English as a Foreign Language Methodology

Mg. Roxanna Correa Prez

Argumentative Essay:
What is the role of Language Learning Strategies in the process
of Teaching and Learning English as a foreign language?

Section: 1
Students: Albornoz, M. Timothy.
Herrera, C. Isidora.

Concepcin, 2014.

Introduction
Nowadays, it has become a trend in Language Teaching to address the knowledge into a
learner oriented perspective. As the Cognitive approach emerged in the 1960s, how learners
acquire a language became more important for the improvement of teaching and content delivery
using other methods apart from the common behaviourist procedures (Celce-Murcia, 2001).
Therefore, language learning styles eventually became the answer for the main questions of how
people find different their own ways in order to learn something new since we start our learning
process. As a result, language learning styles and preferences were taken as references for
teachers and researchers when finding suitable procedures in each individual learner,
personalizing the learning process. Language learners profiles were created to construct and
follow students ways of learning through an in-depth analysis of weaknesses and strengths when
performing in a particular skill (Chamot, 1999).
Throughout this Language Learner Profile of a student of English as a foreign language, it
will be carried out the following question: What is the role of Language Learning Strategies (LLS) in
the process of Teaching and Learning English as a foreign language? Additionally, the analysis of a
writing task given to a General English student will be developed through Larsen & Freemans
(2003) classification: form, use and meaning. To finish with a Chamots (1999) planning model
proposal that will be used in a one-to-one class with the purpose of applying it and witness how
strategies are used in a real learning context.

What is the role of Language Learning Strategies in the process of teaching and learning
English as a foreign language?
1. English as a Foreign or Second Language
English as a foreign or second language has been a topic of discussion because of their
slight differences and similarities. Nunan (1999, as cited in Vargas & Cleveland, 2014) defines
English as a Second Language (ESL) as teaching and learning of English in communities where it is
widely used for communication by the population at large, whereas English as a foreign language
is defined as: the teaching and learning of English in communities where it is not widely used for
communication. As it can be noticed, the main breaking point of EFL and ESL is the context where
is taught, something that is intrinsically related to the number of people using it for different
purposes in those contexts. For instance, Vargas & Cleveland (2014) associate EFL to the Chilean
reality, pointing out at the low, almost insignificant, use of English by most of the population. In
contrast, even though the pursuit of EFL and ESL is to teach English, ESL is contextualized to
migrants who live in countries where English is broadly used by people. Consequently, migrants
need to acquire the language that is spoken in their new home country, being forced to use
English as their second tongue as they cannot communicate where their mother tongue is not
widely used.

2. Learning Styles

According to Oxford (1990) Styles are the general approaches- for example, global or
analytic, auditory or visual- that students use in acquiring a new language or in learning another
subject. While Reid (1995, as cited in Khmakhien, 2012) defines it as an internally based
characteristics, often not perceived or used consciously. As it can be noticed, Oxford restricts her
definition into a school environment. On the other hand, Reids definition is basically oriented into
cognitive processes that may happen in any situation.
Both of these authors classify the learning styles following different aspects that they may
find more relevant to the learning process. In the case of Reid (1995, as cited in Khmakhien, 2012)
states that learning styles can be divided into three major categories: cognitive learning styles,
sensory learning styles and personality learning styles. On the contrary, Oxford (1990) classifies

the learning styles with four dimensions that are likely to be among those most strongly
associated with L2 learning: Sensory preferences, personal types, desired degree of generality, and
biological differences. Both authors consider psychological aspects of a person when classifying
learning strategies, but Oxford contemplates a different aspect that Reid does not: The biological
differences. Within the biological differences there is a persons contextualization, which may
affect on the way of thinking of the person and also how and when apply certain cognitive
processes.

