Learning Strategies on Language Learning

1、语言学习中的学习策略learning strategies on language learningcontentsabstract.1key words.1i. introduction.1ii. literature review.2iii. language learning strategies.3iv. application of strategies.44.1listening.44.2 speaking.64.3 reading.74.4 writing.9v. reflection on lls research10vi. conclusion.11references11摘

2、要： 学习策略在学习中起着至关重要的作用，尤其是在英语学习中更为突出。只有使用了恰当的学习策略，才能有效的保证英语学习的顺利进行。但是不少英语学习者对学习策略的认识不够充分，更有甚者将学习策略简单的认为就是学习方法。本文从心理学的角度对学习策略的定义进行了充分的论述，帮助英语学习者重新认识学习策略，同时也介绍了学习策略在英语学习中具体方面的使用，对英语学习者在学习中将会有很大帮助。因此，对英语学习策略进行研究是很有必要的。对教师在英语教学中的策略的使用也会有所帮助。关键词： 学习策略；语言学习; 学习策略的应用 abstract： learning strategies play a key

3、role in learning, especially in english learning. only applying learning strategies, would people be sure english learning will go smoothly. but so many english learners do not understand learning strategies completely, someone even see learning strategies simply as learning method. this paper fully

4、 discussed learning strategies from psychological angle, so it can help learners know english strategies again. this paper also introduces application of strategies in some concrete aspects, which is very helpful for english learners. so it is very necessary to make a research. it is also helpful fo

5、r teachers to teach strategies. key words: learning strategies; language learning; application of learning strategiesi. introductionin a helpful survey article, weinstein and mayer (1985:35-42) defined learning strategies (ls) broadly as “behaviors and thoughts that a learner engages in during learn

6、ing” which are “intended to influence the learners encoding process”. later mayer more specifically defined ls as “behaviors of a learner that are intended to influence how the learner processes information”. these early definitions from the educational literature reflect the roots of ls in cognitiv

7、e science, with its essential assumptions that human beings process information and that learning involves such information processing. clearly, ls are involved in all learning, regardless of the content and context. ls are thus used in learning and teaching math, science, history, languages and oth

8、er subjects, both in classroom settings and more informal learning environments. within for foreign education, a number of definitions of language learning strategies (lls) have been used in the field. early on, tarone (1986:20-25) defined ls as “an attempt to develop linguistic and sociolinguistic

9、competence in the target language - to incorporate these into ones interlanguage competence”. rubin later (1987:40-45) wrote that ls “are strategies which contribute to the development of the language system which the learner constructs and affect learning directly”. in their seminal study, omalley

10、and chamot (1990:30-33) defined ls as “the special thoughts or behaviors that individuals use to help them comprehend, learn, or retain new information”. finally, building on work in her book for teachers, oxford provides specific examples of lls and this helpful definition: language learning strate

11、gies-specific actions, behaviors, steps, or techniques that students use to improve their progress in developing second language (l2) skills. these strategies can facilitate the internalization, storage, retrieval, or use of the new language. strategies are tools for the self-directed involvement ne

12、cessary for developing communicative ability.from these definitions, a change over time may be noted: from the early focus on ls, there is now a greater emphasis on the processes and the characteristics of lls. at the same time, we should note that lls are distinct from learning styles, which refer

13、more broadly to a learners “natural, habitual, and preferred ways of absorbing, processing, and retaining new information and skills”, though there appears to be an obvious relationship between ones language learning style and his or her usual or preferred language learning strategies. ii. literatur

14、e reviewalthough the terminology is not always uniform, with some writers using the terms “learner strategies”, others “learning strategies” and still others “language learning strategies”, there are a number of basic characteristics in the generally accepted view of lls. firstly, lls are learner ge

15、nerated; they are steps taken by language learners. secondly, lls enhance language learning and help develop language competence, as reflected in the learners skills in listening, speaking, reading, or writing the l2 or fl. thirdly, lls may be visible or unseen. fourthly, lls involve information and

16、 memory. reading the lls literature, it is clear that a number of further aspects of lls are less uniformly accepted. when discussing lls, oxford (1990:21-24) and others such as wenden (1991:60-65) and rubin (1991:32-35) note a desire for control and autonomy of learning on the part of the learner t

17、hrough lls. cohen (1994:10-12) insists that only conscious strategies are lls, and that there must be a choice involved on the part of the learner. transfer of a strategy from one language or language skill to another is a related goal of lls, as pearson (1993:51-53) and skehan (1993:42-44) have dis

