Page 147 - Beyond Methods

Promoting learner autonomy 135
new words or phrases she acquired. She may think about whether she opened and closed interview in appropriate ways. Finally, she makes written or mental notes of what she might do differently the next time to improve her performance. In this example, the student used all four processes to successfully complete the assignment. Her strategic behavior helped her prepare for the task, actually do the task, resolve difficulties and overcome her lack of information, and reflect on her performance (Chamot et al., 1999, p. 11–12, emphases as in original).
As Chamot and her colleagues suggest, learners can use these four processes for any language learning task pertaining to listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Clearly, to what extent learners manage to do this depends on at least two factors: (a) the learners’ awareness of learning strategies, and (b) the teachers’ effectiveness of learner training.
Learning Strategies
Research on the learning-to-learn approach to learner autonomy has produced useful taxonomies of learning strategies (e.g., O’Mal- ley and Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 1990) as well as user-friendly manu- als (e.g., Ellis and Sinclair, 1989; Chamot et al., 1999; Scharle and Szabo, 2000). These and other researchers seek to make learners more active participants in their language learning, and to make teachers more sensitive to learner diversity and learning difficulties.
A taxonomy that offers a comprehensive system of learning strategies is the one proposed by Rebecca Oxford (1990). Her sys- tem consists of six strategy groups, three direct and three indirect. Direct strategies are those that directly involve the target language. They are composed of memory strategies for remembering and retrieving new information, cognitive strategies for understanding and producing the language, and compensation strategies for mak- ing do with the limited, still-developing proficiency in the target language. They are all considered direct strategies since they re- quire mental processing of the target language. Indirect strategies are those that support and manage language learning without di- rectly involving the target language. They are composed of meta- cognitive strategies for coordinating the learning process, affective strategies for regulating emotions and attitudes, and social strate- gies for learning and working with others. Figure 6.1 captures the salient features of the Oxford strategy system. Notice that many of