning, White and Busque contend that teachers’ LLSI must adapt to suit the culture of the learners. In addition, Grenfell and Harris (2017) draw on Norton (2000) to highlight how the sociocultural environment both shapes the development of learners’ particular strategies and influences how they use them. Bilingual pupils, for example, develop useful inferencing skills simply by listening in to conversations at home. Their monolingual parents may not, however, get the chance to try out their communication strategies and engage in conversation if they are faced with impatient or hostile native speakers. Harris suggests that future studies could explore whether integrating the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) and the ‘bottom-up’ approach Gu describes could be one way in which LLSI could adapt to such differences. Different taxonomies of strategies for different groups of learners have also been suggested to better suit the learning needs of students from different cultural backgrounds (Woodrow, 2005), although this may be

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challenging for the teachers implementing it. Almost half of the authors in this volume suggest that future research should focus more on the effectiveness of LLSI in relation to: various learner-related factors, such as autonomy, individual preferences, proficiency levels, age, language background, cultural knowledge, motivation, self-efficacy, anxiety and gender; and sociocultural differences such as bilingual/monolingual background and socioeconomic status. In particular, more intervention studies are needed to investigate effective and appropriate strategy instruction for young learners given the large increase in learners of this age group in recent years (Gunning & Oxford, 2014; Hu, 2016). Where LLSI does not significantly lead to an improvement in the use of learning strategies, the explanation could lie with the highly contextspecific nature of strategy use, as Gu noted. Chamot (2004) highlighted studies in L1 that showed that transferability can be achieved through explicit instruction and increased metacognitive awareness. Importantly, Macaro (2006) stressed that the robustness of LLSI research fi ndings can be increased when the transferability of strategies is shown and the duration of instruction is extended. Very few studies to date have examined the transferability of taught strategies, yet L2 learners bring with them strategies they use in their L1 and these may be equally relevant to the L2. When learners were not able to transfer learning strategies from their L1 to L2, direct strategy instruction was seen as helpful (Cohen, 2011; Grenfell & Harris, 2017; Gunning et al.; Oxford, 2011). Harris (2008) and Gunning et al. (2016) reported on LLSI interventions with young learners to foster such transfer. Both referred to the difficulties L1 and L2 teachers face in finding the necessary time within an overcrowded timetable to collaborate together to reach a common terminology and ensure that their separate classes complement each other. However, unless LLSI is carried out in ways that students fi nd novel and relevant, instructors may run the risk of students feeling that they are not learning anything new and the time would be better spent on learning language content and direct practice of language skills. In this regard, Cirocki (2016) advocates using specially designed pedagogical tasks that can be integrated with procedures for developing learner autonomy, of which strategy use is an important component. In this way, learners are developing their knowledge of strategy use as they are learning new language content and skills. Increasingly, language learning materials are incorporating one form or another of strategy instruction or awareness raising and useful guidelines for their development are described in Psaltou-Joycey. New affordances for anytime, anywhere learning are created as a result of the proliferation of ICT and internet capabilities, but accessing digital and internet-based materials on handheld devices for independent self-learning is still lacking in some contexts (Robbins). To encourage busy teachers to modify traditional instructional practices, they must have easy access to resources hosted on websites and social media. Technology can also

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facilitate the creation of material resource banks that are easily accessible by large numbers of teachers and learners, thereby addressing the lack of suitable resources, which is a key concern of LLSI. Gunning et al., for example, raise the question of the possible impact of videos showing teachers implementing LLSI. Technology today also offers teachers opportunities to collaborate across institutional and national borders, as professional learning communities for LLSI are no longer space and time bound. As Robbins implies, the field of LLSI currently has limited insights into how technology influences learners’ strategies for language learning. For example, engaging with digital media calls for learners to develop new reading skills and strategies to navigate websites effectively and follow the string of content they need to read. They also need to strategically select relevant online listening/viewing materials. Future LSSI research would therefore need to investigate the strategies that learners use and the effectiveness of self-learning materials available online. Approaches to LLSI

Given the complexities of language learning and learner differences, Oxford (2003) argued that there could be no single LLS instructional methodology that would address the needs and goals of all students. Furthermore, as Gu argues, there may be a case for a more bottom-up, collaborative approach to LLSI. Nevertheless, the chapters in this volume would suggest that there are several areas of consensus: first, LLSI should be explicit, that is to say, students reflect on and discuss strategies in order to foster their metacognitive knowledge, strategy transfer and autonomy; secondly, it should be embedded in actual language tasks so that students directly perceive its relevance and how to apply the strategies. As much of language learning also occurs through informal means beyond formal curriculum time, learners will benefit from learning to use strategies to direct their independent learning. To support them, teachers could introduce existing strategy learning tools or design more contextually appropriate guides and prompts. Examples of these tools include checklists, such as the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (Vandergrift et al., 2006) or the Survey of Reading Strategies (Sheorey & Mokhtari, 2001), as well as learning logs and portfolios (Griffiths et al., 2014; Oxford et al., 2014). As an example, Zeng and Goh (2018) successfully carried out a self-regulated extensive listening programme among tertiary EFL learners by providing them with strategy checklists to reflect on what they had done and documenting their learning in a learning portfolio. These tools also supported their self-assessment efforts. Rubin and Acero Rios (this volume) provide a protocol for self-management that can be used by both teachers and learners and suggest that research could usefully explore its impact. Teachers can design a common template collaboratively for their department and if necessary modify it for the students’ own use. An

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approach that emphasizes the role of the learner in controlling their learning and use of strategy will promote their autonomy by allowing learners to decide for themselves which strategies to use for different tasks (Chamot, 2004; Cohen & Macaro, 2007; Coyle; Gu, this volume). Such an approach would also recognize the importance of the learners’ metacognition. Authors of this collection have also proposed a number of instructional approaches which highlight various areas to focus on for investigation: (a) integrating LLSI with classroom teaching; (b) differentiating LLSI according to learners’ needs; (c) adopting a strength-based model that builds on learners’ existing strengths; (d) including LLSI in wider curricula such as content and language integrated learning (CLIL); and (e) allowing learners to choose the strategies they want to learn and use. Research conducted on these new approaches would logically aim to examine their effects, but it should also examine the ecological factors of implementation such as students’ experiences, teachers’ beliefs (PsaltouJoycey; Rubin & Acero Rios, this volume) and pedagogical content knowledge, and educational and cultural conditions. What has emerged as critical in this volume and in the literature in general is that teachers need to be intentional and systematic in the way they approach LLSI. Research based on LLSI that is carried out systematically with some common parameters would also allow better comparisons of results (Plonsky). A metacognitive framework

One way in which systematicity can be achieved for different instructional approaches and methods is to ensure that LLSI is underpinned by rigorous theoretical frameworks that can guide learning and instruction. It is my view that more attention should be paid to the theory of metacognition in particular, as the use of strategies is managed by learners’ metacognition (Cohen, 2007). Importantly, by thinking of strategy instruction within the larger framework of metacognition, we can develop strategic learners whose experience of learning to learn goes beyond just strategy application. When we consider learners’ metacognition and how it can drive learning, we can see that it is just as important to develop learners’ conscious knowledge about their own learning selves and learning tasks (Wenden, 1987b) as it is for them to know about and use particular cognitive strategies. Metacognition is ‘knowledge and cognition about cognitive phenomena’ (Flavell, 1979: 906) and it has two main functions: self-appraisal and self-management. Through their metacognition or thinking about their own thinking, learners engage in different mental and affective processes to exercise greater control over their language learning and language use (Rubin & Acero Rios). Figure 17.1 shows the various dimensions of metacognition according to Flavell (1979), who introduced and explained the construct of metacognition in a number of seminal papers on learning.

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Figure 17.1 Three components of metacognition Source: Based on Flavell (1979).

Metacognitive knowledge is declarative or stored knowledge about how learning is influenced (positively or negatively) by person, task and strategy factors. Strategies, on the other hand, are conscious efforts that learners make in real time to manage and regulate various facets of language learning and use in order to achieve desired goals. In contrast to metacognitive knowledge, strategy use involves procedural knowledge or knowledge-in-action that facilitates learning and copes with difficulties (Gu). A learners’ strategy knowledge, that is to say, knowing which strategies to choose, use or avoid, will directly influence their strategy use and, as Chamot points out, which tasks to select to meet their needs. Strategy knowledge can be the result of cumulative L2 experiences, L1 use and learning from other individuals who have greater success at similar tasks. Task knowledge is what learners know about the nature and demands of specific learning or communication tasks. Metacognitive experience refers to fleeting and momentary sensations that one has about one’s thoughts and learning, but if these moments of awareness or ‘metacognitive moments’, as Nyikos describes them in Chamot et al.’s chapter on teacher education, are not followed up, they will vanish from one’s consciousness and not be stored as knowledge and therefore not be useful to learning development. It is not uncommon to see in the literature a lack of clarity between ‘metacognitive strategies’ and the broader construct of ‘metacognition’, as the two terms are used interchangeably. Furthermore, the concept of metacognition is limited only to strategy use, thereby overlooking the primacy of metacognitive knowledge (Wenden, 1998). By applying a metacognitive framework correctly and consistently, teachers and researchers will focus on metacognitive knowledge and strategy use systematically. Teachers can design learning tasks according to specific objectives, namely to increase knowledge or to use strategies, or both. Such a distinction will help learners engage at all mental and affective levels in the cumulative