18、cussed. in her teacher-oriented text, oxford summarizes her view of lls by listing twelve key features. in addition to the characteristics noted above, she states that lls: allow learners to become more self-directed, expand the role of language teachers are problem-oriented, involve many aspects, n

19、ot just the cognitive, can be taught, and are flexible are influenced by a variety of factors. beyond this brief outline of lls characteristics, a helpful review of the lls research and some of the implications of lls training for second language acquisition may be found. iii. language learning stra

20、tegies there are literally hundreds of different, yet often interrelated, lls. as oxford has developed a fairly detailed list of lls in her taxonomy, it is useful to summarize it briefly here. first, oxford distinguishes between direct lls, “which directly involve the subject matter”, i.e. the l2 or

21、 fl, and indirect lls, which “do not directly involve the subject matter itself, but are essential to language learning nonetheless”. second, each of these broad kinds of lls is further divided into lls groups. oxford outlines three main types of direct lls, for example. memory strategies “aid in en

22、tering information into long-term memory and retrieving information when needed for communication”. cognitive lls “are used for forming and revising internal mental models and receiving and producing messages in the target language”. compensation strategies “are needed to overcome any gaps in knowle

23、dge of the language”. oxford also describes three types of indirect lls. metacognitive strategies “help learners exercise executive control through planning, arranging, focusing, and evaluating their own learning”. affective lls “enable learners to control feelings, motivations, and attitudes relate

24、d to language learning”. finally, social strategies “facilitate interaction with others, often in a discourse situation”. a more detailed overview of these six main types of lls is found in oxford (1990:18-21), where they are further divided into 19 strategy groups and 62 subsets. here, by way of ex

25、ample, we will briefly consider the social lls that oxford lists under indirect strategies. three types of social lls are noted in oxford (1990): asking questions, co-operating with others, and empathizing with others. although these examples are still rather vague, experienced l2/fl teachers may ea

26、sily think of specific lls for each of these categories. in asking questions, for example, students might ask something specific like “do you mean.?” or “did you say that.?” in order to clarify or verify what they think they have heard or understood. while at first glance this appears to be relative

27、ly straightforward lls, in this writers experience it is one that many efl students in japan, for example, are either unaware of or somewhat hesitant to employ. what is important to note here is the way lls are interconnected, both direct and indirect, and the support they can provide one to the oth

28、ers. in the above illustration of social lls, for example, a student might ask the questions above of his or her peers, thereby “co-operating with others”, and in response to the answer he or she receives the student might develop some aspect of l2/fl (foreign language) cultural understanding or bec

29、ome more aware of the feelings or thoughts of fellow students, the teacher, or those in the l2/fl culture. what is learned from this experience might then be supported when the same student uses a direct, cognitive strategy such as “practicing” to repeat what he or she has learned or to integrate wh

30、at was learned into a natural conversation with someone in the target l2/fl. in this case, the way lls may be inter-connected becomes very clear. iv. application of strategies 4.1 listeningthe listening course can be divided into three stages: the sound recalling, the short-term memory, and the long

31、-term memory. it also can be divided into another different three stages: synthetic analyses, and calculates selecting, and confirming the correction. the first stage: synthetic analyses. the initial understanding of the concrete word, phrase and brief material, carrying on with the short-term memor

32、y to the material storage, linking the material which will have been just laid in and having saved material to completely understand them so that make a long-term storage. the second stage: calculating selecting. according to the fixed context, such as the action of speaking person, the expression,

33、the observation of language means such as tone and voice, hearing first half, just knowing content of second half. in brief, calculating selecting is to pay concentrating attention to the most important key part that relates with this talking subject exactly. third stage: the confirming correction.

34、whether or not learners understand the words and phrases correctly, it needs to confirm or revises by what follows in the passage, paragraph, article, etc. correct understanding can become the key factor and becomes the advantageous condition to continuous listening. in brief, listening course is a

35、process of identifying word, sentence and circumstance, the error of any stage all can lead to the result of don not understand content. potential difficulty of english listening belongs to the mentality obstacle. in the listening course, average learner feel nothing confident, so they are excessive

36、 nervous. the person who can understand the content did not understand yet, therefore the more they listen, the more they are unable to understand at last. chinese learners feel that it is very difficult to listen, and an obvious reason is the new language knowledge that we learned almost all gains

37、by way of the visual sense; therefore learners do not have corresponding sense of hearing is vivid in the brains. even learners have the sense of hearing image sometimes in the brains, but pronouncing to be incorrectly owing to oneself, and still can not make the proper reaction when hearing others