3. Learning Strategies

As a result of the use of styles when learning, the fields of EFL/ESL studied and proposed a
whole new set of learning strategies that were determined by one or more styles mentioned
above. Oxford (1990) defines learning strategies as specific actions taken by the learner to make
learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable
to new situations. In addition, Cohen (2010) declares that good learners performance and how
they manage a high range of learning strategies to achieve a particular learning objective are the
main factor to take into account when defining learning strategies. In the same study field, Cohen
(2010) also proposes a distinction between language learning strategies and language use
strategies. The former is defined as the conscious and semi-conscious thoughts and behaviours
used by learners with the explicit goal of improving their knowledge and understanding of a target
language, and the latter as strategies for using the language that has been learned, however
incompletely ().
Even though we may find Cohens subdivision of learning strategies useful to understand
these concepts in a more eclectic way and also to raise awareness of different point of views
around LLS. However, we decided to go in depth with Oxfords classification of Language Learning
Strategies, because we think that it covers more aspects of the learning process not only from a
learner oriented approach, but also from the environment and other factors that may have an
impact in the use of learning strategies.
Asides from Cohens distinctions of language learning strategies, Oxford (1990) proposes a
different way of classifying learning strategies suggesting two major categories: Direct and Indirect
strategies. Within Direct Strategies, three more subcategories are specified regarding to the

mental processing that is required when using and learning a language, which are: Memory,
Cognitive and Compensation strategies. Said strategies are described as:

Memory strategies, which are the reflection of very simple principles such as
arranging things in order, making associations and reviewing.
Cognitive strategies, which consist on the manipulation or transformation of the
target language by the learner.
Compensation strategies, which are about enabling learners to use the new
language for either comprehension or production despite limitations in knowledge
(Oxford, 1990: 39; 43; 47).

Moreover, indirect strategies are also subdivided into three categories that support
language learning from an underneath, but not less important perspective, which are:
Metacognitive, Affective and Social strategies. These are defined as:

Metacognitive strategies are actions which go beyond purely cognitive devices,

and which provide a way of learners to coordinate their own learning process.
Affective strategies help to regulate emotions, motivations and attitudes.
Social strategies help students learn through interaction with others (Oxford,
1990: 135)

As it can be noticed, Oxford has gone even further when analysing learning strategies adding
what may seem not very significant for some researchers, thus they represent an important
portion of what is called the learning process. Not only is it affected by our mental processes, but
also by what goes beyond our cognitive awareness and our socio-affective environment. In fact,
for teachers it might be vital to raise awareness of what happens in students learning context in
order to prepare, implement and regulate the techniques that he/she is going to apply during the
class, and how they will affect learning strategies used by students (Oxford, 1990).

4. Language Learning Strategies in teaching languages.

The use of language learning strategies for teaching purposes has been mainly supported
by Chamots (1999) researches, which are based on some of the authors that were mentioned
before in this theoretical framework such as Oxford (1990) and Cohen (2010). Because of their
studies in learning strategies, Chamot supports her proposals through their previous studies.
Nevertheless, the main focus of Chamots proposals in teaching languages is the use of
Metacognitive processes, as well as providing guidelines for teachers during the development of a
class or a task.
The Metacognitive Model of Strategic Learning, as it is the name given to this approach to
teaching, consists on: Planning, Monitoring, Problem Solving and Evaluating. Chamot (1999) states
that these four metacognitive processes are the best strategies in order to face any task. Also, he
adds that the actual use of this Model helps teachers for the instructional development of
strategic learning in tasks, as well as students to be aware of the ways that may improve their
learning and how to unify other subjects to the language class.
Therefore, the use of the four steps to get in an effective metacognition of what is being
studied starts at the Planning stage. During this stage the good learner (Chamot, 1999; Cohen,
2010), who is taken as an example, prepares and foreseen the task before even starting, for the
learner anticipates any issue that may appear through the development of that task. Then,
through the development of the task, the Monitor stage is where the learner tests him/herself
using different strategies such as thinking and self-criticizing. After that, regarding the type of task
that is in development, the learner may find some obstacles before finishing the task. Here the
Problem Solving stage acts as the helper for that learner to overtake the obstacles. Finally, the
Evaluation stage plays the role of finding weaknesses and strengths at the end of the task and
provides learners with a parameter in order to improve next time they pass through the same type
of task (Chamot, 1999).

