The Role of Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition: Strategy Use by Students of English
Abstract
This paper describes a study of learning strategies used by high school students who were effective or ineffective in learning English as a second language. Think aloud data were collected during listening tasks that varied in familiarity and difficulty. Failure of students to appear for sessions was such that results were analyzed only from five effective listeners who attended three sessions and from three ineffective listeners who attended one session. The primary results were that effective listeners used self-monitoring and elaboration strategies significantly more often than did ineffective listeners during session one. Also, effective listeners were found to use the inferencing strategy twice as often as ineffective listeners, although this effect failed to reach significance because of the small sample size. However, effective listeners were found to significantly increase their use of imagery and elaboration from session one to session three. Altogether, these results are consistent with the theory suggesting that the use of strategies, especially metacognitive ones, is a major distinguishing characteristic of effective listeners.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1987
- Accession Number
- ADA192006
Entities
People
- Anna U. Chamot
- J. M. O'malley
- Lisa Kupper
- Mark A. Sabol