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process of learning an L2. A metacognitive focus is not on immediate outcomes described in terms of improved performances or test scores. The focus is on developing skills and processes that support their learning (Goh, 2008; Zhang, 2010) and indeed Gu and Coyle also emphasize the importance of these aspects. Over time we can expect to see better overall improvements as some studies with a metacognitive dimension have shown (e.g. Cross, 2011; Zeng, 2014). (See Goh & Burns, 2012 and Vandergrift & Goh, 2012, for details on how metacognitive instruction is carried out for speaking and listening). LLSI and the Neglected Teacher Factor

Research on teachers’ involvement in LLSI is extremely limited. This should be a matter of concern because teachers are the agents who enact the planned curriculum and their epistemological beliefs have a direct impact on the implementation of any innovation (Chan & Elliott, 2004). This volume makes clear that teachers and researchers need to work together because unless teachers understand the requirements and rationale and have the skills to implement instructional innovations, it is unlikely that the intentions of an initiative such as LLSI can be effectively realized (Coyle). Equally, researchers’ interventions may not be as successful as they hoped if the LLSI does not take into account the teachers’ knowledge of the class and the individuals in it. It is argued that teachers lack knowledge (Rubin & Acero Rios), support (Oxford et al., 2014), sustained opportunities to be involved in LLSI design (Gu) and guidance in teaching and assessing strategies (Ishihara & Cohen, 2014). It is further argued that promoting greater teacher autonomy can lead to greater learner autonomy (Rubin & Acero Rios) and that teachers should increase their own procedural knowledge so as to address students’ lack of confidence in managing their own learning. This view fi nds support in Pawlak, who highlighted that students’ grammar learning strategies are influenced by their teachers’ instructional practices. Teachers who are taught how to implement strategy instruction do not always actually do so, for a variety of reasons (Rubin & Acero Rios). They may lack enthusiasm about LLSI, possibly because they themselves are not convinced of its efficacy, or they may still lack a clear understanding of how LLSI might be practically integrated into their classroom teaching – which indeed was one of the reasons for writing this volume. Where teachers are encouraged to adapt textbook materials or design their own pedagogical tasks, the challenge is to improve their competence in doing so (Cirocki, 2016), and Psaltou-Joycey provides some valuable guidelines. However, training and professional development for teachers should not only focus on their pedagogical knowledge and skills, but it should also uncover and, if necessary, change teachers’ beliefs about LLSI. There is substantial evidence of the need for teacher reflection as a

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means to increase teachers’ capacity and willingness to change their instructional practices (Borg, 2003; Farrell & Ives, 2015) and this is reflected in Oxford’s and Gkonou’s chapter on ‘reflective practice’. Effective LLSI would fi rst require teachers to initiate efforts in reviewing traditional instructional practices in radically different ways. One way to do this is to involve them in classroom enquiry into their practice (Chamot et  al.) in order to evaluate the impact of LLSI in terms of learners’ response to the pedagogy, their increase in metacognitive awareness about language learning, and qualitative as well as quantitative improvements in learning. Teachers can also invite peers as critical friends to observe their teaching and offer feedback. The challenge is to persuade education and institutional authorities to support them by giving them the necessary time to plan the LLSI instruction. The focus of future LLSI research could include teacher beliefs about LLSI, their engagement with learning materials and procedures, and teacher collaboration with researchers for enacting an LLSI curriculum. Research Directions and Challenges

LLSI research to date has utilized both qualitative and quantitative approaches, employing a wide range of methodological procedures and instruments (Hu, 2016; Oxford et al., 2014). For quantitative researchers, Plonsky has this advice to offer: include delayed posttests, improve reporting practices, explain treatment procedures in detail, study the effect size of intervention results, and prioritize attention on existing gaps in participant demographics, learning areas and performance outcomes. Psychometric tools can be developed and validated to examine the relationships between strategies and learner proficiency (Hu, 2016; Oxford, 2011) and other learner and contextual variables. More sophisticated statistical tools, such as path analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM), which are reported in other areas of L2 research, could provide the field with a better understanding of the theoretical construct of learner strategies as well as the relationships among variables, including test performance. Qualitative designs such as case studies, narrative enquiry and ethnographic studies should be valued and used to address the limitations of surveys (a common quantitative data collection instrument) which are inadequate in explaining contextual effects on learners’ strategy use (Harish, 2014; Woodrow, 2005). Verbal protocols will continue to be useful for examining real-time cognitive processes, particularly for new areas of strategy use. As the teacher factor is still under-researched, we will need more in-depth situated studies of teachers’ beliefs about LLSI and pedagogical content knowledge for developing strategic learners. Mixed-methods designs should also be used more frequently to triangulate teachers’ and students’ experiences in LLSI and to assess

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quantitatively the impact of strategy instruction on learning. While correlational studies continue to be valuable, as many of this book’s authors have highlighted, the field will need further insights into causal relationships between different approaches and learning outcomes. Discussions of the efficacy of strategy instruction often involve the question of whether there is a certain language proficiency threshold before strategy instruction should be implemented. This is something that merits investigation but it would require a sophisticated longitudinal design of comparison groups. As LLSI effects tend to be more lasting or larger for longer interventions (Macaro, 2006; Menegale; Plonsky, this volume), it would also be useful to explore whether there is an optimal duration of LLSI and indeed to describe methodology and materials in detail. The lack of the latter may be one reason why, although there are many quantitative studies about the effects of LLSI, replication studies are extremely rare if not non-existent. Quantitative studies need to be replicated as a means of testing their robustness and generalizability, something expected of scientific enquiry (Porte & Richards, 2012). Replicating an LLSI study partially in similar or different contexts could also shed light on the possible impact of various contextual factors. Researchers could also consider adapting existing instruments or constructing new ones to measure strategy use in a contextually sensitive manner (Griffiths et al., 2014; Hu, 2016). On a practical level, this may be challenging since the process of validation requires a large number of respondents which groups with specific needs may not be able to provide. Research on strategy instruction often involves research contexts that are so different that comparing results across such studies can prove to be challenging (Cohen, 2011; Plonsky). This is a dilemma for the field because, on the one hand, it has to respond to calls for more differentiated strategy instruction, but on the other, it needs to be continually validated and justified by empirical fi ndings on the effectiveness of LLSI. Future research would therefore need comparable ways to evaluate and synthesize results across diverse student profi les and instructional approaches. This too may prove to be a challenge because L2 researchers typically work on their own or in small teams and not in large programmatic research where parameters can be predetermined across various research themes and teams. Conclusion

LLSI requires a departure from the traditional focus on teaching language knowledge and the practice of language skills. The challenge for LLSI advocates and material writers is to consider specific cultural mediating factors and provide a coherent and effective LLSI programme that teachers can use. Importantly, strategy researchers should continue to work with robust theoretical frameworks such as those that incorporate

274 Part 4: Implementation: The Teachers

both self-regulation and strategy use (Rose, 2011) as well as metacognition as a construct for managing strategy use. LLSI has attracted its fair share of critics who argue that LLSI would not be a good use of class time. Plonsky cautions that unless research shows LLSI to be sufficiently effective for targeted learning areas, it would be wrong to spend time teaching it in the classroom. While it is indeed necessary that LLSI experts are mindful of these criticisms, there are no reasons to doubt the relevance of strategy learning or to dismiss it because the research has not quite caught up in certain areas of language learning. One way forward is to embed strategy learning and metacognitive knowledge development in everyday language learning tasks. This requires perseverance and creativity on the part of teachers and trust on the part of learners. There is enough evidence to date that shows the positive effects of LLSI on language learning and the qualitative changes to students’ confidence and motivation to justify it. Not to teach learners systematically how to learn strategically would be done at a potential opportunity cost for them (Cross, 2012). To conclude, it is necessary to remind ourselves that language development is a gradual and cumulative process and LLSI requires teachers to monitor learners’ progress closely and provide an appropriate amount of scaffolding accordingly (Gunning et  al.; Psaltou-Joycey, this volume). Observable changes may vary because of different factors impinging on individual students’ learning. Even if some studies did not yield significant positive effects, it is not a reason for teachers and researchers to abandon LLSI altogether. There are many reasons why any intervention may not be as effective as expected, as discussed earlier. One of the reasons may have to do with the duration of the instruction, a decision that is often made based on practical considerations such as the length of a term of study and the availability of the participants than on theoretical considerations (Plonsky, this volume). What is more important is that teachers are grounded in good conceptual understanding about learning strategies and strong beliefs and pedagogical skills that can continue to support their goal of developing strategic learners. Students should also have realistic expectations and see the increased metacognitive awareness of themselves and engagement in strategy use as facilitative of their language learning and their autonomy. References Aghaie, R. and Zhang, L.J. (2012) Effects of explicit instruction in cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies on Iranian EFL students’ reading performance and strategy transfer. Instructional Science 40 (6), 1063–1081. Anderson, N.J. (1999) Exploring Second Language Reading: Issues and Strategies. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Baharudin, H. and Ismail, Z. (2015) Learning strategies of Arabic language vocabulary for pre-university students in Malaysia. Asian Social Science 11 (10), 32–38. Bai, R., Hu, G. and Gu, P.Y. (2014) The relationship between use of writing strategies and English proficiency in Singapore primary schools. Asia-Pacific Education Researcher 23 (3), 355–365.

