Naomi Kriss & Rigoberto
Martinez
11/27/11
Professor Bede McCormack, Ph.D.
Second Language Acquisition and
Learning, Fall 2011
Research Paper
Literature Review
Learning strategies are tools that learners can apply
to the problem of acquiring a new language. As such they represent a
major difference between childhood second language acquisition and that
undertaken by post-adolescent and adult learners. Research suggests that
while adult second language learners have a greater rate of acquisition than do
first language learners, ultimate attainment of the target language is best
achieved by younger learners. Selinker (1972) suggested that this was due
to fossilization of errors or misunderstandings in the learner’s interlanguage,
the system of understanding that the learner is using between his or her first
and second languages. Some recent researchers such as Chamot and O’Malley
(1990) suggest that explicit instruction on and in the application of learning
strategies can lead to better second language acquisition outcomes.
When early inquiries were made into the use of learning strategies
in SLA, the interested began their research by looking at what the “good
language learners” were doing, Rubin (1975) and Stern (1975), to see if there
was a set of activities, processes, or ways of thinking that was common to this
group. Then once they isolated these behaviors (learning strategies) it
seemed simple enough to teach them, and that the result would be better
learning outcomes. The research has proved anything but simple.
The most glaring difficult is something we
encountered in our own research, which is that of the categorizing.
“There is a tendency for researchers to generate different sets of
learning strategies, resulting in overlapping and poorly defined categories”
(Ellis, 1985). Any body of research, which is examining something but
can’t consistently describe or measure it is going to be fraught with confusion
and inconsistency.
There are two other obvious challenges to conducting,
analyzing and interpreting research on the topic of learning strategies.
The first is how to know what learning strategy a learner is using, when
and why they are using that strategy. This was addressed by Vann
and Abraham (1990):
“Recent research on learning strategies has yielded
conflicting findings and generated limited success in learner training.
These problems may be rooted in inadequate knowledge of the actual
strategies used by unsuccessful learners in contrast to what they report doing.”
We cannot peer into the mind of a learner and see a
learning strategy at work. Researchers must, instead, rely on some
external indication from the learner. To this end self-reported
questionnaires became the standard for this type of research.
Investigators asked the informants to tell them about their learning
strategies; how and when they used them. But everyone wants to look smart
and everyone wants to give the right answer. This could easily and
unintentionally inflate their use of learning strategies, or inaccurately
describe their application. This would skew the results.
The other problem is that one might have a multitude
of strong strategies, but misapply them. Using a task-based strategy
aimed at facilitating rote memorization, (flashcards, for example) will be of
little or no value when one is actually engaged in a more complex process like
the application of a discrete grammatical rule (say forming past-tense verbs in
English.) Vann and Abaraham (1990) note that in their research: “some
unsuccessful used relatively many strategies, and more important, the
unsuccessful learners used many of the same strategies as the successful
learners.” It is not just a matter of knowing a multitude of strategies
but knowing when and how to apply them.
In order for learning strategy use to be effective,
it appears that the learners need to have a number of strategies, and an
awareness of when and how to apply them. Chamot and others have created
models which call for weeks or months or instruction on the explanation,
application, practice and assessment of acquiring learning strategies,
something which we thin would take valuable away from the study and use of the
second language itself.
This issue is carefully addressed in a paper by
Jeffra Flaitz, Carine Feyten, Sallie Fox and Keya Mukherjee (1995) who found
that meta-cognitive awareness training might be a good answer to the challenge
of the explicit instruction and reinforcement needed to create a wide, working
repertoire of learning strategies. In their study, “an experimental group
of 130 students of college-level Spanish I and II received Metacognitive
Awareness Raising (MAR)- a single 50-minute session which, by means of
brainstorming and jigsaw activities, dynamically involved students in
developing a general, overarching awareness of language learning strategies
rather than exposing them to the selection, presentation, and practice of a set
of specific strategies over a period of weeks or months.”
Today’s schools have high student-teacher ratios,
overcrowding, and increased time demands related to mandated testing.
Teaching, reinforcing and assessing strategies according to models like
CALLA can seem unrealistically time consuming. Flaitz and his colleagues
were able to see an increase positive learning outcomes resultant from a far
more efficient focus on a larger more generalized awareness of language
learning strategies. Their empirical evidence suggest that, “in the
absence of an opportunity for the presentation and practice of well-defined
language learning strategies, the achievement of students may still be enhanced
by the development of a more general strategic awareness.”
Locastro (1994) wrote that “Oxford (1989) suggests
that a more important concern n the choice of language learning strategies may
be the purpose for which a language is learned,” but she went farther to say
that it might also be the context in which the learning is taking place.
She looked at learning strategies in a Japanese EFL class and found that
the learning strategy repertoire of the students was intimately tied to the
purpose (learning to read and translate foreign language materials) and the
context (the educational tradition) was one based in the Grammar-Translation
Method.
Locastro’s work and that of Flaitz and his co-authors
are the beginning of new perspectives on the issue of learning strategies in
SLA. The research will continue to be refined and expanded in pursuit of
the perfect balance of depth versus breadth, context and purpose, and no doubt
in other directions as well. It is important that the categories be
defined in some consistent manner, and for the means of reporting and
measurement to be improved.
Methodology
In order to analyze the effectiveness of using few
and multiple learning strategies in learning another language the researchers have
compared English language learners who apply various different learning styles
to those who use very few. In total there were 26 intermediate English
language learners who participated in this study. The participants mostly had Spanish as
their first language with the exception of three students (two student’s L1 is
Russian and the other student’s L1 is Arabic). In addition, the participant’s ages ranged
from 34 to 57.