5. The role of Language Learning Strategies in Teaching and Learning English as a

Second or Foreign Language

Because of the broad range of information that is being processed through the constant
communication of teachers and learners, Language Learning Strategies act as the main answer in
order to solve the issue of not having the time, nor enough focus on one type of task or content. In
the English class, the continual communicative feedback of teachers and students that can be

represented by the Receptive and Productive skills, may become a matter of confusion for
students to catch what is the content about, to improve the skill in used and even to consciously
use an strategy. It becomes too overwhelming for the both actors in a class. However, the big
amount of unseen strategies makes them be one of the major activators of learning and teaching.
In this point, Oxford (1990:1) declares that learning strategies are:
() especially important for language learning because they are tools for active, selfdirected movement, which is essential for developing communicative competence.
It can be observed that the role given by Oxford to learning strategies in a class is the
autonomy that students are provided. The more they learn how to use an effective learning
strategy, the more students become self-conscious of how the content may easily be acquired.
Thus, not only is the content what accounts at the moment of learning, but also the context in
which strategies are being used. Socio-affective strategies are also important for students and
teachers, because there is an agreement that stressed contexts do not contribute to the learning
process.
In conclusion, the role of language learning strategies has become a broad matter to take
into account at the moment of teaching, because teachers should be able to manage, control and
provide students with suitable tools in order to makes language learning a smooth process for
students.

STUDENTS BACKGROUND
The person we will analyse is an eighteen year old girl. She studies Math Pedagogy at Universidad
Catolica de la Santsima Concepcin. She did her school studies at Colegio Brasil in Concepcion
and started her English studies in grade 5 till grade 12. Even though she had English for 7 years,
she never liked and understood English. Currently she is attending the General English subject at
the university.

WRITING TASK

1. Hello . In winter I'm usually at home eating delicious things but last winter ski trip with 2. my
brothers.
3.last summer spend several days in the field in Quillon with my family.
4. I summer I am lake sleep late , watch novels and movies in my house.
5.Also afternoons do sport example jogging and riding a bicycle by the udec or park 6.Ecuador.
Usually in summer travel with my uncles to the Lago lanalhue , also let is 7.pools , example
Castaares.

ANALYSIS WRITING

Form
Spelling: In line number 4, the student wrote lake instead of like. The student may get confused
typing.

Subject omission: In line number 5, the student wrote: ...Also afternoons do sport instead of
Also afternoon I do sport. This is a common feature of native speakers of Spanish due to
sentences can go without a subject in the Spanish language.
Verb omission: In line number 1, the student wrote but last winter ski trip with... instead of but
last winter I went to a sky trip with the omission of the verb might be because (FALTA ALGO
ACAA)

Meaning
Vocabulary: In line Number 4, the student misused the word novels referring to Soap Operas. The
student might have a misunderstanding of the word because the word novel acts as a false
cognate with her L1.
Use:
In line number 5, the student wrote bicycle by the udec instead of bicycle at the Udec It
can be inferred that due to interference between Spanish and English the student might
have translate the whole sentence from its L1 to the L2 literally.

ASSESSING WRITING

RUBRIC

WRITTING ABOUT YOUR HOLIDAYS

Teacher Name: Timothy Albornoz / Isidora Herrera

Student Name:

________________________________________

CATEGORY 3
Ideas

Ideas were expressed in a

Ideas were somewhat

Ideas were somewhat

clear and organized fashion. organized, but were not

organized, but were not

It was easy to figure out

very clear. It took more

very clear. It took more

what the letter was about.

than one reading to figure than one reading to

out what the letter was

figure out what the

about.

letter was about.

Content

The letter contains at least 3 The letter contains 2-1

The letter contains no

Accuracy

accurate facts about the

accurate facts about the

accurate facts about the

topic.

topic.

topic.

Grammar &

Writer makes no errors in

Writer makes 1-3 errors in Writer makes more than

spelling

grammar or spelling.

grammar and/or spelling.

(conventions)

4 errors in grammar
and/or spelling.

EXPLAINING THE RUBRIC.

As we are in the context of the communicative approach we decided mainly to focus on the
purpose of the task and if the student was able to produce a message and also if it was
understood. of course there are grammar aspect we cannot let out but as it is set on the rubric we

concentrate on the development of the ideas and also on the content accuracy, this means that if
what the student was writing about had coherence with the purpose of the task.

PROPOSAL
In this stage is required a Lesson Plan for the one to one class as a remediation of one of the
aspects of the linguistic needs of the learner according to Strategic based Instruction. In this case,
we will mainly focus on the personalization/contextualization task in order to raise awareness
about different types of situations they might have to reflect about.