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Borg, S. (2003) Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, and do. Language Teaching 36 (2), 81–109. Boulware-Gooden, R., Carreker, S., Thornhill, A. and Joshi, R. (2007) Instruction of metacognitive strategies enhances reading comprehension and vocabulary achievement of third-grade students. Reading Teacher 61 (1), 70–77. Cain, K. and Oakhill, J. (2012) Reading comprehension development from seven to fourteen years: Implications for assessment. In J.P. Sabatini, E.A. Albro and T. O’Reilly (eds) Measuring Up: Advances in How to Assess Reading Ability (pp. 59–76). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education. Chamot, A.U. (1993) Student responses to learning strategy instruction in the foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals 26 (3), 308–320. Chamot, A.U. (2004) Issues in language learning strategy research and teaching. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 1 (1), 14–26. Chamot, A.U., Barnhardt, S., El-Dinary, P.B. and Robbins, J. (1999) The Learning Strategies Handbook. White Plains, NY: Longman. Chan, K.-W. and Elliott, R.G. (2004) Relational analysis of personal epistemology and conceptions about teaching and learning. Teaching and Teacher Education 20 (8), 817–831. Cirocki, A. (2016) Developing Learner Autonomy through Tasks: Theory, Research, Practice. Halifax: LinguaBooks. Cohen, A.D. (2006) The coming of age of research on test-taking strategies. Language Assessment Quarterly 3 (4), 307–331. Cohen, A.D. (2007) Coming to terms with language learner strategies: Surveying the experts. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 29–46). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cohen, A.D. (2011) Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language (2nd edn). Harlow: Longman. Cohen, A.D. and Macaro, E. (eds) (2007) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cross, J. (2011) Metacognitive instruction for helping less-skilled listeners. ELT Journal 65 (4), 408–416. Cross, J. (2012) Listening strategy instruction (or extensive listening?): A response to Renandya (2012). ELTWO 4 (blog). See http://blog.nus.edu.sg/eltwo/fi les/2013/ 12/Listening-strategy-instruction-or-extensive-listening_editforpdf-15mvwem.pdf (accessed 28 December 2016). Ebner, G.R. (2012) Enhancing the capabilities of Arabic learners: Language learning strategies in the Arabic classroom. PhD thesis, University of Texas at Austin. Farrell, T.S. and Ives, J. (2015) Exploring teacher beliefs and classroom practices through reflective practice: A case study. Language Teaching Research 19 (5), 594–610. Flavell, J.H. (1979) Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitivedevelopmental inquiry. American Psychologist 34 (10), 906–911. Gao, X. (2007) Has language learning strategy research come to an end? A response to Tseng et al. (2006). Applied Linguistics 28 (4), 615–620. Goh, C.C.M. (2002) Exploring listening comprehension tactics and their interaction patterns. System 30 (2), 185–206. Goh, C.C.M. (2008) Metacognitive instruction for second language listening development: Theory, practice and research implications. RELC Journal 39 (2), 188–213. Goh, C.C.M. and Burns, A. (2012) Teaching Speaking: A Holistic Approach. New York: Cambridge University Press. Goh, C.C.M. and Taib, Y. (2006) Metacognitive instruction in listening for young learners. ELT Journal 60 (3), 222–232. Gordon, L. (2008) Writing and good language learners. In C. Griffiths (ed.) Lessons from Good Language Learners (pp. 244–254). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Graham, S., Santos, D. and Vanderplank, R. (2010) Strategy clusters and sources of knowledge in French L2 listening comprehension. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching 4 (1), 1–20. Grainger, P. (2012) Bedrock/core, base, plus, and threshold strategies in the JFL context. Foreign Language Annals 45 (4), 599–621. Grenfell, M. and Harris, V. (2015) Memorisation strategies and the adolescent learner of Mandarin Chinese as a foreign language. Linguistics and Education 31, 1–13. Grenfell, M. and Harris, V. (2017) Language Learner Strategies: Contexts, Issues and Applications in Second Language Learning and Teaching. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Grenfell, M. and Macaro, E. (2007) Claims and critiques. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 9–45). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Griffiths, C., Oxford, R.L., Kawai, Y., et al. (2014) Focus on context: Narratives from East Asia. System 43, 50–63. Gu, P.Y. (2003) Fine brush and freehand: The vocabulary-learning art of two successful Chinese EFL learners. TESOL Quarterly 37 (1), 73–104. Gunning, P. (2011) ESL strategy use and instruction at the elementary school level: A mixed methods investigation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, McGill University. Gunning, P. and Oxford, R.L. (2014) Children’s learning strategy use and the effects of strategy instruction on success in learning ESL in Canada. System 43, 82–100. Gunning, P., White, J. and Busque, C. (2016) Raising learners’ awareness through L1–L2 teacher collaboration. Language Awareness 25 (1–2), 72–88. Harish, S. (2014) Social strategy use and language learning contexts: A case study of Malayalee undergraduate students in India. System 43, 64–73. Harris, V. (2008) A cross-curricular approach to ‘learning to learn’ languages: Government policy and school practice. Curriculum Journal 19 (4), 255–268. Hu, G. (2016) Research on second language learner strategies: Past, present, and future. In Y. Leung (ed.) Epoch Making in English Teaching and Learning (pp. 306–335). Taipei: Crane. Ishihara, N. and Cohen, A.D. (2014) Teaching and Learning Pragmatics: Where Language and Culture Meet. New York: Routledge. Jiang, X. and Cohen, A.D. (2012) A critical review of research on strategies in learning Chinese as both a second and foreign language. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching 2 (1), 9–43. Lan, R. and Oxford, R.L. (2003) Language learning strategy profi les of elementary school students in Taiwan. IRAL 41 (4), 339–380. Macaro, E. (2006) Strategies for language learning and for language use: Revising the theoretical framework. The Modern Language Journal 90 (3), 320–337. Macaro, E. and Erler, L. (2008) Raising the achievement of young-beginner readers of French through strategy instruction. Applied Linguistics 29 (1), 90–119. Manchón, R.M., Roca de Larios, J. and Murphy, L. (2007) A review of writing strategies: Focus on conceptualizations and impact of fi rst language. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 229–250). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mori, Y. and Shimizu, H. (2007) Japanese language students’ attitudes toward kanji and their perceptions on kanji learning strategies. Foreign Language Annals 40 (3), 472–490. Nakatani, Y. (2005) The effects of awareness-raising training on oral communication strategy use. The Modern Language Journal 89 (1), 76–91. Nakatani, Y. and Goh, C. (2007) A review of oral communicative strategies: Focus on interactionist and psycholinguistic perspectives. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds)

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Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 207–228). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Norton, B. (2000) Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change. Harlow: Longman. Nyikos, M. and Fan, M. (2007) A review of vocabulary learning strategies: Focus on language proficiency and learner voice. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 251–274). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Olivares-Cuhat, G. (2002) Learning strategies and achievement in the Spanish writing classroom: A case study. Foreign Language Annals 35 (5), 561–570. Oxford, R.L. (2003) Language learning styles and strategies: An overview. Paper presented at GALA 13th International Conference on ‘New Directions in Applied Linguistics’. See http://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~language/workshop/read2.pdf (accessed 3 March 2017). Oxford, R.L. (2011) Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies. Harlow: Pearson Education. Oxford, R.L., Lee, K.R. and Park, G. (2007) L2 grammar strategies: The second Cinderella and beyond. In A.D. Cohen and E. Macaro (eds) Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (pp. 117–139). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oxford, R.L., Rubin, J., Chamot, A.U., Schramm, K., Lavine, R., Gunning, P. and Nel, C. (2014) The learning strategy prism: Perspectives of learning strategy experts. System 43, 30–49. Phakiti, A. (2008) Construct validation of Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) strategic competence model over time in EFL reading tests. Language Testing 25 (2), 237–272. Plonsky, L. (2011) The effectiveness of second language strategy instruction: A metaanalysis. Language Learning 61 (4), 993–1038. Porte, G. and Richards, K. (2012) Focus article: Replication in second language writing research. Journal of Second Language Writing 21 (3), 284–293. Rose, H. (2011) Reconceptualizing strategic learning in the face of self-regulation: Throwing language learning strategies out with the bathwater. Applied Linguistics 33 (1), 92–98. Rossiter, M. (2003) ‘It’s like chicken but bigger’: Effects of communication strategy in the ESL classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review 60 (2), 105–121. Rost, M. (2016) Teaching and Researching Listening (3rd edn). New York: Routledge. Seifoori, Z. and Vahidi, Z. (2012) The impact of fluency strategy training on Iranian EFL learners’ speech under online planning conditions. Language Awareness 21 (1–2), 101–112. Sheorey, R. and Mokhtari, K. (2001) Differences in the metacognitive awareness of reading strategies among native and non-native readers. System 29 (4), 431–449. Stewart, G., Seifert, T.A. and Rolheiser, C. (2015) Anxiety and self-efficacy’s relationship with undergraduate students’ perceptions of the use of metacognitive writing strategies. Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 6 (1), 1–17. Sung, K.-Y. (2014) Novice learners’ Chinese-character learning strategies and performance. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 11 (1), 38–51. Vandergrift, L. (2003) Orchestrating strategy use: Toward a model of the skilled second language listener. Language Learning 53 (3), 463–496. Vandergrift, L. and Goh, C.C.M. (2012) Teaching and Learning Second Language Listening: Metacognition in Action. New York: Routledge. Vandergrift, L. and Tafaghodtari, M.H. (2010) Teaching L2 learners how to listen does make a difference: An empirical study. Language Learning 60 (2), 470–497. Vandergrift, L., Goh, C.C.M., Mareschal, C.J. and Tafaghodtari, M.H. (2006) The metacognitive awareness listening questionnaire: Development and validation. Language Learning 56 (3), 431–462.

