Nur Setyo Wulandari

Onky Muhammad

Summary of foundation
HOW DOEAS THE LEARNER DEAL WITH THE PROCESS OF LEARNING

7.1 Introduction
i. The ways in which every learner acts upon his/her existing skills and knowledge,
and use their personal characteristics in the process of learning.
ii. The skills and the type of strategies learners may use and the process in which
they go through in order to find meaning or coherence in their learning.
iii. There is a great interest in the study of cognitive strategies in which people use to
think, in answering this question that how they learn and how solve the problem.
This interest led to creation of different types of cognitive strategies model, such
as Information processing models of learning and thinking skills programs.

7.2 Learning strategies

i. Learner are actively involved in making sense of the tasks or problem which they
faced in order to learn. They have various reseources at their disposal and make
use of them in different ways.
ii. Not only use cognitive strategies, learners also use their minds, feelings, and
social and communicative skills.
iii. There are several strategies to learn a foreign or second language, such as:
 Repeating words
 Listening attentively to distinguish words
 Forming hypothesis about how the language rule works
 Trying the the hypotheses whether it works or not
 Testing whether we remember the words
 Guessing unknow words’ meaning
 Making new sentences using the knowledge of language
 Rehearsing
 Practising the words sounds
 Asking the speaker to repeat something
 Pretending that understand to keep communication going.
iv. Some of above strategies are consciouse and some others are uncounciouse.

7.3 Skills and strategies

i. It is difficult to make a clear classification between skill, strategy, executive

purposes and micro-strategy, because different peoples have defined these in
different ways. Strategy itself is involved these factors and no one can make a
clear cut between these features. This is why we say strategy is purposeful or goal
oriented.
ii. Skill and strategy. Learning strategy can be regarded as an operating stage which
is one level higher or above the skills. ( for example, a football player has
different skills of being a football player, but for playing in team this is not
enough. At the other hand the player needs to know based on which tactic -
strategy- how, when and where use the appropriate skill).
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Onky Muhammad

iii. Here are the strategies mentioned by Nisbet and Shucksmith, 1991:6
 Asking questions: defining hypotheses, establishing aims and parameters of
task, discovering audience, relating task to previous work.
 Planning: deciding on tactics and timetables, reduction of task or problem
info components.
 Monitoring: continuous attemp to match efforts, answers and discoveries to
initial questions or purposes.
 Checking: preliminary assessment of performance and results.
 Revising: simple re-drafting or recalculation , involving setting of revised
goals.
 Self-testing: final self-assessment both of result and performance on task

7.4 Learning to learn

i. The aim of education is to help the learners to know learning is a lifelong process
and acquire the skills of self-directed learning (Knowles, 1976:23).
ii. Then, two questions are came out: Can individuals learn to become more
successful at learning and can we as a teachers help people to learn more
effectively?
iii. Learner training is one way which concerned with ways of teaching learners
explicitly the techniques of learning a language, and an awareness of how and
when to use strategies to aneble them to become self-directed (answer of 1st
question). Then the school should less concerned with imparting information and
more concerned with couraging the kind of teaching which pays attention to the
way children learn (answer od 2nd question).

7.5 Metacognitive strategies

i. A very acceptable distinction on learning strategies is based on Cognitive and
Meta-cognitive strategies.
ii. Cognitive strategies are those strategies in which related to mental processing of
information, such as obtaining, storage, retrieval and use of information.
iii. In meta-cognitive strategies learner is looking at his learning process from outside.
He has a real awareness of what he is doing, i.e his employed strategies, at the
same time he has the knowledge of the actual process of learning.

7.6 Language learning strategies

i. Learning a language involves communicating with other people and therefore
requires not only suitable cognitive skills but also certain social and
communicative skills.
ii. Joan Rubin makes a destinction between strategies. This is strategies that
contribute directly such as memorising, inducing rules, guessing meaning and
rehearsal. The other is strategies that cotribute indirectly such as speaking to
tourists, listening to the radio, and writing to a penfrends.
iii. Rubin (1981, 1987) stated that there are three major types of strategies:

Learning strategies; a. Clarification and verification. (language correctness)

b. Guessing or inductive inference. (details to whole)
 Nur Setyo Wulandari
Onky Muhammad

c. Deductive reasoning. (whole to details)

d. Practice. (repetition)
e. Memorization. (mnemonic strategies)
f. Monitoring. (checking performance)
Communicative strategies;
Difficulty in communicating with others, they will be in search of ways to
continue these communications instead of abandon it. (They are indirectly
exposed to language input). Page 150-151.

Social strategies. Activities which is done by learners in order to exposure to

language. It is contributed to learning indirectly. (i.e. initiating conversations in
the foreign language, watching films, reading books and etc).

iv. Rebecca oxford (1990:9) has another classification for strategies.

a. Contribute to the main goal
b. More self-directed. (Learner has the control of his own learning).
c. Expanding the role of teacher. (Teacher as mediator).
d. Problem oriented. (Using for particular task/problem).
e. Specific actions taken by the learner. (Guessing the meaning of the word).
f. Multi-aspects. (Affective and social aspects).
g. Supporting learning directly and indirectly. (The type of exposed materials).
h. Always observable. (The style of reading used by learner).
i. Often conscious. However must be unconscious. (Learners are more aware of
what strategies they use).
j. Teachable. (Learners can propose strategy training).
k. Flexible. (Learners can make choice, combine and sequence strategies).
l. Influenced by many factors. (Age, sex, nationality, learning style and etc).

