The Strategy Factor in Successful Language Learning

The Tornado Effect

Carol Griffiths

• Verlag: Multilingual Matters
• Jahr: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781783099764
• Auflage: 2
• Thema: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Thema: Sprachkunst unterrichten

This book addresses fundamental questions regarding the relationships between successful language learning and strategy use and development, according to learner, situational or target variables. It considers strategy effectiveness from an individual point of view and discusses pedagogical issues, especially relating to teacher perceptions and training, classroom and learner factors, methodology and content. This new edition has been reworked and revised to include an extensive review, analysis and re-interpretation of the existing literature and an update on the theoretical debate surrounding language learning strategies. The research methodology section has been considerably extended and detailed explanations are now given for how to analyse data from research studies. Rather than focusing on strategies divorced from the 'real world' of the classroom, this book explores the issues from the teaching/learning point of view and will be of interest to students, teachers, trainee teachers, teacher educators and researchers alike.

1A Conceptual Perspective

There is an old proverb which states: ‘Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him how to fish and he eats for a lifetime’. Applied to the language field, this proverb might be interpreted to mean that if students are provided with answers, the immediate problem is solved. But if they are taught the strategies to work out the answers for themselves, they may be empowered to manage their own language development. It is this fundamental premise on which this book is based.

Over the years, a great deal of effort has gone into developing theories, methods and approaches for teaching language (such as the Grammar Translation Method, Audiolingualism and the Communicative Approach). However, for many years, issues relating to the learner were treated with ‘relative neglect’ (Dansereau, 1978: 78) and much less attention was paid to the language development process from the learner’s point of view (Tarone & Yule, 1989). Although valuable work was done on questions of how language is acquired/learnt/developed (for instance, Eckman et al., 1984; Ellis, 1986; Krashen, 1981; Winitz, 1981), when it is considered that the learner forms one half of the teacher/learner partnership, it might be considered surprising that, in general, the significance of the learner’s role was so long ‘underestimated’ (Larsen-Freeman, 2001: 12).

In more recent years, however, the learner perspective has received much more attention, an early example of this trend being Nunan’s (1988) The Learner-Centred Curriculum. Indeed, we might suggest that the learner-focused perspective had begun in the 1970s, when the possibility that success in language development might be related to how students go about the task was explored by writers such as Rubin (1975), Stern (1975), Hosenfeld (1976) and Naiman et al. (1978). Writers such as O’Malley (1987), Oxford (1990, 2011), Wenden (1991), Cohen (1998, 2011), Chamot (2001, 2008), Harris (2001), Macaro (2006), Gu (2012) and Griffiths (2008b, 2013) have continued to suggest that learners might be able to develop language more effectively by the use of strategies, which have the potential to be ‘an extremely powerful learning tool’ (O’Malley et al., 1985: 43). O’Malley et al. noted, however, that there was ‘no consensus’ (1985: 22) regarding basic concepts such as terminology, definition, classification and underpinning theory, which was creating ‘confusion’ (1985: 22) and impeding research. Although this was written more than 30 years ago, ‘differences of opinion still exist’ (Oxford, 2017: 51). This book hopes to contribute to furthering the cause of consensus in the interests of promoting more productive research.

1.1Terminology

Some of this ambiguity arises at the very basic level of terminology. This applies especially to the language development tool phenomenon itself, to the language being developed, to the learning/acquisition/development distinction and to those who are trying to develop a new language.

Strategy

Although promising in terms of its potential to facilitate successful language development, there has been ‘considerable confusion’ (O’Malley et al., 1985: 22) in the strategy field; indeed there has been a great deal of controversy over the very term strategy itself, before we even begin to think about definition, classification and theory. Consensus is not assisted by some writers’ use of conflicting terminology such as learning behaviours (Politzer, 1983; Politzer & McGroarty, 1985; Wesche, 1977), tactics (Seliger, 1984) and techniques (Stern, 1992). These rival terms are often used more or less (but not always exactly) synonymously with the term strategy as used elsewhere in the literature.

Strategy, of course, is originally a military term, as some (for instance, Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991; Oxford, 1990, 2011a) point out, and there are those who find the somewhat bellicose overtones of the term unfortunate. A military strategy tends to be an overall plan of attack or ‘plans for winning a war’ (Oxford, 2011b: 168); the term tactics tends to be applied to smaller manoeuvres within the overall strategy. Perhaps, however, we do not need to concern ourselves too much with the way the term was used in battle when we are applying it to language development, although it is an interesting comparison!

Terminology – Strategy

Of all the competing terms which might be chosen, the term strategy would seem to have the longest history and to have been used most frequently and consistently over the years. For this reason, strategy is the term which will be used for the purposes of the present book.

According to Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991: 199), the term strategy was used by Rubin (1975) ‘in perhaps the earliest study in this area and it enjoys the widest currency today’ (for instance, among many others, Chamot, 1987; Cohen, 1991, 2011; Cohen & Macaro, 2007; Harris, 2001; Lam & Wong, 2000; O’Neil, 1978; Oxford, 1990, 2011a; Pearson, 1988; Purpura, 1999; Wenden, 1985; Weinstein, 1978). It is acknowledged, however, that strategy is not the only term which has been, or which might be, used to cover the behaviours involved.

Although the term tactics is employed by some writers to denote a specific activity within an overall strategy (for instance, Oxford, 2011a), the point at which a given behaviour ceases to be a tactic and becomes a strategy or vice versa is not entirely easy to pinpoint. Is an action such as asking a more knowledgeable classmate for help with words I don’t understand, for instance, a tactic or a strategy? If it is considered a tactic within, say, a broader strategy such as using resources, what then would writing down the classmate’s explanation become – a sub-tactic? And what about repeating it to myself to remember what I have written down? In view of its well-established use in the field, and the difficulty of determining the boundaries between layers of activity if other terms are introduced, the term strategy, as defined in Section 1.2, will be used throughout this book in preference to alternative terms.

Target language (TL)

No less controversial than the term strategy itself is the term for the language the strategies are being used to develop. Many writers opt for the term second language (SL or L2) (for instance, among many others, Ausubel, 1964; Chaudron, 1995; Cook, 1991; Donato, 2000; Harley et al., 1990; Hylenstam & Pienemann, 1985; Krashen, 1982; Phillipson et al., 1991; Schumann, 1978; Sharwood Smith, 1994; Spolsky, 1989; Wolfson & Judd, 1983), even though it may be used ‘somewhat confusingly’ (Ellis, 1994: 12). The term is confusing because it does not allow for the many students who may already be multilingual and who may be in the process of developing a third, fourth or subsequent language, and therefore it does not reflect or acknowledge the resource that learners may already possess. There is also frequently confusion between the terms second language (SL) (studied in the environment where the language is spoken, for instance international students studying English in New Zealand or USA), foreign language (FL) (studied in an environment other than where it is spoken, for instance French as it is taught in England or Turkey) and heritage language (the language derived from a particular cultural heritage spoken in a dominant language environment, for instance Hebrew as spoken in USA).

Terminology – Target Language (TL)

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The language the students...