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Wenden, A. (1987a) Conceptual background and utility. In A. Wenden and J. Rubin (eds) Learner Strategies in Language Learning (pp. 3–13). Hemel Hempstead: Prentice-Hall. Wenden, A. (1987b) Metacognition: An expanded view on the cognitive abilities of L2 learners. Language Learning 37 (4), 573–597. Wenden, A. (1998) Metacognitive knowledge and language learning. Applied Linguistics 19 (4), 515–537. Wharton, G. (2000) Language learning strategy use of bilingual foreign language learners in Singapore. Language Learning 50 (2), 203–243. Woodrow, L. (2005) The challenge of measuring language learning strategies. Foreign Language Annals 38 (1), 90–98. Zeng, Y. (2014) Investigating the effects of metacognitive instruction on Chinese EFL learners’ listening performance. International Journal of Innovation in English Language Teaching and Research 3 (2), 139. Zeng, Y. and Goh, C.C.M. (2018) A self-regulated learning approach to extensive listening and its impact on listening achievement and metacognition awareness. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching 8 (2). Zhang, L.J. (2010) A dynamic metacognitive systems account of Chinese university students’ knowledge about EFL reading. TESOL Quarterly 44 (2), 320–353. Zhang, L., Goh, C.C.M. and Kunnan, A.J. (2014) Analysis of test takers’ metacognitive and cognitive strategy use and EFL reading test performance: A multi-sample SEM approach. Language Assessment Quarterly 11 (1), 76–102.

Afterword Anna Uhl Chamot and Vee Harris

This book was born from the contributors’ concern that existing studies failed to recognize the complex decisions involved in setting up Language Learning Strategy Instruction (LLSI) interventions. It has sought to address some of the key issues such decisions raise, both theoretical and practical. Yet we also look towards the future, suggesting further avenues to pursue, many of which are indicated in Goh’s comprehensive preceding chapter. We offer our own concluding thoughts alongside it. First and foremost it is to be hoped that researchers will respond to Plonsky’s call in Chapter 1 to provide more detail about the rationale underlying their particular LLSI interventions and the activities adopted. We have outlined a number of choices to be made in terms of LLSI models in Chapters 2 by Gu and 4 by Coyle, for example. However, further studies are needed to weigh up the relative advantages and limitations of a carefully structured ‘top-down’ model of LLSI as compared to a more organic and flexible ‘bottom-up’ approach or, indeed, if the two approaches can be reconciled, as suggested by Harris in Chapter 3. Whichever model is adopted, the very process of explaining the rationale for the LLSI implies the need for interventions to systematically fi ne-tune the LLSI itself according to the profi le of the learners and the learning context and then to explore its impact. Turning to the learners fi rst, Gunning, White and Busque (in Chapter 10) set out some key principles for making the LLSI accessible to younger learners as well as illustrations of suitable materials, and similar studies are needed across a range of learner variables such as their age or attainment level and their sociocultural backgrounds. That said, recognizing that each learner is different, Chamot, in Chapter 12, describes activities to foster students’ metacognitive understanding so they themselves can select the most appropriate tasks. A further avenue to explore is the differentiation within the tasks themselves. One possibility is to present a common task (for example inferring a character’s personality) but with materials at different levels of complexity. Conversely we can present the same materials but a choice of tasks and level of strategy complexity; for example inferring meaning of words or inferring the explanation of character’s actions. Turning to variations in context, Menegale (in Chapter 6) highlights how LLSI can be adapted to Content and Language Integrated Learning 279

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(CLIL). The impact of LLSI on other contexts such as English as an International Language (EIP) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has yet to be fully investigated. As Plonsky points out, fi ne-tuning the LLSI and improving reporting practices is essential not only to replicate and compare studies accurately but also to make it possible to examine the interaction between variables such as context, learner-related factors, strategies selected, nature and length of the intervention and long-term effects. Alongside this fi ne-tuning of the LLSI, a number of contributors call for widening the range of outcomes measured to include the impact of the LLSI on enhancing student autonomy, on changes in affect (Gu, in Chapter 2) and on sense of self-efficacy (Macaro, in Chapter 5). LLSI interventions might benefit from paying more attention to the whole area of formative assessment, whether, as Macaro suggests, in terms of teacher feedback to help learners understand the link between their performance and the strategies they use or in terms of self-assessment as a powerful tool for promoting self-regulation as described by Coyle in Chapter 4. The second fruitful field of exploration looks beyond fine-tuning LLSI to the strategies themselves. Although Chapters 7, 8 and 9 have begun to tackle LLSI in previously overlooked areas such as grammar, Critical Cultural Awareness and pragmatic strategies, this is relatively new territory. As Goh indicates in Chapter 16, more studies are needed to refi ne definitions and to explore the impact of teaching these groups of strategies, again across a range of contexts. LLSI in affective strategies has emerged as another neglected area, as Psaltou-Joycey argues in Chapter 11. What is it that each individual is telling themselves, for example, when they engage in ‘self talk’ and what are their underlying beliefs? In relation both to affective strategies and to collaborative strategies, we might speculate about similarities and differences between strategies used to learn a new language and those deployed in other areas in the curriculum. Does a learner who finds Maths difficult need different affective strategies from one who struggles to learn French? In what way is collaborating with others in a science classroom different from working together in a language classroom? Related to this is the third challenge – to explore LLSI directed at fostering transfer. This applies not only to transfer across first and second language (L1, L2) and across curriculum subjects but also to transferring strategies across three languages or across those with a different script. Chapter 3 refers to a study suggesting that, although students learning Mandarin Chinese as a foreign language can use some common ‘generic’ strategies applicable to both L1 and L2, they also need to develop other strategies unique to memorizing the characters. There are implications here for how LLSI could support refugees living in a multicultural context to acquire a new language, especially one with an unfamiliar script and syntax. It may be valuable, for example, to encourage learners to notice differences, as well as similarities, both between the languages they have already acquired (for example, Turkish and Arabic) and those they are in

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the process of learning, like Greek and German. We could also study how this rich exposure to three or four languages shapes the development of their strategies, and indeed a number of chapters have indicated the value of cross-disciplinary research: for example, across second and third language acquisition, language and gender, language and sociocultural background (in Chapter 3 by Harris), across L1 instructional models (in Chapter 2 by Gu and Chapter 4 by Coyle), and across teacher education in general (in Chapter 14 by Gkonou and Oxford). Indeed, L2 acquisition lies at the heart of our understanding of language learning strategies. Calling for greater dialogue between the two communities, Gu (2017) outlines how they share similar interests: the processes of language learning, the reason for differences in the rate and route learners take, and why some learners do so much better than others. This brings us to the fourth issue. In spite of a wide range of studies indicating the value of LLSI, many teachers are still reluctant to embark on integrating it into their lessons. The book has gone some way to addressing their day-to-day needs by acknowledging the realities of their busy lives and providing concrete examples of activities and materials they can use in the classroom. These include online materials (in Chapter 13 by Robbins) and those that tie in directly with coursebook activities, minimizing teacher preparation time, as Psaltou-Joycey explains in Chapter 11. However helpful access to such practical resources are, Gkonou and Oxford warn in Chapter 14 that teachers have to operate in a highly competitive, data-driven climate where the results of summative, quantitative tests are all-important. So the authors in Part 4 of the book all emphasize the importance of teachers grasping the rationale underlying LLSI so they realize that time spent teaching strategies will enhance rather than detract from their students’ performance. Through experiencing for themselves ‘reflective practice’ (Chapter 14) and self-management (Chapter 15), teachers can gain a deep understanding of the self-regulation that they aim to foster in their students. Chapter 16 also describes tasks to put teachers into learners’ shoes so that they experience the purpose and value of strategy use. Nevertheless, it is clear that more research is needed into why some teachers are more willing than others to engage in LLSI. Research into language learner strategies began by profi ling the ‘good language learner’. We need now to shift our attention to studying the ‘good language teacher’ who fosters the students’ autonomy. Furthermore, if LLSI is to make a difference, the gap between theory and practice has to be bridged. Collaborative action research between researcher and teacher, where the teacher takes the initiative so the intervention is based on responding to their students’ needs has the advantage not only of supporting the teacher’s professional development, but also of integrating LLSI research more fully with classroom teaching. This raises a fi nal question. Given that we now recognize that strategies are unique to each learner and shift according to task and context,

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how can such a fluid, dynamic process be assessed not only to convince teachers and students of their importance but also to provide evidence for our research studies? Coyle in Chapter 4 indicates the value of using critical incidents in the classroom to ask learners to pinpoint what happened at a particular significant moment in their learning, why, and what they could do next time. Along with videos and student logs, narratives of individual learners are increasingly used in research studies and, as Goh suggests, a mixed-methods research approach can capture the complexity of strategy use and triangulate teachers’ and students’ experiences. Giving a ‘voice’ to the learner who experiences the LLSI as well as their teacher may be more valuable than has been recognized in the past. This book started with one research agenda and ends with another. In the fi nal chapter Goh highlights, for example, the difficulty of fi ne-tuning the LLSI according to the language taught and the specific context, while at the same time facilitating cross-study comparisons. The chapters in the book are a testament to how the LLS research community continues to be a vibrant, thriving and collaborative enterprise ready to respond to such challenges and well able to take on any new issues emerging in the future. We offer the book as a stepping stone along the way.

Reference Gu P. Y. (2017) Strategic language learning for the future: an action plan. Paper presented at the Second International Conference on Situating Strategy Use, Komotini, September 28–30.

