University of Algiers -2-
Faculty of Letters & Foreign Languages
Department of English
Level: 2 LMD Subject: Study Skills
Group: G1 Teacher: F.Z Athmani
Knowing your Strengths and weaknesses: Learning Styles & Strategies
1-Learning Styles
Student learning styles are theories based upon research that assesses how learning is influenced
by such things as heredity, environment, and previous learning experiences. There is a vast amount
of information on student learning styles, just do a web search on: student learning styles, learning
styles assessment, learning styles surveys, or learning styles inventory. The research tells us that
learning styles are simply different approaches or ways to learn. There are four basic styles which
we will address:
1. Visual Learners These students learn through seeing or reading. They tend to sit in the front of
the classroom to avoid any visual obstructions, such as the heads of other students or the instructor’s
podium. They ‘see’ the information and retain it best by using pictures. They will visualize the text
book’s material and are able to tell you where specific information can be found. Such as, “…the
sentence which describes the autoclave is found in the second column on the page right under the
picture of the flash sterilizer.” They may also use “post-it” notes to write out key words or concepts
in the text book and stick it in those pages for emphasis. These students like drawings, illustrations,
overheads, flip charts, flash cards and hand outs with wide margins. They may take detailed notes
and rewrite them on colored index cards, or use different colored pens and markers to organize and
emphasize the information. They will want to limit the amount of material on each card as this
makes it easier for them to “picture” the information.
2. Auditory Learners These students learn through hearing. They learn best from verbal lectures,
class discussions, ‘talking things through’ or reciting information to others as with a ‘studybuddy’,
and listening to others. They should sit in an area of the classroom away from distracting noises,
such as by the doors, windows, or vents. They listen for voice tone, pitch, and speed. They may
bring recorders to the classroom so they can replay lessons. They may take poor notes as they
concentrate on what you are saying during class. Auditory learners may read the text book out loud
and talk out loud to themselves when studying.
3. Reading/Writing Learners These students learn through reading the information then writing
it. They make lists, write in the margins of their text books and workbooks, use dictionaries and
definitions, like handouts and write information on them. They may take good lecture notes and
may rewrite them, or write key concepts or work over and over to study. They organize information
as found in diagrams and tables into statements.
4. Tactile/Kinaesthetic Learners These students learn through doing and the majority of those
seen in surgical technology programs favour this method. They use all of their senses to actively
explore their environment. They do best with ‘hands-on’ activities such as return demonstrations
in the laboratory check-offs. They may take poor notes but should be active in taking them as that
is activity and they tend to have trouble sitting for long periods of time without doing something.
(They love the clinical setting and grow bored with lecture) They do well with demonstrations, trial
and error practices, and may construct their own models or scenarios to learn concepts. They learn
with pictures and photos of activities and may recite notes or study better with other students. They
may study by walking back and forth with their notes and text books and enjoy being up and active
in the classroom.
2/Learning Strategies
Introduction:
Changes that occurred in language learning methodologies and approaches led to the exploration
of language learning strategies. Emphasis was no more on the teaching techniques but rather on the
learning processes. In other words, focus shifted from the teacher to the learner. As a consequence,
researches have been conducted to understand the strategies employed by successful learners which
would help inform teachers and students alike of how to teach and learn languages more effectively.
Different researches came up with different classifications of learning strategies. Many
researchers and experts have defined language learning strategies from different points of view.
Learning strategies have been described as: “Any sets of operations, steps, plans, routines used by
the learner to facilitate the obtaining, storage, retrieval, and use of information” (Wenden and
Rubin, 1987, p.19). “Special thoughts or behaviours that individuals use to help them comprehend,
learn, or retain new information” (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990, p.1). “Behaviours and thoughts in
which a learner engages and which are intended to influence the learner’s encoding process”
(Weinstein, Mayer, 1983).
Learning Strategies classification:
O’malley’s classification:
O’Malley et al (1985) divide language-learning strategies into three main subcategories:
Metacognitive Strategies, Cognitive Strategies, and Socio-affective Strategies.