The researchers first administered a questionnaire
that elicited self-reported data on the use of student’s various learning
strategies. It is important to note that
this test did not explicitly ask the students if they use multiple or few
strategies but rather this test had students circle numerous examples of learning
strategies that they use to learn English.
Based on this information collected the researchers would then classify
the students into two distinct groups (students
who use few learning strategies and students
who use multiple learning strategies).
Following the establishment of these two groups, the
researchers then taught a new language concept to both groups simultaneously.
The language concept that the researchers briefly taught the students was
the different meanings and uses of there, their, and they're. The researchers then instructed the language learners
to review this concept using their learning strategy or the multiple varieties
of strategies that they have previously reported. Subsequently the students took a test on the
new language concept.
Results
Based on the students’
performance on the assessment test we have noticed that the students who use few
strategies were more consistent in their results. These students test
scores hovered around a score of 70 and 80; they had a mean of 74.5, a mode of
80.0, a median of 80.0 and a standard deviation of 13.54. These scores
greatly contrasted the students who used multiple strategies, which were
much more spread out. These students test scores had a mean of 72.0, a mode of 90.0,
a median of 80.0, and a standard deviation of 24.26.
References
Chamot, Anna U. (2009). The CALLA Handbook:
Implementing the cognitive academic
language
learning approach (2nd Edition). White Plains, NY: Longman.
Chamot, Anna U., and O’Malley, Michael J. (1990). Learning
Strategies in Second
Language Acquisition. Melbourne,
Australia: Cambridge University Press.
Jeffra Flaitz, Carine Feyten, Sallie Fox and Keya
Mukherjee (1995). Raising General Awareness
of
Language Learning Strategies: A Little Bit Goes a Long Way. Hispania , Vol. 78, No. 2,
pp. 337-348. Retrieved
from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/345434
Roberta J. Vann and Roberta G. Abraham (1990). Strategies
of Unsuccessful Language
Learners. TESOL
Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 177-198. Retrieved from:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3586898
Rubin, J. (1975). What the 'good language learner' can teach
us. TESOL Quarterly, 9(1),
41-51. Stern, H. H.
"What Can We Learn from the Good Language Learner?". Canadian
Modern Language Review 31 (4): 304–318.
Virginia Locastro (1994). Learning Strategies and
Learning Environments. TESOL
Quarterly,
Vol. 28, No.
2, pp. 409-414. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3587445
APPENDIX A:
Student’s Questionnaire
Age:
Native Country (where are
you from):
Native Language (what is
your first language?)
When did you come to live
in America?
How many years ago?
How old were you?
How long did you go to
school in your home country?
How often do you use
English outside of the classroom?: (Circle One)
All the time
Most of the time Some
of the time Rarely Never
What are some things you do to learn English? (Please circle all of the
strategies you use):
⇿
Watch TV in English
⇿ Try
to talk with English speakers for practice
⇿
Take classes
⇿
Listen to music in English
⇿
Take notes in class
⇿ Use
dictionaries when reading new words
⇿
Make flashcards
⇿
Role play
⇿
Translate things that are written in English
⇿ Try
to read the newspaper or magazines in English
⇿
Read English books to your kids
⇿ Use
English/Spanish dictionaries
⇿
Work with someone who wants to learn Spanish, and help each other learn.
⇿ Try
to talk to people in English different places (at the bank, the grocery store,
in a cab or in the library).
⇿ Use
context to try to figure out words
⇿
Focus on meaning in order to learn new vocabulary
⇿
Make a guess about how a story will go
⇿
Relate new ideas to your own life, try to make personal connections
⇿ Use
cognates (words that sound similar in Spanish and English, like Café and
Coffee)
⇿ Use
imagery (make a picture in your mind to help you remember something)
⇿
Sound something out aloud
⇿ Use
graphic organizers (charts)
⇿ Try
to pay attention to just the most important words or ideas
⇿
Work with another person to help figure something out
⇿ Try
to say something in a different way or go around an issue you can’t explain
APPENDIX B:
Their, There, and They're Test
Directions:
Fill in the blanks with
the appropriate choice—their,
there, or they're.
1.
The Smith family is going on a vacation to Florida. __________ very happy
because they have never gone to Florida.
2.
"Oh, no! _________ are monkeys in my room!" screamed Mr. Martinez
before he fainted on the dining room floor.
3.
Nothing makes Lidyia happier than a nice cold bedroom after a long day at work.
_________ she will sleep all night with a smile on her face.
4.
Mrs. And Mrs. Naber had a very successful bakery business. Now __________ children can go to a good college.
5.
Dolly hates dogs more than snakes or cockroaches. She believes that canines are loathsome
creatures because _________ only goal in life is to kill her front lawn with
urine.
6.
Behind my bed _________ are lots of papers with very important information on
them.
7.
The knives in John’s kitchen are encrusted with bits of brownie and smears of
dried mustard. _________ is no way a doctor would ever consider operating with
any instrument that Roseanne had washed!
8.
Bentley, our neighbor's dog, has toenails that are so long that ________ curled
like macaroni noodles at the ends of his paws.
9.
My mother always worries that ________ might be ketchup inside her favorite
sandwich. If that happened she would be
really angry because she just simply loathes ketchup.
10.
_________ were six really big sheets drying on the clothesline in the backyard
yesterday.