Index

4Cs Conceptual Framework 82 5 Cs (Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons and Communities) 124–125 ability, as individual difference 70, 72 academic discourse 60–61 see also English for Academic Purposes (EAP) Acero Rios, C. 29, 47, 94, 196, 229, 244, 256, 268, 269, 271 achievement 70, 74 see also proficiency action research 34, 229, 236–237, 256, 281–282 Adamson, J. 86, 96 adolescence lack of research on 15 see also young learners and motivation for learning 13 see also school-age pupils adult learners 5, 34, 39, 174, 190, 194 advanced learners effectiveness of LLSI (evidence) 10 lack of research on 15 affective strategies and age of learner 156, 159, 176 Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) 82, 84 differentiation 187 and diversity 44 effectiveness of LLSI (evidence) 265 empowerment of the learner 33 explicit strategic instruction 176 formative assessment 214, 223–225 grammar learning strategies (GLS) 112 integration of SI into ordinary lessons 179, 181 and intercultural awareness 129, 131 need for future research on 126, 280 pragmatics 264 reason for studying 107 under-researched 126

and self-efficacy 73, 158 social media 191, 201 standalone learning strategy curriculum 28 Strategic Self-Regulation 127 teacher education 249 young learners 156, 159 Agathopoulou, E. 176 agency learner 24, 33, 55, 148, 206–207 practitioner 34 Al Masaeed, K. 150 Allen, L.K. 192 Alvarez, I. 126, 127 American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages 124 American Stories 200 Anćić, J. 72 Anderson, J. 27, 29 anxiety 48, 75, 84, 85, 127, 160–161, 176, 201 apologizing 144–145, 148–149 aptitude 70, 115 aptitude-treatment interaction research 16 Argyris, C. 215 artificial intelligence 208n1 artistry 24, 25 Asian cultures 74 assessment see also self-assessment attribution theory 77 and differentiation 185 formative assessment 25, 77, 213–226, 280 and grammar learning strategies (GLS) 115, 119 peer assessment 63 self-efficacy 77 summative assessment 213, 220, 281 and technology 191 283

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Assessment for Learning (AfL) 64 attainment-strategy use relationship 5, 11 see also proficiency attitudes 31, 41, 43–45, 72, 86, 88–89, 125, 127, 191, 264 attribution retraining 76 attribution theory 28, 68, 71–73, 74, 75, 76, 77 audio-recordings of classroom interaction 117 aural performance 11 Austria 71 authentic learning contexts 76, 81–106, 178, 193, 258 automatic deployment of strategies 23, 111 autonomous learning Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) 83, 94 definition of 32, 54 and grammar learning strategies (GLS) 115, 118 and interest in LLSI 3 as long-term goal of LLSI xxi, 32, 46, 94, 245, 269 proactive versus reactive strategies 33 promoting 227–242, 269 seeking out additional practice 115 and self-assessment 64 and self-efficacy 68 and social media 203 teacher empowerment to achieve 227–242 teachers’ own 228, 232 and technology 191 transfer of skill to other tasks 86 young learners 157, 161–162, 166 awareness raising 46, 148, 156, 157, 158, 165, 172, 196, 246, 247–249 see CALLA stages background, learners’ 38–52, 132–133 see also socioeconomic/ sociocultural variables background knowledge 31, 172, 175 Bandura, A. 73 Bardovi-Harlig, K. 142 Bateman, B.E. 124 beliefs learners’ 94, 115, 125, 127, 280 teachers’ 119, 215–216, 227 Bierema, L.L. 216, 218

bilingual instruction 81–106 bilingual learners 40, 41–42, 43–44, 47, 132, 162, 266, 281 blind training 28 blogs 203–205 Bloom, B.S. 27–28 Boekaerts, M. 223 Book Creator app 63 Borg, S. 228 bottom-up models 29–31, 45, 49, 54, 94, 142, 266, 268, 279 Bourdieu, P. 38, 39, 41, 132 boys’ language learning 42–43, 47, 48 Brown, A.L. 28 Brown, A.V. 55 Bruton, A. 95 Bryan, N. 229 Burden, R. 72 Busque, C. 244, 266, 279 Butler, D.L. 29, 30, 34, 45, 46, 58 Bynner, J. 41, 42 Byram, M. 123, 124, 125, 129 CALLA stages (Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach) xxvi, 26, 27, 47, 133, 148–149, 178–180, 195, 245, 261 Canadian teaching context 155, 256 capital (Bourdieu) 40, 41 CARLA (Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition) 144–145, 192–193, 206, 248 Carrell, P.L. 5 Catalano, T. 125 Chamot, A.U. viii, xxvi, 1, 29, 30, 48, 54, 55, 62, 83, 84, 88, 107, 116, 118, 126, 128, 129, 130, 157, 162, 173, 184, 185, 190, 228, 231, 244, 247, 251, 254, 255, 257, 258, 263–264, 267, 269, 272 Chaury, P. 6 checklists 268 citizens, creating good 32 clarification questions 85, 117, 197–198 Clarke, M.A. 13 class (social) 40–45, 132 classifications of strategies 6, 83, 88, 107, 111–112, 126, 130, 148–149, 193, 263–264 classroom dialogue, role of 60–62

Index

Claxton, G. 55 Clegg, J. 82, 84 Clemente, A. 228 clusters of strategies 85, 143, 150, 161, 162, 173, 251, 258, 265 co-construction of strategies 29, 55, 58 co-creation of strategic learning spaces 55–56, 63, 203 co-design 63, 64 code-switching 44, 61 Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) overview xxi–xxii, xxvi and CLIL 83 compared to PSSI 157 compared to SCL (Strategic Content Learning) 29–30, 45–49 and Critical Cultural Awareness 133–136 differentiation 185 integrating with bottom-up models 266 as model of strategy instruction 26–27 pragmatics 142, 148–149 researcher-teacher collaborations 258 social media 203–207 teacher education 172, 245, 247, 253 Teacher’s LLSI Guide xxiv, 178 and technology 190, 193 young learners 157 cognitive behaviour therapy, LLSI as 75 cognitive strategies see also metacognitive strategies and CLIL 82, 84 cognitive strategy intervention programmes 22, 27 cognitive versus metacognitive strategies 10 effectiveness of LLSI (evidence) 265 and grammar learning strategies (GLS) 112, 116–117 grammar skills 113 learning difficulties 28 pragmatics 143 standalone learning strategy curriculum 28 teachers’ 228 and technology 192 cognitive-social models 29 Cohen, A.D. 3, 56, 110, 111, 141, 143, 147, 149, 150, 173, 192, 194, 244, 249, 263, 264, 269, 271, 273

285

Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) 46, 48 collaborative working assessment 58 bottom-up models 29 and CLIL 82 collaborative action research 34 collaborative reflection 62–63 collaborative strategies 48 diversity 45, 46, 48 future research directions 268 pair and group work 46 pragmatics 142, 148–149 researcher-teacher collaborations 256–258, 271, 281–282 teacher education 246, 247, 251, 257 technology 202 young learners 157, 162 Common European Framework of Reference for Language (CEFR) 114–115, 124, 127 communication strategies 47, 85, 123, 142, 147–148, 192, 197, 202, 256, 265 communicative competence models 3, 107–108, 110 communities of language learners 53, 202, 230 communities of practice 144, 146 compensation strategies 159, 174, 175, 176, 177 competence see communicative competence, intercultural competence, sociocultural competence, strategic competence competence-based approaches 23–25 complexity, acceptance of 127 Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) 201 Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) 115, 118, 135, 191, 201 conditional knowledge 23–24, 246 connectedness 53 constructivist theories of learning 29, 46, 201 Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) 81–106, 269, 280 Context see Canadian, Greek and Polish teaching contexts

286

Learning Strategy Instruction in the Language Classroom

context-dependency conditional knowledge 24 content-based task analysis 29 evidence base for LLSI 5–6, 9, 12–13 future research directions 266–268, 280 strategic competence 24 continuous monitoring processes 89 Conyers, M. 56 Conzemius, A. 232 cooperative learning 45, 46, 48, 55, 82, 91, 133, 184, 198 see also collaborative working co-regulation, teachers’ 34 Cornell note-taking 90, 91–92 Cornerstone textbooks 26 corrective feedback (CF) 109 Council of Europe 115, 123, 127, 173 coursebooks 174–177, 281 Coyle, D. 45, 48, 55, 57, 61, 82, 133, 251, 259, 269, 271, 279, 281, 282 CRITERIA (Co-operation, Respect, Integrity, Tolerance of ambiguity, Exploration, Reflection, Intercultural empathy and Acceptance of complexity) 127 Critical Cultural Awareness (CCA) 107–108, 123–139, 263, 280 critical incidents (dialogic episodes) 62–63, 282 Critical Literacy Winter School 125, 127, 131 criticisms of Language Learning Strategy Instruction (LLSI) xxi, 264, 274 cross-curricular approaches 86, 257 cross-disciplinary research 281 cultural capital 40, 44 cultural competence 123–139 cultural issues 57, 107–108, 123–139, 263, 266, 280 Cummins, J. 44 Dam, L. 32 data-driven teaching 219–222, 281 Deardorff, D.K. 123, 127 declarative knowledge xxvi, 23–24, 111, 246, 270 decoding skills 75 deductive models 112

deficit-based strategy instruction 32–33 DeKeyser, R.M. 109 Derry, S.J. 27–28 Deshler, D.D. 28 designing versus planning of learning sequences 63 dialogic episodes 54, 60–62, 64, 282 dialogue, supportive 60 Diamond Nine formats 59 diaries/logs/journals 58, 63, 157, 203–205, 220, 222, 237, 254, 268, 282 Differentiated Instruction (DI) 184, 185 differentiation 25, 184–189, 269, 279 digital media 190–210, 268 discovery learning 118 distance learning 191, 192, 266 diversity, taking account of 38–52 Dörnyei, Z. 70, 77, 115 drafting/redrafting 59–60, 63 Duolingo 207 dynamic processes 23, 57, 63, 64, 77, 191, 202, 231, 282 economic capital 40, 41 Economic Policy Institute 41 educational psychology xxii, 27–28 Eerikainen, L.M. 62 effectiveness of LLSI (evidence) 3–21, 31–32, 262–278 effect sizes 7–15, 31 Ehrman, M.E. 127 ELICIT study 57, 61 Ellis, R. 112, 201 embedded strategy instruction 27, 28, 268 see also integration of SI into ordinary lessons emotional responses 107, 223–225 see also affective strategies empathy 91, 136 English as an International Language (EIP) 280 English for Academic Purposes (EAP) 96, 280 English Language Learning Strategy Inventory 249 Erler, L. 75 Eroz-Tuga, B. 203 errors grammar skills 109, 113, 117 self-rectification of 61 espoused beliefs 215–216