1-Metacognitive strategy: In this strategy we have two key words which are “cognition and
metacognition”. By the first one we mean the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and
comprehension, including thinking, knowing, remembering, judging, and problem solving and by
the second we mean knowledge and understanding of our own cognitive processes and abilities and
those of others, as well as regulation of these processes. According to O’Malley this term refers to
the executive skills, strategies which require planning for learning, thinking about the learning
process that is taking place, monitoring of one’s production or comprehension, and evaluating
learning after an activity is completed. Strategies such as self-monitoring, self-evaluation, advance
organizers, self-management, and selective attention can be placed among the main metacognitive
strategies.
2- Cognitive strategy: The cognitive strategies are separate learning activities and they are basically
activities that are used by learners in order to understand the linguistic input and get knowledge.
For example, when a learner finds a difficult word in a text and inferring the meaning of that word
from the context, in fact he used the cognitive strategy. In addition, cognitive strategies are those
that control the input or use a certain skill to complete a particular task (Holden, 2004; Meang,
2006; Grifith, 2004; Azumi, 2008; Martinez, 1996). According to O'Malley and Chamot (1990),
cognitive strategies are strategies that "reflect mental manipulation of tasks". Repetition,
resourcing, translation, grouping, note taking, deduction, recombination, imagery, auditory
representation, key word, contextualization, elaboration, transfer, and inferencing are among the
most important cognitive strategies.
3- Socio-affective strategy: Socio-affective strategies have close relationship with social-mediating
activity and interacting with others. It consists using social interaction to assist in the
comprehension, learning, or retention of information. The main socioaffective strategies include
cooperation and question for clarification (Brown, 2007). For example, learning can be enhanced
when people interact with each other to clarify a confusing point or when they participate in a group
discussion or cooperative learning group to solve problem.
Oxford’s classification:
In 1990, Rebecca Oxford developed a taxonomy for categorizing strategies. She divided
language learning strategies into two main categories, direct and indirect strategies which are also
subdivided into six classes. Direct strategies are divided into Memory, cognitive and
compensation strategies. As Oxford's (1990) says, “all direct strategies require mental processing
of the language” (p.37). Indirect strategies provide indirect support for language learning by
employing different strategies such as focusing, arranging, and evaluating.
Direct strategies
1-Memory strategy: Memory strategies entail the mental processes for storing new information in
the memory and for retrieving them when needed. They are based on simple principles: A. Creating
mental images B. Applying images and sounds C. Reviewing well D. Employing action These
principles are employed when a learner faces challenge of vocabulary learning. The words and
phrases can be associated with visual images that can be stored and retrieved for communication.
Many learners make use of visual images, but some find it easy to connect words and phrases with
sound, motion or touch. Therefore, the use of those strategies differs from one learner to another.
For example, to recall a list of words, one could group them into categories like flowers, animals.
The use of memory strategies are most frequently applied in the beginning process of language
learning. As the learners advance to higher level of proficiency memory strategies are mentioned
very little.
2- Cognitive strategy: Cognitive strategies refer the mental strategies that learners use to make
sense of their learning and enable him to manipulate the language material in direct ways. These
are perhaps the most popular strategies with language learner. They fall into four sets which
include: • Practising: This can be achieved by working with sounds, repeating, recognizing, and
recombining…. • Receiving and sending messages: when the learner use resources for receiving
and sending messages and try to get the main ideas quickly through skimming and scanning. •
Analysing and reasoning: learners use this strategy to understand the meaning and expression of
the target language by translating, reasoning deductively, analyzing expression, transferring ….by
using this strategy learners are not obliged to check every single word.
3-compensation strategy: Compensation strategies allow the language learner to communicate in
the target language despite limitations in their knowledge. Compensation strategies can be used for
any of the four basic language skills. For instance, when learners do not know new words and
expressions, they guess the meaning. It is based on two principles: A. Guessing intelligently. For
example, guessing the meaning of a new word from the context. B. Overcoming limitations in
speaking and writing. If a word needed is not known then the learner my seek synonym or try to
describe it. For instance, when a learner wants to talk about an owl he may say a bird that flies at
night.
Indirect strategies
1-Metacognitive strategy: Metacognitive strategies go beyond the cognitive mechanism and give
learners to coordinate their learning. This helps them to plan language learning in an efficient way.
