Language Learning Strategies and Foreign Language Acquisition

Lorraine Cleeton and Lois A.Grollitsch, US

Dr. Lorraine Cleeton, M.Sc. in Special Education, Ph.D. in Education, and Assistant Professor of education at D'Youville College and online mentor for Walden University. Researcher in special education and online education in American and British education. Current research interests are in the following: learning strategies, cognitive style and language fluency; working memory, learning strategies and problem solving skills of students with dyslexia and dyscalculia; learning barriers and cognitive style in online learning. I have presented papers at international and national conferences including the University of Rome and University of Hawaii. I have published several articles and three books, 'A Pocket Guide for Student Teachers' (2004),' Differences in Learning Strategies and External Representations' (2009) and 'Controlling the Levees of your Mind' (2010).
E-mail: cleetonl@dyc.edu and lcleeton@hotmail.com

Lois A.Grollitsch, M. A.. A.B.D. retired 30 year French and Spanish teacher Buffalo School District ; mentor for foreign language teachers, Buffalo School System; adjunct professor of French, Niagara University; assistant professor of education D'Youville College, Buffalo, New York; frequent presenter on literacy and content-based language teaching most recently at the ACTFL Convention in Orlando, Fla. in 2008 and San Diego, Ca. in 2009.
E-mail: grollitschl@dyc.edu

Menu

Introduction
Language learning strategies
Initial letter strategy
The story strategy
The grouping strategy
The imagery strategy
Rehearsal strategy
Materials
Sample research materials
Task
Results and discussion
Strategy use
Implications for social change
References

Introduction

There are many language learning strategies available for teachers to use when teaching students how to remember vocabulary words in another language (Lessard-Clouston, 1997). However, knowing which types of language learning strategies are suited to which type of learner might assist teachers in the selection and use of language learning strategies. Knowing the cognitive style (how a learner thinks) enables the teacher to create materials to meet the learning needs of language learners. The combination of knowing the cognitive style and matching language learning strategy might result in improving the teaching and learning of foreign language vocabulary.

The New York State Regents Examination Board requires students to take a regents examination in a foreign language such as Spanish, French, and German. In order to prepare students for such an examination, it was decided to include memory strategies to possibly enhance the learning of a foreign language and also review cognitive styles known as thinking styles for the purpose of this study, as the integration of all these elements might be helpful in preparation for the exam.

The amount of information being processed by language learners is high in a language classroom (Hismanoglu, 2000). In order to make language learning more efficient Kinoshita et al. (2003) maintained that learners need to be directed toward the use of learning strategies in a language lesson. Also, as demonstrated by Schmeck (1983) foreign language learners exhibited analytic (focus on detail) or global (focus on overview) styles of learning. Several learning strategies follow for incorporation into a strategies toolkit for the foreign language student.

Language learning strategies

Language learning strategies are techniques used by learners to improve any part of their language development (Oxford, 1990). In studies where learners were learning a language other than own, Ehrman and Oxford (1990) demonstrated there were no significant differences between sexes in language performance, but females used learning strategies more than males. The number and kind of learning strategies reported by females were similar to those used by males who shared their cognitive style. The number of strategies may be less important than the learners’ organization and use of them. Unsuccessful language learners use a large number of strategies but in an unorganized manner. Cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies such as language practice (cognitive) and metacognitive strategies such as planning and evaluating one’s study time should take priority over motivational strategies like rewarding oneself or social strategies such as studying with others (Oxford and Cohen, 1992).

Initial letter strategy

The Initial Letter Strategy is based on a mnemonic technique. Loftus (1980) reported that mnemonics speed up learning. Wilson, (1991) maintained that this strategy aids the learner in improving recall. In the instruction section of this study it was thought that students might not be able to recall acronyms in Spanish and therefore, the students were told to remember the acronyms in English. It was also explained by the researcher that in List One and List Four, there were no vowels, so the acronyms that could be considered were short popular phrases such as ‘parental guidance’ for pg.

The story strategy

Crovitz (1979) used this strategy with brain damaged individuals to assist them in recall of words. In his “airplane list”, 10 words that needed to be remembered were embedded in a story. He told the patients to produce bizarre stories to possibly improve recall. The researcher also explained to the students that by using a bizarre story it might be easier for them to remember the words on the lists.

