I've always wanted to know how people prefer to learn new vocabulary when learning a second language. I have seen students writing down word lists, filling a mini notebook with translated versions, students repeating words, etc. I, as a teacher, have developed games, quizzes, kahoots, sentence writing tasks, you name it, and working on the field, I think I already know what the most effective strategies are, but I have always wanted to test it across multicultural classrooms. A few years ago, I created a research proposal about it for a Ph.D program at a prestigious university....but I got the "We regret to inform...." letter 馃挃. Later, the university where I was working at welcomed my work, but we did not have the chance to collect sufficient data 馃槕.
So now, I am sharing at least, the first draft of such lit review. The rest of the proposal, including all the surveys I created, I will keep. Since I might still get a chance to use them in the future.
Vocabulary Learning Strategies in ESLBarbara Echard M.Ed. Universidad del Desarrollo2017
- Introduction
In light of the current English Language Policy in Chile which aims for school-students to achieve a high level of proficiency in English in years to come, many universities have worked on implementing and improving english language courses, and english language teaching training programs. Additionally, one of the curricular objectives is the promotion of an autonomous learner, one who, instead of storing large amounts of knowledge, “learns how to learn”, through the acquisition of skills that ensure opportunities for life-long learning.
One way to develop autonomous learning may be for learners to manage their own mental processes when learning, in other words, to use learning strategies, that is to say, to take conscious actions when dealing with input that aid the acquisition of new information, such as,, asking questions, or analyzing.
On the other hand, in order to increase communicative competence, an adequate lexicon is key (Schmitt, 2000). However, incidental learning of English vocabulary in foreign language context is scarce. Therefore, an autonomous learner who can use strategies to expand the opportunities of learning English vocabulary in this context seem to be the ideal student.
These assumptions have supported strategy-training projects, such as Strategies Based Instruction SBI (Cohen, 1998; McDonough, 1999). However, it seems wise that before any instruction intervention is implemented, the context must be studied, that is to say, we need to know what learners are already doing, before correcting or implementing any new approach.
With this idea in mind, I propose the present study, which purpose is twofold: first, it seeks to explore the learning strategies most EFL learners use to learn vocabulary in English, in the context of Chilean higher education; second, it looks for patterns of use regarding different categories such as gender and proficiency level. The hope of the project is that gaining insight about the preferences and actions of learners, and the factors that affect these decisions will help teachers better plan and tailor instruction, to facilitate acquisition.
- Defining language learning strategies
Most language learning strategies definition have been drawn from Cognitive Psychology. However, SLA definitions of learning strategies relate mainly to the acquisition communicative competence (Canale & Swain, 1980). For example, Oxford (1990) defines learning strategies as learner-initiated self-directed processes used to deal with learning in a more enjoyable and efficient manner. Her strategies can be classified as direct or indirect according to their function. Direct strategies are those which manage information directly; and indirect strategies are those that coordinate processes.
Oxford classifies strategies into sub-groups. This way, direct strategies can be cognitive, to deal with information processing, memory, to manage storing and retrieval of that information, and compensation strategies, to overcome difficulties during the learning process. As for the indirect strategies, these can be grouped into metacognitive, used to regulate cognition; affective, to keep self-confidence and motivation; and social, for interaction and empathy.
Similarly, O'Malley and Chamot (1990) offer a cognitive definition of learning strategies that also recognizes a learner's voluntary-driven action, and an affective component. They describe strategies as attempts to organize, manage, or monitor the information processing, and affective variables. This way, strategies may include actions to focusing attention, encoding, decoding, retrieving information, associating and elaborating, evaluating, avoiding anxiety, and enhancing confidence. Additionally, O'Malley and Chamot (op. cit) divide their strategies into three main categories according to the level of processing these involve. These categories are metacognitive, cognitive, and social/affective.
O'Malley and Chamot’s metacognitive strategies involve a high level of executive skill and include managing attention, planning, monitoring, and evaluating task performance. Examples of metacognitive strategies are listening or reading for keywords, planning production, and reviewing, monitoring, and evaluating comprehension during or after task performance. Cognitive strategies deal with incoming stimuli, or information, and divide in the processes of rehearsal, organization, and elaboration. These processes interact with background knowledge in different levels in order to create long-term memory imprints. Examples of cognitive strategies are classifying information, summarizing, mnemonic devices, deduction and inferencing. Finally, social/affective strategies involve interaction with other people, in the form of seeking help or clarification, or with environment in the form of control. Examples of this kind of strategies are working with peers, asking teachers for clarification, or self-talk to regulate behavior.
