Good Language Learners' Strategies

strategies of good language learners

Subject:	strategies of good language learners
List-id:

After mentioning language learning strategies and styles in one of my
posts, I came across the two lists below in emails from Piruz
Siavoshi, originally posted on [ Forums_TESOLTeachers @
yahoogroups.com ] and reposted here with permission:

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List I
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Ten  Language Learning Strategies of Good Language Learners (GLLs)

(i) Planning strategy I (cognitive): a personal learning style or
positive learning strategies.Good learners have sufficient self-
knowledge to know what style they should adopt to be successful.

(ii) Planning strategy II (affective): an active approach to the
learning task. Good learners are not passive but take an active
independent role in learning.

(iii) Empathic strategy: a tolerant and outgoing approach to the
target language and empathy with its speakers. Integrative motivation
is crucial, as is lack of inhibition about learning a new language.

(iv) Formal strategy: technical know-how about how to tackle a
language. Good learners are aware of the form of language and
consciously try to get to know the second language.

(v) Experimental strategy: strategies of experimentation and planning
with the object of developing the new language into an ordered
system, and revising this system progressively. The learner has to
make guesses about the second language systematically and be prepared
to change them.

(vi) Semantic strategy: constantly searching for meaning. Good
learners look for meaning in what they hear.

(vii) Practice strategy: willingness to practice. Good learners seize
every opportunity for practice.

(viii) Communication strategy: willingness to use the language in
real communication. Good learnes seek out occasions to use the
language in real-life situations.

(ix) Monitoring strategy: self-monitoring and critical sensitivity to
language use. Good learners check their output continuously and learn
from their mistakes.

(x) Internalization strategy: developing the second language more and
more as a separate reference system and learning to think in it. Good
learners deliberately cut themselves off from their first language.

[taken from David Stern's list, published in 1975]
(Source: Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics: A Handbook
for Language Teaching , edited by Keith Johnson and Helen Johnson ,
p. 141)

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List II
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Language Learning Strategies of Good Language Learners (GLLs)

(1) GLLs find an appropriate style of learning.

(2) GLLs involve themselves in the language learning process.

(3) GLLs develop an awareness of language as both system and
communication.

(4) GLLs pay constant attention to expanding their language knowledge.

(5) GLLs develop the L2 as a separate system.

(6) GLLs take into account the demands that L2 learning imposes.

[taken from a research study carried out at Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education]
(Source: Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics: A Handbook
for Language Teaching, Edited by Keith Johnson and Helen Johnson, pp.
141-42)

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I think it's worth talking about this with students.  I'm considering
selecting from the two lists, and then asking students for specific
examples of things that might fit into the different strategies. 
With any luck, sharing ideas in class will help give people more
ideas about effective ways to learn.