v. Oxford, then, has developed also a somewhat different system of categorisisation

which, while containing most of the features of previous classifications, is more
detailed.
a. DIRECT STRATEGIES:
1. Memory strategy:
Creating mental linkages
Applying images & sounds
Reviewing well
Employing action
2. Cognitive strategy:
practising
Receiving & sending messages
Analysing & reasoning
Creating structure for input & output
3. Compensation strategy:
Guessing intellegently
Overcoming limitations in speaking & writing

b. INDIRECT STRATEGIES
1. Metacognitive strategy:
Centring your learning
Arranging & planning your learning
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Onky Muhammad

Evaluating your learnig

2. Affective strategy:
Lowering your ancxiety
Encouraging yourself
Taking your emotional temperature
3. Social strategy:
Asking questions
Co-operating with others
Empathising with others

vi. In Oxford’s system:

 Meta-cognition in definition refers to the wareness of one's personality,
feelings, motivation, attitudes and learning style at any particular moment.
Knowledge of self and the knowledge of learning processes within all possible
factors. The need to regulate learning in order to create an intuitive and
unconscious learning but not just thinking about learning process.
 Meta-cognitive strategies classification;
The knowledge about person. (Everything that one believes about oneself
and others as learners).
The knowledge about task. (The awareness of the purpose and demands of
the task and the ability to evaluate given information to select the related one).
The knowledge about strategy. (The understanding of which strategies
should be used for different types of tasks and knowing the learning language).

vii. Beside the different types of knowledge for meta-cognition, "regulatory skills" are
also one part of meta-cognition. These two stages are existed in reciprocal
relationships;
a. Pre-planning stage. (Determining objectives, selecting materials & methods,
assessing proficiency level and predicting difficulties).
b. Planning-in-action. (Monitoring, evaluating results and revising plans).

7.7 Strategy training

(Despite so many studies over kinds of skills and strategies there is no
any fixed rule in which tells us which learning strategy is best and most effective).
Major controversies about the type of learning strategies are based on:
1. "independently"(different aspects of language should be taught directly based on a
specific program) and
2. "infusion" property (as a part of a specific subject). For example for (1), Feuerstain's
"Instrumental Enrichment (IE)". (A highly structured series of tasks directly related to
aspects of "thinking" making comparison, "categorizing" person's thoughts and
"drawing inference".
Under appropriate conditions, with properly trained teacher this program (IE) has
many positive effects on cognitive abilities, educational attainments, feeling of self
and even motivation regarding many learners who were experienced failure at
school.
Giving example for (2), we can refer to "domain specific approach" in which was
introduced by Brown in favor of Vygotsky's ideas on this field. (Skills and strategies are
best taught in relation to specific curriculum subject area, in which later led to creation of
"reciprocal teaching").
 Nur Setyo Wulandari
Onky Muhammad

Reciprocal teaching, the teacher and the learners are working together, teacher initially
doing most of the work, but gradually passing more and more responsibility to the
learners as their skills increase.

7.7.1 The strategic teaching model.

(It is a guide to teacher in their preparation and presentation of lessons). Teachers are
expected to become actively involved in assessing, planning and decision making
about what their learners already know, what they need to know, and exactly how
they can be helped to become independent learner.
a. Assess strategy use with (think loud, interviews).
b. Explain strategy by (naming and explaining how to use it).
c. Model strategy by (demonstrating and verbalizing at the time of doing of
task).
d. Scaffold instruction by (providing support and adjusting for students practice
and their needs)
e. Develop motivation by (providing successful experiences, etc).
7.7.2 Processed-based instruction
(Information processing approach to learning in which views the cognition as
interaction between input, storage, encoding and planning).
a. Assessment
b. Orientation
c. Strategy development
d. Intra-task transfer
e. Consolidation
f. Generalization
Such strategies have more difficulties to teach and even to identify; it may be possible
only though the step by step integrated approach.

7.8 Learner training in foreign language teaching

 Learner training (The explicit teaching of strategies). The learners are trained a
particular strategy directly without any integration with the language skills
 Strategy training (including such aspects like teaching ways/techniques of learning
vocabulary. Using mnemonics, keywords …). It implies that the strategy needs to be
integrated with the language skills that may help students to apply it more
appropriately.
In strategy training different factors are participating and influencing; culture, age,
gender, personal learning style and teachers attitudes and beliefs.
 Nur Setyo Wulandari
Onky Muhammad

7.9 Procedure for strategy training in foreign and second language teaching.
Some are mainly based on
1. Teaching strategies separately and
2. Integrating the strategy instruction with language tasks.
Others are in favor of
1. direct or explicit teaching (the learner's attention is directed to the strategy being
taught and
2. Indirect teaching (in which the learners are not told the purpose of the task)
Different procedures of teaching are included:
a. Identifying strategy (by helping the students)
b. Presenting strategy (by explaining new strategy)
c. Modeling and practicing in which may follow by scaffolding.
d. Evaluating (helping the students to assess their success)

CONCLUSION
In teaching the learning strategy, it must be integrated, here is an example how teachers
can promote a particular learning strategy (O’malley and Chamct 1990:158)

Preparation: Developing students awareness of different strategies

 Small group interview and think aloud
 Discussing the result of interview and think aloud
Presentation: Developing students knowledge about strategies
 Providing, describing and modelling the strategies
Practice: Developing student skills in using strategies for academic learning
 Cooperative / collaborative learning tasks
 Group discussion: problem solving peer tutoring
Evaluation: develop students ability to evaluate the strategy used
 Writing and discussing the strategy used
 Creating a daily journal
Expansion: develop transfer of strategies to new tasks
 Discussion on metacognitive and motivational aspects
 Additional practices
 Assignment on cultural background

Learners need to:

 Have sense of strategy ownership
 Have a clear purpose of using a certain strategy
Teachers need to:
 Be aware of what strategy that follows a particular learning assignment they give
Context will:
 Affect the learning situation as well as the strategy used by students