Index

ethnicity 42 Eva, K.W. 56 evaluation of strategies 48, 94, 149, 198, 232 see also self-evaluation evidence base for LLSI 3–21, 31–32, 43, 69, 76, 85–86, 110, 214, 263–268 evidence-based teaching 219–222 expansion/transfer see CALLA stages experiential learning 216, 245 explicit grammar instruction 109–110 explicit strategic instruction benefits of 95–96, 268 Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) 82, 85, 93 and declarative knowledge 24 differentiation 187–188 and gender 43 and grammar learning strategies (GLS) 116 integration of SI into ordinary lessons 176 pragmatics 141–142 strategic learning spaces 57, 64

287

facilitators of learning 57 failure, attributions for 71–73 Farrell, T.S.C. 219, 220 feedback corrective feedback (CF) 109 dialogic episodes 60 and diversity 48 need for individualized 75, 76 peer feedback 60, 91, 117, 162 scaffolding 76 technology 196, 197, 198 young learners 162 field notes 222 fields (Bourdieu) 39, 40 Finland 53 Flavell, J.H. 269–270 fluency-oriented strategies 82, 85, 265 focus group methods 88 focus on form 112 focus on meaning 112 formative assessment 25, 77, 213–226, 280 form-meaning mappings 117 Fullan, M. 53, 55, 57, 63, 64

Gardner, R.C. 70, 75 Gavriilidou, Z. 44, 177 gender 40–45, 47, 48, 69, 113 Gereluk, D. 244 gesture 85, 158, 177, 202 Gillborn, D. 41, 42 girls’ language learning 42–43 Gkonou, C. 225, 244, 263, 266, 272, 281 globalization 53, 125 goal-orientation 55–56, 58, 64, 196, 207, 228, 230–235, 240–242 Goh, C. 211, 265, 268, 280, 282 Graham, S. 72, 74, 76, 77 grammar learning strategies (GLS) 110–137 Grammar Learning Strategy Instruction 116–118 grammar skills 83, 109–122, 147, 265, 280 grapheme-phoneme correspondence 75 graphic organizers for text comprehension 89 Greek teaching context 173–174, 176, 178 Grenfell, M. 26, 38, 39, 40, 44, 46, 86, 132, 246, 256, 266 Griffiths, C. 244, 249, 253, 273 group differences (GDs) 69, 74, 75 group work leading to greater learner autonomy 46 mixed learner groupings 47 and the need for autonomous strategies 26 social/affective strategies 90–91 strategic content learning (SCL) 29 young learners 162 growth mindset 71 Gu, M. 191 Gu, P.Y. xxv, 27, 45, 94, 133, 142, 153, 156, 168, 247, 251, 256, 263, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 279, 281 Gu, Y. 54 guessing, as a strategy 23, 134, 175 guided practice 160, 161, 162, 165 Gunning, P. 157, 158, 159, 160, 162, 164, 173, 244, 245, 247, 250, 256, 257, 266, 267, 268, 274, 279

Gagne, D.D. 74 Ganschow, L. 71

habitus 39, 44 Hampel, R. 190, 202

288

Learning Strategy Instruction in the Language Classroom

Harris, K.R. 22, 27, 28 Harris, V. viii, 26, 40, 43, 44, 46, 49, 86, 93–94, 116, 132, 162, 175, 178, 192, 202, 207, 244, 245, 246, 247, 252, 254, 256, 258, 266, 267, 281 Hattie, J.A. 12, 22, 27, 28, 31, 33, 53, 57 Hauck, M. 190, 192, 201, 202, 206 Hiemstra, D. 33 high-achieving learners 43, 86, 89, 92–93, 158, 266 high-stakes testing 16, 220 history of Language Learning Strategy Instruction vii, xxi Ho, B. 96, 172 Holec, H. 54 holistic curricula 53 Holliday, A. 47 home environment 42, 45, 132 home language 44 see also L1 strategies Horwitz, E. 75 Houghton, S.A. 124 Hsieh, P.P.-H. 74 Hu, G. 27, 273 ideal language selves 115 idealized perfect learner 38, 49 identity, learner 54, 115, 202 identity and language 125 illocutionary force 140 imitation 129, 130, 132, 151 immersion environments, virtual 202 immersion programmes 83, 85 implicit knowledge 111, 113 implicit strategy instruction 28, 57, 64, 112–113, 141, 158, 174, 176 independent practice opportunities 113, 149, 161, 163, 165, 249 indirect approaches to strategy instruction 29 see also bottom-up models individual learner variables overview 68–80 Critical Cultural Awareness (CCA) 132 differentiation 184–189 diversity 38–52 future research directions 267, 269, 279 grammar learning strategies (GLS) 114, 115, 118 and teachers’ reflective practice 216, 217, 222

teachers taking account of 231 young learners 157 inductive models 112 inferring meaning 44, 47, 84, 90, 130, 134, 136, 162, 199, 266 informal language learning contexts 149, 202, 268 information and communication skills 55 in-service training 119, 228–230, 248–249, 250–251, 254–255 INSTAL project (Individualizing Strategies for Adult Learners in Language and ICT-Learning) 192, 206 instructed SLA research 4, 12 instrumental orientations for learning L2 42, 47, 70 integration of SI into ordinary lessons 171–183, 194, 245, 269, 271, 281–282 integrative orientations for learning L2 70 intelligent tutoring 192 interactionist SLA research 12, 16 interactive approaches to strategy instruction 29, 46, 57, 191–192, 193, 196, 206 intercultural awareness 87, 108, 174, 175 intercultural competence 123–139 intercultural pragmatics 140 intercultural speakers 123 interdisciplinary enquiry-based learning 53 interlanguage development 109 intermediate learners 10 international exchanges 87 interpersonal skills 55, 87, 145 intersectionality 44–45 intonation 82 iPads 63, 67 IRIS project 207 Ishihara, N. 192, 271 Italy 86–96 Japan 71, 85–86 Jaramillo, L. 236 Jessner, U. 42 joint goals 60 joint participation models 25, 29, 45 Jones, B. 136 Jones, G. 43, 47

Index

Jones, J. 43, 47 Joshi, H. 41, 42 journals 254 journals/diaries/logs 58, 63, 157, 203–205, 220, 222, 237, 268, 282 KAHOOT 253 Kang, H.-S. 74 Katz, A. 213 Kecskes, I. 140 key word strategies 84, 89, 92, 95, 155, 158 Keystone textbook series 26 knowledge, types of background knowledge 31, 172, 175 conditional knowledge 23–24, 246 declarative knowledge xxvi, 23–24, 111, 246, 270 explicit knowledge 111, 112 implicit knowledge 111, 113 prior knowledge activation 27, 46, 94, 117, 247–249 procedural knowledge xxvi, 23–24, 85, 111, 141, 246, 271 tacit knowledge 225n2 task knowledge 188, 270 Knutson, E.M. 132 Kramsch, C. 125, 136 Krashen, S. 181 L1 as a group difference 75 L1 strategies 13, 61, 85, 116, 117, 157, 187 L1 studies, evidence from 6, 12 L1 support for L2 learning 13, 44, 61, 158, 164, 166 L2 versus FL contexts 13 Lai, C. 191 Language Learning Strategy Instruction affective strategies 159–160, 176, 179–180, 223–225 CLIL 101–106 Critical Cultural Awareness 133–136 Grammar 116–118 Learner Self-Management 230–235 Pragmatics 143–149 Social/collaborative/cooperative 46–49, 198 social media 203–207 languaging 61 Langworthy, M. 53, 55, 57, 63, 64

289

Lantolf, J.P. 55, 57, 62 learner demographics 5–6, 9, 12–13 learner empowerment 33 learner guidebooks 26 learner-centred pedagogy xxi, 3 learner-context interface theory 206–207 learner-teacher partnerships 53, 54, 55, 62–63, 64 learning context xxii, 7, 9, 10, 24, 54, 57, 82, 96, 172, 191, 196, 201, 207, 225, 279 learning conversations 57 learning difficulties 27, 28 learning environment 149, 192, 246 Learning for the 21st Century (National Research Council) 55 learning logs/diaries/journals 58, 63, 157, 203–205, 220, 222, 237, 268, 282 learning outcomes 54, 58, 133–134, 196, 232–235, 266–268 see also goal-orientation Learning Self Management (LSM) 227–242 see also selfmanagement of learning learning style preferences 92, 110, 118, 147, 161, 174, 245, 266 ‘learning to communicate’ 32 ‘learning to learn’/study skills courses 26, 27–28, 31, 177 learning versus learner (as focus) 33 Leland, C.H. 45 length of time spent teaching a strategy 14 lesson planning 63, 230–235, 248, 254 Let’s Learn English 193–200, 207, 208 Li, S. 141 lifelong learning xxi, 245 linguistic capital 44, 45 see also bilingual learners linguistic diversity 45 listening skills 11, 44, 47, 76, 86, 156, 175, 179, 265 Littlewood, W. 32 living abroad 127, 128–129, 143 Long, M.H. 109 longitudinal studies 86–96, 273 long-term effects, researching 15, 32, 273 long-term plans, learners making 25, 58 Louis, K.S. 53 Lunenberg, M. 243