38、correctly pronunciation. we can understand the english that others said, the most basic cerebrum activity is the existing sense of hearing image and the external world in oneself brain match the english that others said. english learners who have difficulty in the content owing to not familiar with

39、the habits customs and civilization of english, though they often feel there are not concrete new words and phrases in the listening material. the listening strategies are parts of english learning strategies. learning strategies contain the two aspects of “concept” and “method”. the former guides k

40、nowledge in study persons brains and the latter is the concrete action of study person. as far as hearing is concerned “concept” indicates the basic knowledge of the mentality to “listens” of study person mechanism, and “method” is divided into management method and the studying method. the manageme

41、nt method is used the organization, and plans and assesses advancing and the adjusting emotion; but learning method involves english language material itself, and includes everything concrete hearing studying activity. as far as the relation between these essential factors are concerned, the concept

42、 influences the selection of method, and the method decides that english learning is good or bad; the selection of method is influenced by the management method again, they are run as a system in the method, restricting mutually, influencing mutually. learners will gain the expected learning result.

43、 the concept method is adjusted in the incessantly change according to the inside and outside factor. and the concept seems to be a subject neglected in routine english hearing studying activity. psychologists think, understanding is to build the meaning according to sound or characters, the course

44、of understood is the course that builds the meaning. in the course of building meaning, the rich association is the important and necessary step. the listening learning method has the correct concept, and probably has the correct learning method. listening can be divided into three kinds with listen

45、ing activity exactly: intensive listening, extensive listening and half intensive listening. “intensive listening does not have the authenticity of social intercourse, but contributes to the self-confidence to raise hearing with understanding the standard. learners listen to the content by way of co

46、nstantly listening, understanding also grow in quality or quantity step by step. “extensive listening” possesses the authenticity of social intercourse, learners also can listen materials when having a rest. the more they listen to, the richer content is and they can gain new information. “half inte

47、nsive listening” is between “intensive listening” and “extensive listening”. at the beginning, to some degree, it is same as “extensive listening”. the attention is paid to in the information. but something is different: “half intensive listening” the method of recalling forces learners attention to

48、 concentrate on taking notes after listening. 4.2 speakingthere are a lot of factors which can influence english spoken language, including individuality characteristic, psychological factor and language ability. no matter english foundation are good or bad, learners need overcome the psychological

49、obstacle. few learners feel nature when they talk with others in english; most students hardly take part in english corner, any other students practice spoken english by imitating record. this is a common problem. we can know that the psychological factor is influencing the spoken language training

50、of most schoolmates from this small investigation. setting up confidence persists in one period, and certainly can advance at last. solving the psychological obstacle is the premise condition to improve the spoken language. firstly, stress the importance of tone, the tone of many learners is inaccur

51、ate, they cannot understand others, but cannot be understood by others. we do not demand students to speak english as a native speaker, but tone must be accurate. the basic method of tone learning is to keep listening to many standard tapes, doing more following reading training and learning some ba

52、sic tone knowledge. secondly, listening training. enough listening can lead to fluently speaking. the difficult point of listening is distinguishing sound. this need repeated listening. it is important to understood meaning of different tones. thirdly, reading loudly to cultivate an instinctive feel

53、ing for the language. as we know, whether make a communication with the foreign language depend on an instinctive feeling for the language; loudly reading is an effective way to improve spoken english. frequently reading the graceful textbook loudly can enrich vocabulary, and let learners be familia

54、r with the sentence pattern. it is helpful for improve students ability of oral expressing. loudly reading is also a important way to improve tone. reading loudly still can surmount the bad psychological factor, forms natural habit of speaking english. a speaker is often involved in embarrassment be

55、cause of being short of vocabulary when expressing. therefore it is also very necessary to fit social communication. it is a strategy, which adopted to keep exchanging smoothly and easily in communication. when we face the talking subject that is not familiar and need take the consideration for a sh

56、ort while, in order to avoid affect the fluency of speech by a long time quiet, speaker can use some formula such as “well”, “as you know”.4.3 readingthe ability of english language includes listening ability, speaking ability, reading ability, writing ability and translation ability. and to most of

57、 students, the main purpose of learning english is to know english culture background and get new information. so reading comprehension has become more difficult in many kinds of english exams. more and more students focus on reading. we can draw such conclusion which reading is very important in so

58、me international english exams such as tofel and ielts. in fact, students english exams are far more difficult than middle school textbook, especially in reading. some of exams are equal to the cet4 level.most readers failed focus on english reading teaching last decade, the main reason is we only to emphasis content of textbook. no matter how deeply you understand one textbook, it is impossi