No modern language teacher, researcher or policy-maker needs to be reminded of the enormous changes that have taken place in modern foreign language teaching and learning over recent decades. We have gone from a world of translation and grammar to one of the four skills and the pupil as host or tourist. This move has been symptomatic of a general shift in the principles of language teaching and learning, away from a focus on syntactic and structural knowledge to one on communicative competence and interaction. Such changes in perspective have also gone hand in hand with other language policy developments. We have seen ‘languages for all’ come and go. We have also seen the target language focus of communicative language teaching eclipsed by a return to grammar and explicit knowledge about language. Other agendas have emerged: autonomy, primary language learning, language across the curriculum, etc.
This Special Issue, which is divided between Volume 35, Number 1 and Volume 35, Number 2 of the Language Learning Journal, focuses on language learner strategies. The attention given to learner strategies arises from a conviction on the part of a group of researchers, teachers and teacher trainers that these strategies have a potential to raise the achievement of our pupils. Language learner strategies are associated with research undertaken over three decades into what makes the ‘good language learner’, in the belief that if we can find out why some learners are successful, then maybe we can teach what they do to the rest. This research has given rise to a large quantity of data which shows how successful learners have at their disposal a whole repertoire of tricks, tactics, skills—strategies—to make language learning work for them. Of course, it is not as simple as that. We shall see that language learner strategies raise questions of definition. For example, what is the difference between a learning strategy and a learner strategy? Such questions lead to others:
Are strategies conscious, unconscious or both? | |||||
Are they developmental? | |||||
Are they dependent on factors such as proficiency and age? | |||||
To what extent are they connected with specific goals and aims? | |||||
How important is the situational context to their deployment? | |||||
How are they expressed in individual skill areas? | |||||
To what extent do they combine or act in clusters? | |||||
Are they symbiotic? | |||||
How are they connected with language learning processes? | |||||
These questions bring us face to face with issues of theory and practice, process and product, speculation and evidence. They also ask us to consider the interface between the social and the psychological, and between the individual learner and the teacher. They continue to preoccupy researchers in the field. They also raise questions concerning classroom pedagogy, the principles that underlie what we do and the value of individual activities. Strategies do connect with learning styles and specific syllabus and curriculum plans—schemes of work, etc. Finally, however, we must ask: does their use actually lead to enhanced learning?
The ‘learning to learn’ agenda is hardly novel. However, it pertains to a fundamental shift in our thinking about the way learning takes place, and it moves the focus away from the product to the processes of teaching and learning. Central to this agenda is the idea of equipping learners with what is necessary to make the most of their own learning skills. This is where language learner strategies come in: they offer the tools for learners to manage their own learning. The possibility and potential of strategy instruction then become very evident. But is it possible?
You will find these and many other associated issues addressed in the articles included in this Issue. They arise from a group of researchers working on language learner strategies in a range of contexts, at various levels of learning a foreign language and in all language skill areas. This area of work has been around for many years. In fact, language learning strategies are now one of the key objectives on the KS2 MFLs framework, and they are also enshrined in the KS3 framework. In some cases, the ‘strategy’ rubric has been interpreted as supplying a range of ‘study skills’ to help the learner to learn: memorization strategies; dictionary skills; awareness of language structures; tips to help you communicate, etc. Although the writers in this Issue differ in their individual perspectives and focuses, they all share a common belief that strategy work has a much greater potential to shape our pedagogy than has hitherto been grasped and that an overly utilitarian, ‘feed-in’ approach to strategies takes a far too limited view of that potential.
We begin with a scene-setting article which describes the background to language learner strategy research and modern foreign languages teaching and learning over recent decades. This article suggests ways in which common issues are linked. It also introduces a major research group—UKPOLLS (UK Project on Language Learner Strategies)—and their mission to connect empirical and theoretical research with national curricula and classroom practice.
The other articles, which are shared across Volume 35, Number 1 and Volume 35, Number 2 of the Language Learning Journal, fall into three main groups. Some offer empirical investigations of strategy instruction in practice, in particular, in individual skill areas. Others consider the strategies of a particular group of learners. In a third group, the author looks at teachers working with strategy instruction and what happened as a result. Another article sets out to show how a strategy questionnaire was constructed, which might be used by the reader—as it stands or modified—to investigate the ‘strategy use’ of their group of learners. The methods of data collection and analysis vary in all the articles and show the possible range of techniques which might be brought to language learner strategy research.
Many claims are currently made for the value of ‘evidence-based practice’ and assertions made to the effect that ‘if teachers change their practice from x to y, there will be a significant and enduring improvement in teaching and learning’. Although we would not subscribe to such an instrumental view of research and practice, we do believe that language learner strategies inquiry offers us a means by which research may impact more effectively on policy and practice. This Special Issue is intended to be a step towards the realization of this belief.