290

Learning Strategy Instruction in the Language Classroom

Macaro, E. 26, 48, 60, 69, 70, 75, 76, 77, 118, 156, 175, 184, 265, 266, 267, 269, 273 Malmir, A. 141, 143, 150 management of learning, learner’s own checklists 268–269 Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) 90 grammar learning strategies (GLS) 116 learning from neighbouring fields 28 and metacognition 269 strategic learning spaces 55 teacher empowerment to achieve 227–242 teachers’ own 228, 244, 268, 281 technology 191, 196, 206 young learners 156, 161 Managing Your Emotions for Language Learning (MYE) 225 Mandarin Chinese 45, 47 materials for LLSI, designing 172–174, 243–261, 268, 281 mediation 57, 62, 63 Mehisto, P. 82 memorization skills 90, 174, 175, 177, 248 Menegale, M. 83, 266, 273, 280 mentoring for learning 60, 62, 256 Mercer, S. 70–71 Merriam, S.B. 216, 218 meta-analyses 4–5, 6–14, 31, 33, 264 Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire 268 Metacognitive Model 263–264 metacognitive strategies activities to develop 187–189 adult learners 5 application of a metacognitive framework 269–271 and CALLA 55 and CLIL 83 definition of 269 developmental nature of 186 dialogic episodes 60 differentiation 185–186 effectiveness of LLSI (evidence) 10, 265 and formative assessment 77 and grammar learning strategies (GLS) 112

as individual differences (IDs) 70 integration of SI into ordinary lessons 177, 180 languaging 61 and learner autonomy 54 learning from neighbouring fields 28 and learning goals 55 metacognitive moments 246, 248, 251, 270 novice learners 13 overlapping with cognitive 264 pragmatics 142–143 problem-identification/ problem-solution (PI/PS) 231 prompts 251 quantity of strategies taught 14 standalone learning strategy curriculum 28 strategic competence 24, 30 teacher education 246, 248, 251 teacher empowerment to achieve 227 teachers’ 228, 272 and technology 191, 205 transfer of skill to other tasks 32 working with affective strategies 266 young learners 156 metalinguistic strategies 42, 148 Meyer, O. 83 microteaching 252 Mills, N. 74 mind games 147 Mirza, H.S. 41, 42 misunderstandings, repair of 127 Mitits, L. 44 mixed-methods research 119, 272, 282 mnemonics 146–147 modelling strategies see CALLA stages integration of SI into ordinary lessons 47 online language courses 193 teacher education 246, 249–251 and technology 196, 197 young learners 158–159, 162, 163, 165 Monitoring Monkey 158, 159 motivation for learning and achievement 70 and adolescence 13 and affective strategies 127 and assessment 77 effects of LLSI on 274

Index

gender 40 as an individual difference 69 integration of SI into ordinary lessons 176 L2 versus FL contexts 13 and self-efficacy 74 and SMART goals 232 social relevance of learning a language 47 socioeconomic/sociocultural variables 43 standalone learning strategy curriculum 28 strategic competence 24 task knowledge 188 and technology 191 young learners 161 multilingualism 41–42, 281 see also bilingual learners multimedia 190–210 multiple roles, some strategies have 111 Multiple Self 127, 129 Murphy, B. 42 Murphy, D.A. 27–28 Murphy, L. 193 Mutlu, A. 203 narrative inquiry 222, 272 national identity and language 125–126 National Research Council 55 negotiation of meaning 84, 85 neoliberalism 53 ‘new learning partnerships’ 63 ‘new pedagogies’ 57 non-linearity 57, 168 non-verbal communication 85, 202 see also gesture Norton, B. 38, 266 note-taking skills 84, 86, 90, 91–92 noticing 23, 131, 144 novice learners 10, 13 Nugent, K. 125 null hypothesis testing 17 number of strategies taught 10 Nyikos, M. 244, 246, 248, 251, 254, 270 O’Dell, F. 175 Oliver, R. 44 Oller, J.R. vii, viii O’Malley, M. xxvi, 48, 54, 83, 84, 88, 107, 126, 128, 129, 130, 185, 190

291

O’Neill, J. 232 online information, using 90, 131 online material 87, 135, 190, 191–200, 201–207, 267–268 oral skills 4, 16, 84, 90, 113, 123, 126, 128, 156–157, 201, 265 Osamu, C. 54 Oswald, F.L. 7, 8 outcome variables 6 outcomes, negotiating 133–134 outcomes of SI, desired 31–32 see also learning outcomes ownership of learning 57 see also autonomous learning Oxford, R.L. 39, 92, 94, 107, 110, 111–112, 117, 123, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132, 159, 161, 164, 173, 201, 228, 263, 266, 267, 268, 271, 272, 281 Paige, R.M. 127 pair work 46, 47, 162 paraphrasing 85, 175, 177 Paris, S.G. 24, 33 participatory models 25, 29, 57 partnerships see also collaborative working; group work learner-teacher partnerships 53, 54, 55, 62–63, 64 researcher-teacher collaborations 256–258, 271, 281–282 path analysis 272 Pavlenko, A. 55 Pawlak, M. 112, 117, 118, 119, 141, 263, 265, 271 Peacock, M. 96, 172 pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) 269 peer assessment 63 peer collaboration 58, 63, 246 peer feedback 60, 91, 117, 162 peer modelling of strategies 47 peer reflection 62–63 peer tutoring 91 Pennycook, A. 32 Perez Galvis, L.A. 237 person-dependent strategies 24 see also individual learner variables phenomenon-based learning 53 Pinilla-Herrera, A. 111 Pinner, R. 85–86, 96 planning skills 28, 55, 230

292

Learning Strategy Instruction in the Language Classroom

Plonsky, L. xxii, 4, 7, 8, 27, 28, 31, 142, 203, 258, 264, 265, 269, 272, 273, 274, 279, 280 plurilingual spaces 55, 60–62, 87 Poehner, M.E. 57, 62 Polish teaching context 114–119 portfolios 268 see also diaries/logs/journals posters 158, 159, 250 practice stage see CALLA stages pragmatics 140–152, 192–193, 263, 264, 280 preparation see CALLA stages presentation see CALLA stages Presentation-Practice-Production (PPP) 26 pre-service training 119, 244, 245, 246–248, 249–250, 251–252, 254, 255 Pressley, M. 22, 27, 28 primary schools 9–10 see also young learners prior knowledge, activating 27, 46, 94, 117, 247–249 proactive versus reactive strategies 33 problem analysis 23 Problem-Identification/Problem-Solution (PI/PS) 230–232, 236–237 problem-solving skills 55 Problem-Solving Strategy Intervention (PSSI) 24, 157, 161 procedural knowledge xxvi, 23–24, 85, 111, 141, 246, 271 process goals 234 processability theory 109–110 product goals 234 productive communication strategies 85, 113 professional development approaches and activities for LLSI 243–261 formative assessment 213–226 and individual learner differences 68 research-to-practice pathways 34 in-service training 119, 228–230, 248–249, 250–251, 254–255 young learners 167–168 proficiency versus achievement and aptitude 70 and CLIL 87 and cultural awareness 125 and grammar learning strategies (GLS) 113, 115

relationship with strategy use 5, 11, 13, 54, 273 and self-efficacy 75 teachers’ selection of materials 174, 175, 179 young learners 158 Project for Accelerated Literacy (PAL) 257 pronunciation 11, 82, 90 Psaltou-Joycey, A. 171, 173, 174, 176, 177, 178, 179, 265, 269, 271, 274, 280, 281 psycholinguistics 175, 184, 265 Psycholinguistics Research Group 47 psychology 3, 39, 125, 209n3 psychometrics 272 publication bias 27 Purdie, N. 44 p-values, over-reliance on 17 qualitative 15, 44, 274 quantitative 15, 43, 273 Quebec Education Programme (QEP) 245 quiet rehearsal 85 race/ethnicity 40–45 Ranalli, J. 192 readiness to learn 41 reading difficulties 46 reading skills 11, 84, 89, 156, 157, 179, 229, 257, 258, 265 receptive communication strategies 85, 113 reflection collaborative reflection 62–63 cycles of self-regulated learning 29, 54 and grammar learning strategies (GLS) 118 and intercultural awareness 131 reflection-for-action 217, 219–222 reflection-in-action 214, 216–218 reflection-on-action 214, 216–218 Schön’s concept of reflective practice 216–218 strategic competence 25 and teacher education 244 teachers’ 214–218, 247, 271–272, 281 and technology 196 triggers for 63 young learners 162–164, 166 Regehr, G. 56

