Topic Two

1. Topic Two • Strategy training and L2 learning

2. Encouraging Note • “English course guidelines for primary and secondary school students”(2001) • English Course Requirements for Non-English Majors (2004) • “English teaching syllabus for English majors” (2000)

3. The language curriculum • Syllabus design: What? • Methodology: How? • Evaluation: How well? • (Nunan, 2004)

4. Difficulties in implementing the new curriculum • No specifications in the curriculum • How to incorporate the strategy component into a daily lesson？ • How to incorporate it into a web-based course？

5. The question that arises in this context • How to integrate strategy training with university-level foreign language programs?

6. What am I going to talk about? • Reviewing the progress in strategy training in mainland China • Critically examining common assumptions underlying strategy training programs and research on strategies • Strategy training principles and their justifications

7. Topic One Reviewing progress in language strategy training in China

8. Pioneering efforts in Mainland China • For students • General training • Specific training • For teachers • The summer institute

9. Examples For general training • Zhu Weifang & Cao Wen (1999) • Ma Xiaomei & Gao Yanjie et al. (2003)

10. Examples for specific training • Lü Changhong, (2001): Listening • Wang Lifei (2002): Speaking • Fan Lin & Wang Qinghua(2002): Vocabulary learning

11. General training(1) • Zhu Weifang & Cao Wen (1999) • Beijing University of Foreign Studies • 57 first-year students enrolled in 1997 • The English Orientation Camp • three weeks • help freshmen adjust themselves to university life and study

12. L2 learning strategy training • Textbook “Learning matters” by David Nunan • 15 strategies were introduced to the students • Each cycle consists of three activities

13. L2 learning strategy training • Reflecting on and sharing the learning strategies used before • Discussing 15 introduced strategies in relation to different teaching situations • Accomplishing different tasks by a variety of strategies

14. Results • 31% students: benefit from strategy training • 12% students: too abstract and not useful • Conclusion: strategies teachable and somewhat effective, but not as effective as was expected

15. General training (2) • Ma Xiaomei & Gao Yanjie et al. (2003) Xi’an Jiaotong University • 260 students enrolled in 2001 • One year (Sept., 2001- July, 2002) • Phase One: awareness raising • Students’ contracts • Lectures • Phase Two: strategy-based instruction • Pre-, during and post-activities

17. Results • The three experimental classes all outperformed the three control classes in the post-test. (Questionable) • The frequency of the use of strategies decreased in both experimental and control classes.

18. Topic Two • Critically examining common assumptions underlying the previous strategy training and research on strategies

19. Common Assumptions • Students do not know what are good strategies. • Some strategies are good while others are bad. • The belief “The more, the better”

20. Assumption One: lack of strategies • 6 years of learning English • 12 years of learning Chinese • Experience in learning physics, mathematics, chemistry, history, geography • Experience in learning every day living skills

21. Have abundant resources for learning strategies • Need to learn how to activate and implement the strategies they have already had before • Abandon the informing-practice pattern

22. Assumption Two: Good or bad • Some strategies are good while others bad. Poorer learners do not learn a foreign language successfully because they use bad strategies while good learners use good strategies. • Huang (1987) • Vann & Abraham (1990)

23. Assumption Two: Good or bad • Ellis (1994), Cohen (1998), • Strategies are not inherently good or bad. There are no good or bad strategies but there is only good or bad use of strategies. • Who, When, How

24. Assumption Three: the belief “the more the better” • Underlying quite a number of studies • Nunan suggests: encourage poorer learners to use a greater range of strategies

25. Strategies are problem-oriented. • Some strategies are double edged. • Strategies do not function well individually.

26. Topic Three • Strategy training principles and their justifications

27. Strategy training principles

28. Theoretical justification • The cognitive perspective • Skill development • The educational perspective • the whole person development • The social constructivist perspective • Knowledge accumulation

29. Principle One • Learn strategies as developing skills

30. The cognitive perspective • Anderson (1993, 1995) • A three-stage model of the skill-learning process • Declarative stage, procedural stage, automatized stage • The nature of strategy: problem-oriented, intentional

31. Definitions • Strategies are learners’ deliberate actions to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations” (Oxford, 1990: 8) • Ellis, (1994); Cohen (1998)

32. Learning strategies as skills • Two stages • Declarative stage • Procedural stage

33. Principle Two • Instruction unit • MCA as a cluster

34. MCA as a cluster Meta-level Management (Meta-cognitive/ Meta-affective) Cognitive strategies Affective strategies Non-meta level Strategy= belief+action

35. Oxford’s classification (1990) Memory (Direct) Cognitive (Direct) Social (Indirect) Compen-sation (Direct) Affective (Indirect) Meta-cognitive (indirect)

36. O’Malley & Chamot (1990) Metacognitive Social Cognitive

37. Principle Two • Strategies training is a kind of skill learning.

38. The educational perspective • Intellectual, affective and social competence • Proficient L2 learners and contributing members of a community • The structure of language strategies

39. Principle Three • The procedure of strategy training is trying-sharing- performing-monitoring instead of informing-practice

40. The role of the teacher(1) • Find out students’ strategies used before and the strategies proved to be successful or less successful

41. The role of the teacher (2) • Help expand the students’ repertoire of strategies

42. The role of the teacher (3) • Provide the students with opportunities to practice

43. The role of the teacher (4) • Encourage the students to monitor and evaluate their strategy use

44. The constructivist perspective • Knowledge is constructed by an individual through interaction with his environment. • The learner: a contributor as well as a constructor • The learner’s own initiative • The procedures: trying, discussing, performing and evaluating instead of informing and practicing

45. Why? • Strategy training: a means but not an end • Immediate goal • Facilitate L2 learning • Ultimate goal • Produce autonomous learners • Part of quality education • Multiple functions

46. Thank you !