The grouping strategy

Baddeley (1990) maintained that the learner actively organizes material. The tendency was to place items in groups that contained members of the same general category and this was called clustering. Tulving and Pearlstone (1966) found that giving the names of categories at the time of testing enhances recall and in this study according to Baddeley was important in linking categorization and organization to retrieval.

The imagery strategy

Imagery used as a strategy gained popularity in the 1960s as both the judged imageability of words, and instructions to use imagery had strong effects on the rate of learning lists of words or passages of prose (1990). Furthermore, Paivio (1966) reported that concrete nouns gave rise to more imagery than abstract nouns. In this study all the words were concrete nouns.

Rehearsal strategy

Atkinson et al. (1993) stated that using the rehearsal strategy incorporates the conscious repetition of information in short-term memory, usually involving speech. It is used when the information consists of verbal items such as digits, letters or words. The authors gave the example that in trying to remember a phone number we most likely encode the number as the sounds of the digit names and rehearse these sounds until we dialed the number.

Materials

Forty eight urban high school students enrolled in a Spanish class were presented a booklet consisting of general instructions, four lists of concrete nouns written in Spanish belonging to four different categories e.g. furniture, and four learning strategies (Initial Letter, Make into a Story, Group in the same family, and Imagine a Picture).

The students were taught by the researcher how to use each strategy and the same instructions were contained in the booklet. The students were also told that they would be given two minutes to learn each of the four strategies and ten minutes to learn list of words. They were told that they should write down the strategy they used to remember the words on each list. Students were also given the Cognitive Styles Analysis (1991) a computer presented instrument measuring two basic cognitive styles; the Wholist – Analytic style (WA) and the Verbal-Imagery style (VI). It was chosen because it provides a simple and quick means of assessing an individual’s position on two bi-polar cognitive style dimensions: Wholist-Analytic and Verbal-Imagery [Tests such as the Embedded figures Test (Witkin et al., 1971) only assess a singular style dimension.]

Sample research materials

List of learning strategies

• Initial Letter
• The Story Strategy
• The Grouping Strategy
• The Imagery Strategy

The Initial Letter Strategy

Using the first letter of each word to try to make a real or nonsense word.

Example of making a real word - The names of the Great Lakes in the United States are: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior

The first letter of each of the lakes makes the word HOMES

Example of making a nonsense word - The names of each of the colors of the rainbow follow:

red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet

The first letter of each of the colors makes the nonsense word ROYGBIV

The Story Strategy

Write a real or nonsense story that incorporates all the words you want to remember, e.g.:

The following is a nonsense story to remember this list of words (emu, dog, eel, tiger, cat, toad, owl, rat, snake).

Australian Farmer

The Australian farmer had seen an emu, owl, rat, toad and snake outside. He had a dog, cat and eel in his house. However, he had to visit a zoo to see a tiger.

The Grouping Strategy

Grouping words together that belong to the same category. e.g.:

Make a list of all things that belong to the same family e.g. animals dog, tiger, cat, horse, lion, zebra, wolf

Make a list from a larger list of all things in one group e.g. shoulder, subway, palm, elephant, runway, highway, arm, railway, kangaroo, eye, tiger, snake

Body Parts – palm, arm, eye, shoulder

The Imagery Strategy

Making a list of all things in a list by picturing them together or separately, e.g.:

Make a list of all things in one group, which are the same color by picturing several animals all brown in the same picture e.g. a brown horse, a brown wolf, a brown cat, a brown lion, a brown snake, a brown dog, a brown cat

Or make a nonsense picture to help you remember e.g. a brown dog with a brown snake twisted around its neck looking like a scarf.

Task

The following table is contains the list of concrete nouns in Spanish that the students were given to remember:

Results and discussion

Girls used the story strategy more than boys to remember the lists in Spanish. There were no significant differences in the use of cognitive style of the student and remembering the words on the wordlists either in English or Spanish. The number of students who used a specific strategy to assist them in remembering the words in the word lists is given in Table 1.