Index

repertoire of linguistic resources 60–61 repertoires of strategies, choosing from 24, 25, 56, 92, 126, 143, 157, 168, 265 research design 4, 5–6, 15, 33– 34, 203, 263–264, 269, 272– 274, 279 researcher-teacher collaborations 256–258, 271, 281–282 research-to-practice pathways 33–34 resource tables 159 respect 127 rich language learning experiences 44 Richards, J.C. vii, viii risk-taking 48, 83, 177 Robbins, J. 136, 158, 159, 190, 267–268, 281 Roever, C. 141, 150 role-play 134 Rubin, J. vii, viii, 26, 27, 29, 38, 47, 58, 69, 94, 116, 156, 157, 171, 172, 188, 196, 227, 228, 231, 234, 235, 244, 256, 268, 269, 271 Ruiz de Zarobe, Y. 62 rule discovery 116–117 Ryan, S. 70–71 scaffolding and CLIL 85 and cultural awareness 126, 134 and goal-setting 228 individual learner differences 76 integration of SI into ordinary lessons 180, 274 self-regulation 60, 61 of teachers 230, 237, 252–253, 254 young learners 157, 161, 164, 168 Schmenk, B. 56 Schneider, J. 33 Schnellert, L. 34 Schön, D. 215, 216–218, 219 school-age pupils 39 school ethos 44 Schramm, K. 39 scripts, learning languages with different 45, 47–48 Second Language Acquisition (SLA) xxv, 3–4, 25–27, 219, 223, 281 selective attention 84, 90, 129, 130, 132, 134

293

self-access materials 26 self-appraisal 269 self-assessment and attribution theory 72 checklists 268 Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) 90 and diversity 48 future research directions 280 versus self-monitoring 56 and self-regulated learning 53–67 teachers’ 213, 221–222, 235 self-concept 28, 124 self-confidence 70, 73 self-development 33 Self-Directed Learning (SDL) 46, 228–230 self-directional skills 54, 55, 63, 190, 191, 228 self-efficacy Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) 81, 82, 94 explicit strategic instruction 177 future research directions 280 individual learner differences 68, 73–75 and self-regulated learning 55, 56–57, 76, 77 teachers’ 229 young learners 156, 158 self-evaluation 30, 136, 175, 192, 205, 246, 253–254 self-management of learning checklists 268–269 Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) 90 grammar learning strategies (GLS) 116 learning from neighbouring fields 28 and metacognition 269 strategic learning spaces 55 teacher empowerment to achieve 227–242 teachers’ own 244, 268, 281 technology 191, 196, 206 young learners 156, 161 self-monitoring 56, 58, 60 self-regulation and affect/emotion 223 and collaborative working 46 Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) 94

294

Learning Strategy Instruction in the Language Classroom

self-regulation (Continued) and differentiation 185 and grammar learning strategies (GLS) 112 and intercultural awareness 126 as long-term goal of LLSI 32 models of strategy instruction 28, 29, 30 and self-assessment 54 and self-directional skills 55 strategic classroom model 53–67 teachers’ 34, 244 and technology 203 theoretical evidence base 3 self-talk 84, 85 semantic formulas 146 sequences of strategies 117, 143, 150 shared learning goals 58 shared ownership of classroom learning 62 Shively, R.L. 150 Siegel, J. 34 Sinicrope, C. 125 situated instruction 24 skill acquisition theory 27, 29 SMART goals 196, 228, 229, 230, 232–235, 236–237, 240 Smith, R.C. 32 social capital 40, 41 social class 40–45, 132 social media 135–136, 191, 201–207, 267–268 social process, learning as 46 social relevance of learning a language 47 social space 39, 44 social strategies see also affective strategies Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) 84, 90–91, 92 differentiation 187 explicit strategic instruction 176 and formative assessment 214 and grammar learning strategies (GLS) 112 and intercultural awareness 129, 131 pragmatics 143, 264 and social media 191 social media 201 teacher education 249 social-interaction theory 157

sociocultural competence 123–139, 142, 145–146 sociocultural context as variable 38, 40, 266, 267 sociocultural context of the classroom 57 sociocultural theory 29, 46 sociocultural-interactive strategies 126 socioeconomic/sociocultural variables 38–52, 266, 267 Sockett, G. 202, 205 Sorić, I. 72 Sparks, R. 71 speaking skills 11, 48, 223–225, 265 see also oral skills special learning needs 27, 28 speech acts 141, 142, 144, 145 spontaneous communication 109, 111, 113, 115, 117 standalone learning strategy programmes 27–28, 192, 206 standardized testing 220–221 stereotypes, questioning 124, 125, 127, 134, 135–136 Stern, D. vii Stewart, V. 125 STIR (STrategy Instruction Research) study 40–45 Stoll, L. 53 strategic behaviour 70, 74 strategic classroom model xxii, 22, 45, 53–67 strategic competence 23–25 Strategic Content Learning (SCL) xxii, 29–31, 45–49, 58 strategic interaction 57 strategic learning spaces 55–60, 63 Strategic Self-Regulation 126 strategies see affective, cognitive, communication, compensation, grammar, metacognitive and social strategies collaborative strategies 48, 198 Critical Cultural Awareness strategies 126–132 interactive strategies 126, 206 pragmatic strategies 142–144 strategies instruction (SI) 22 strategy awareness 46, 148, 156, 157, 158, 165, 172, 196, 246, 247–249

Index

strategy categories/classification 88, 112, 116, 126, 129, 265 strategy chains 117 see also sequences of strategies Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) 72, 111 strategy wheels 157 strategy-based instruction (SBI) 26, 156, 244 strengths-based strategy instruction 32–33, 46, 269 stress 159, 160 structural equation modelling (SEM) 272 student response systems (SRS) 205 study skills (teaching of learning strategies) 22, 27–28, 31, 33 style preferences 92, 110, 118, 147, 161, 174, 245, 266 subject matter, adjusting LLSI for 96, 266 success criteria 47, 53–54, 58, 61, 63, 133, 206 summarizing skills 84, 90, 177 summative assessment 213, 220, 281 Survey of Reading Strategies 268 Swain, M. 107, 109 Switzerland 58 systematic LLSI 90, 200, 218, 219, 231, 246, 269, 274 tacit knowledge 225n2 Taguchi, N. 141, 150 Taiwan 74 Tajeddin, Z. 141, 143, 150 Tapestry series (Heinle & Heinle) 26 task analysis 29, 58, 188, 229, 234 task design for progression 54, 58, 62–63, 64, 67 task knowledge 188, 270 task-based learning 53 task-dependent strategies 24 task-orientation 55–56, 58, 64 Taveau, F. 58 Taylor, A. 6 teachers autonomy of 244 dialogic episodes 60–62 explicit feedback on strategy use 48 as facilitators of learning 57 guidelines and materials for integrating language learning 171–183

295

lack of research on 271–272 and learner autonomy 227–242 learners becoming their own teachers 53 learner-teacher partnerships 53, 54, 55, 62–63, 64 modelling academic literacy 60 over-reliance on 82 pre-service training 119, 244, 245, 246–248, 249–250, 251–252, 254, 255 research-to-practice pathways 34 role in driving learning process 57 in-service training 119, 228–230, 248–249, 250–251, 254–255 strategy awareness 172 teacher education 167–168, 172, 213–226, 228–230, 243–261 time pressures on 29, 68, 76, 215, 245, 247, 267, 281 Teacher’s LLSI Guide 178–181 teaching objectives 174 technology 63, 67, 115, 190–210, 253, 267–268 television 202, 205–206 Teng, K.-H. 74 Teo, A. 191 terminology for strategies 86 testing 245 test-taking strategies 16, 265 text competencies 84 textbooks 26, 244 theories-in-practice 215–216 theory, lack of good base of xxii, 3, 263, 264, 281–282 think-aloud processes 134, 159, 189, 193 thinking skills 55, 82, 84 Thompson, I. 228 threshold levels of language 13 Tillema, H.H. 60 time management 55 Toffoli, D. 202, 205 top-down approaches 27, 29, 45–46, 247, 251 transdisciplinary curricula 53 transferability Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) 92, 95–96 Critical Cultural Awareness (CCA) 126, 136

296

Learning Strategy Instruction in the Language Classroom

transferability (Continued) future research directions 280–281 grammar strategies 118 and learner autonomy 86 pragmatics 149 Strategic Content Learning (SCL) 47 teacher education 255–256, 258, 267 young learners 164, 166 translanguaging 60 transparent languages 207 Tutüniş, B. 244, 249, 253 UK 40, 45, 61, 72, 75–77 uncertainty, ability to tolerate 44, 47, 217 underachievement of boys 42 Universal Grammar xxv values 39–40, 125 van Lier, L. 55 Van Yperen, N.W. 33 video 193, 194, 196, 197–198, 204–205, 248, 268, 282 Vieira, D. 228 virtual learning environments 191–200 visualization strategies 146–147 visuals, use of 85, 158 vocabulary skills 11, 83, 84–85, 89–90, 175, 229, 263 Voice of America (VOA) 193–200, 207, 208 Voicethread 204–205 volition/will 24, 33

Wang, C. 74 Wang, J. 45 Weaver, S.J. 244, 249 Weiner, B. 71 Wenden, A. 263 White, C. 191, 206–207 White, J. 244, 257 Whitty, G. 41 whole-class instruction 29 Williams, M. 72 will/volition 24, 33 Wilson, D. 56 Wolff, D. 83, 84 Won, M. 13 Wong, B.Y.L. 22 Woore, R. 75, 77 working memory capacity 70, 115 World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages 124 worldviews 125, 127 Writing Pal 192 writing skills 11, 84, 192, 265 Wyner, L. 149 Yin, R.K. 157 young learners 155–170, 175–176, 265, 267, 279 Yulita, L. 125, 136 Zeng, Y. 268 Zhang, X. 74 zone of proximal development (ZPD) 32–33