When new vocabulary, rules, and writing system confuse the learner, these strategies become vital
for successful language learning. Three sets of strategies belong to this group and they are:
Centering Your Learning, Arranging and Planning Your Learning, and Evaluating Your Learning.
The aim of centering learning is to give a focus to the learner so that the attention could be directed
toward certain language activities or skills. Arranging and planning learning help learners to
organize so they may get maximum benefit from their energy and effort. Evaluating learning helps
learners with problems like monitoring errors and evaluation of progress. Research has found that
compared to cognitive strategies metacognitive strategies are used less consistently by the learners.
2- Affective strategy: The affective factors like emotion, attitude, motivation, and values influence
learning in an important way. Three sets of strategies are included in this group: Lowering Your
Anxiety, Encouraging Yourself, and Taking Your Emotional Temperature. Good language learners
control their attitudes and emotions about learning and understand that negative feelings retard
learning. Teachers can help generate positive feeling in class by giving students more responsibility,
increasing the amount of natural communication, and teaching affective strategies. Anxiety could
be both helpful and harmful. It is felt that a certain amount of anxiety is helpful for learners because
it helps them obtain their optimum level of performance. Too much anxiety has the opposite effect
where it hinders language learning. Anxiety often takes forms of worry, frustration, insecurity, fear,
and self-doubt. A common high anxiety creating situation for learners is to perform before the peers
and teacher when they are not prepared.
Stern’s Classification
Language learning strategies have been classified into five groups by Stern's (1992). They are
as follows:
1-Management and planning strategy: These strategies are actually connected with the learner’s
purpose to control his own learning. A learner has the capability to take responsibility for the
improvement of his own planning when the language instructor supports him as an advisor or a
resource person. In other words, the learner must:
1. Decide what commitment to make to language learning 2. Set himself reasonable goals 3. Decide
on an appropriate methodology, select appropriate resources, and monitor progress. 4. Evaluate his
achievement in the light of previously determined goals and expectation.
2- Cognitive strategy: The term "cognitive strategies" in its simplest form is the use of the mind
(cognition) to solve a problem or complete a task. They operate directly on incoming information
and manipulate it in a way that enhances learning. They are more limited to specific learning tasks
and include typical strategies such as: 1-Rehearsal or repetition of certain words; 2-Organization,
grouping and classifying words or concepts according to their syntactic or semantic attributes; 3-
Inferencing, i.e. guessing meaning of unknown words in a text, predicting outcomes or completing
missing parts. 4- Summarizing or synthesizing new information. 5-Deduction or applying rules. 6-
Using imagery to understand and remember. 7-Transfer of known linguistic information. 8-
Elaboration, i.e. integrating new ideas with known information.
3- Interpersonal strategy: According to Stern (1992), interpersonal strategies monitor the learners’
development and evaluate their performance. Learners need to have communication with native
speakers and cooperate with them. Learners need to get familiar with the culture of the target
language.
4- Affective strategy: Evidently, in the process of language learning, good language learners use
various kinds of affective strategies. Sometimes, it can be frustrating to learn another language. It
can arouse feeling of unfamiliarity and confusion. In some other cases, learners might not have a
positive perspective towards native speakers. On the other hand, good language learners are
relatively aware of these emotions, and they try to build positive feelings towards the foreign
language and its speakers as well as the learning activities. To a great deal, training can be of
assistance to the students to face these controversial feelings and to overcome them by drawing
attention to the possible frustrations or mentioning them as they come up (Stern, 1992).
5- Communicative and experiential strategy: This strategy is one strategy in which gesturing,
paraphrasing, or asking for repetition and explanation are employed by learners to keep the
conversation going. In other words, communication strategies involve the use of verbal or
nonverbal instruments for the useful transfer of knowledge. The main aim of this strategy is to
avoid interrupting the course of communication. Within this strategy there are two sub strategies
that are used to transfer knowledge which are: 1-Seeking opportunities for unrehearsed, authentic
language use for example by Reading materials of interest, listening to the radio, watching films,
engaging other people in conversation 2-Using communication strategies to maintain the flow of
conversation for example by Using circumlocution, gesturing, paraphrasing, or asking for repetition
and explanation.