Strategy use

Girls used the initial letter strategy more than boys to remember the lists in Spanish. There were 4 original strategies (initial letter, story, grouping, and imagery. Two new strategies were discovered on examination of the data and they were ‘rehearsal’ and ‘no strategy’. The most used strategy was the ‘Story Strategy’ followed by ‘Initial Letter’, ‘Grouping Strategy’, ‘No Strategy’, ‘Rehearsal’, and ‘Imagery.’

In a former study by Kimura (1985) it was found that little girls enter kindergarten with a larger vocabulary than boys, and learn foreign languages more easily than their male counterparts. The students in this present study were not tested on their vocabulary ability in the Spanish language prior to the study and gender differences in this ability were not known. Maccoby (1966) also found that girls have higher verbal ability than boys. It would be interesting in a further study to test this verbal ability first and observe the differences in vocabulary used by boys and girls after learning the Story Strategy and also compare the bizarreness of the story between the genders. It would also need to be noted how much practice the students had in class in making up stories in Spanish.

Implications for social change

Foreign language learning opportunities are less common in urban public schools (Met, 2004). Furthermore, the average high school student gets a limited number of hours of instruction over the two years of learning a foreign language and this has been found to be inadequate in developing a usable level of proficiency (Met, 2009). Positive social change is likely to result in maximizing foreign language learning efficiency through matching cognitive style to language learning strategy, in the urban high schooler’s required timeframe of learning.

References

Edition. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

Baddeley, A. (1990) Human Memory, Theory and Practice. Hove: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Cleeton, L. (2000) External Representations and Cognitive Styles in the Solution of Simple Spatial, Verbal Reasoning and Mathematical Word Problems. Goldsmith’s Journal of Education, Vol. 5, No. 1, 26 – 41.

Crovitz, H. (1979) Story method based on airplane list in which the 10 words to be remembered were embedded in a story. Cortex, 15, 225.

Faerch, Claus & Kasper, G (1983) Strategies in Inter-language Communication. London: Longman.

Hismonoglu, M. (2000) Language Learning Strategies in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching. The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. VI, No. 8, August 2000.

Kimura, D.(1985) Male Brain, Female Brain: The hidden difference: Gender does affect how our brains work - but in surprising ways. Psychology Today Vol. 19 50 (7).

Kinoshita, C. (2003) Integrating Language Learning Strategy Instruction into ESL/EFL Lessons. The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. IX, No. 4, April..

Lessard-Clouston, M. (1997) Language Learning Strategies: An overview for L2 Teachers. The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. III, No. 12, December.

Loftus, E. (1980) Memory, Reading. MA: Addison-Wesley.

Maccoby, E. (1966) The Development of Sex Differences. Stanford. California: Stanford University Press.

Met, M. (2008) Improving Students Capacity in Foreign Languages. Education and Training, Retrieved from http://asiasociety.org

Oxford, R. (1990) Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. New York: Harper & Row.

Oxford, R. & Cohen, A. (1992) Language learning strategies: Crucial issues in concept and classification, Applied Language Learning 3, 1 - 35.

Paivio, A. (1966) Latency of verbal association and imagery to noun stimuli as a function of abstractness and generality. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 20, 378 - 386.

Riding, R, & Cheema. (1991) Cognitive Styles: An overview and integration. Educational Psychology, 11(3/4), 193 – 215.

Riding & Douglas. (1993) The effect of Cognitive Style & Mode of Presentation on Learning Performance. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 63, 297-307.

Schmeck, R.R. (1983) Learning styles of college students. In R. F. DILLON & R.R. SCHMECK (Eds.), Individual Differences in Cognition, 1, 233 - 279. Academic Press: New York.

Tulivng, E. & Pearlstone, Z. (1966) Availability versus accessibility information in memory for words. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 5, 381 - 391.

Wilson, B. (1991) Long-term prognosis of patients with severe memory disorders. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 1, 117 - 134.

Witkin, H. (1971) Cognitive Styles in Personal and Cultural Adaptation. Heinz Werner Series, 11.

The Methodology and Language for Secondary Teachers course can be viewed here