Learning Strategies Lesson Planning Form

Content Area: families

Lesson Topic: My life

Grade: General English, Math Pedagogy

Lesson Goals
Language Objective:
Students will be able to write about their families.
Strategy Objective:

Students will use Personalization and Contextualization in order to raise awareness

about different types of situations they might reflect about.

Linguistic Content:
Using present simple
Communication Tasks:
Student will answer question
Student will write a text

Procedures
Preparation (5 minutes)
Firstly the teacher elicitates the S vocabulary showing pictures of different types of families and
asking different aspect of the family and also related to her family.
-

How many people are in this family?

By whom is this family composed?

Do you know a family similar to this one?

How many people do you live with?

Do you have any brothers or sisters?

Presentation (10 - minutes)

The teacher introduces the strategy of personalization for remembering and recalling from their
life experiences the information necessary for the task.
Then, the teacher models the strategy of personalization by reviewing the ppt. slide with the
pictures of different types of families, and with that information talks about his/her family.
Demonstrate the strategy by explaining how we used personalization in order to relate any topic
into our own life and using the information to talk about own experiences. By this way, we will
show how students this strategy can be meaningful and useful for their learning.
Practice (15 minutes)
Students will write a text about their own families, describing each one of their members and
giving some personal facts about them.
Evaluation (5 minutes)
After the S finishes her draft, the S will ask for correction and feedback of her writing task.
After finishing the writing task, the teacher will ask the student if the learning strategy was useful
for writing the task and also ask if there are any other situations where the student could use this
strategy.
Expansion
Students will create a "learning journal" where they will have to analyse how the strategy helped
them in the development of a lesson. This learning journal will be applied to the other subjects
they have at school; it will have the sequence adopted from Chamot (1999) on page 14. This
journal will be checked weekly.

Discussion
As it can be seen through our proposal, there are many issues to cover at the moment of
teaching and encouraging a student to use a strategy in order to improve his/her performance.
Strategies in these cases are very useful and we agree with the fact that these are the keys for
learners to be more autonomous and self-direct their learning. However, sometimes it might be
difficult to teach a strategy when learners have never been conscious of using a strategy, nor
about the existence of other ways to overtake a particular task.
Furthermore, at the moment of analysing and evaluating the task that we decided to apply
in our student, we found out several problems that a common teacher may have solved through
the use of feedback, which is totally right. On the contrary, we examined every sentence and
categorized the most frequent mistakes to identify the major issue of the writing. We discovered
that Form was the main weakness in the students writing performance; as a result, we agreed on
using the Personalization strategy. There were several strategies to choose apart from this one,
such as Ask if it makes sense, Background knowledge, among others in Chamots (1990) handbook.
Thus we made our decision based on the metacognitive strategies that the student was showing in
every class we taught her. She would use personal experiences and choose objects that
represented something meaningful to her. Consequently, it seemed that the closer she felt to the
topics, the better she performed.

Conclusion
The role of Language Learning Strategies (LLS) in TEFL has become into one of the most
important factors when the content or the instructional resources of teachers are not enough for
students to learn a second language. Besides, LLS go beyond the use of superficial styles of
learning; in fact all the factors surrounding the learner and even the inner ones are covered by LLS.
Additionally, the use of LLS have increased the focus of the learning process to the students more
than the teacher, thus a sort of feedback has been developed through the creation of a
Methodological Model proposed by Chamot (1999). Not only are metacognitive processes
prescript to students task-based solutions, but also for teachers in order to improve their teaching
performance through the class. For instance, planning, monitoring, problem solving and evaluation
are concepts that belong to teachers everyday working methodology.
Moreover, the continuous promotion of LLS among students may influence them in the
way they see learning, fostering the personalization and independently applying certain strategies
for particular skills, as we are in the context of TEFL. (Oxford, 1990).
As a conclusion, we totally agree on the raise of awareness towards Language Learning
Strategies in the Chilean context, because we as high school ex-students can be witnesses of the
lack of knowledge when talking about LLS. It is necessary to provide students not only with
content tools, but also with guidance to find an appropriate strategy regarding their style.
Language learning strategies should be at the top, at the bottom and in the middle of every
content or skill based class, as they can be of help in order to use a huge variety of aspects that
learners may have not discovered yet.

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