Yet another classification of learning strategies is the one proposed by Cohen (2000) which distinguishes between retrieval, rehearsal, cover, and communication strategies. Retrieval strategies locate or extract items, either from input or memory, and include keyword or imagery based mnemonic methods. Rehearsal strategies aid learners to practice the language, either grammar conjugation or vocabulary. Cover strategies come into play when learners need to cope or compensate for a gap in their language knowledge, or communication skill, such as paraphrasing or simplification. Finally, communication strategies are those that process meaning of messages, either in comprehension or production.
In summary, there is a level of consensus regarding that learning strategies are conscious actions performed by learners in order to achieve communication. Also the main distinction between cognitive, metacognitive, and social or affective strategies was been widely accepted in research with small alterations. For the purposes of the present research, the definition of learning strategies will base on the the the two common characteristics present in the above reviewed definitions:
- Learning strategies are conscious actions: therefore, all incidental learning in the sense of unconscious learning has been excluded from the scope of the study.
- Learning strategies are learner-driven actions: therefore, this study seeks to explore learners’s preferred strategies when learning vocabulary, instead of testing the effectiveness of a strategy instruction.
2.1. ESL and EFL learners’ language learning strategy use
There seems to be a pattern of culture driven choices in learners (Oxford, 1996; Chamot, 2005), and the recognition of a multiplicity of variables involved in the development of learning strategies. For example, in an exploratory research with beginner and intermediate high-school ESL students in mid-Atlantic schools, O'Malley and Chamot (1990) found that the most common type of strategies learners use is cognitive. Cognitive strategies included resourcing, repetition, grouping, deduction, imagery, auditory representation, keyword mnemonic, elaboration, transfer, inferencing, note taking, summarizing, recombination, and translation; with no specific strategy having a significant statistic preference in the cognitive category. Interestingly, although these preferences were reported in interviews, researchers' class observation found little evidence of the use of the elaborative strategies, and reported that most frequently used ones were those requiring shallow levels of processing, like repetition. On the other hand, the less used type of strategies was social mediation, which included asking for clarification and cooperation. Data analysis found no significant differences in preferences between the intermediate and beginner group.
In foreign language contexts, the preference for cognitive strategies seem to replicate. O’Malley and Chamot, (1985), studied Spanish and Russian high-school and college students. Results show that students preferred cognitive strategies, being translation and repetition the most popular ones. Also, these students reported similar types of metacognitive strategies to those reported in the ESL study. moreover, socio/ affective strategies were also the least frequently used by this group.
Interestingly, the foreign language group differed in the amount of strategies reported by proficiency level group. Intermediate-level students identify much more strategies and in a wider range than did beginner-level students, a trend that made researchers suggest a relationship between proficiency level and strategy preference.
Another study by O'Malley and Chamot (1990), this time a longitudinal research on the same sample used in the Foreign language strategy study, revealed four important points. First, more strategies and further refining on their previous categories resulted from exposing learners to different tasks. Second, different types of tasks seem to elicit different types of strategies. Third, although different, the 4 language tasks included in the study (vocabulary, listening, cloze, and writing) seem to elicit the same metacognitive and cognitive strategies, of self-monitoring and elaboration respectively, although in different ways. And fourth, learners' repertoire of strategies and their ability to choose the one that better suits tasks requirements seem to be related to their proficiency and learning experience, i.e. the more efficient a foreign language students is, the better they will use their strategies.
Results from these studies suggest the complexity of factors that may render different learning strategy choices in second and foreign language learning contexts. However, there is some evidence regarding a relationship between proficiency level and strategy use. For this trend we can draw two different interpretations: On the one hand, it is possible that learning strategies lead to increased proficiency and cognitive maturity; on the other hand, the use of learning strategies might constitute a manifestation of higher cognitive development, and might also be a result of extensive learning experience.
In general, these studies have focused on the use of strategies to tackle different dimensions of the language, in the next section, the paper focuses on research related specifically to English vocabulary learning in ESL and EFL contexts and the preferences of use discovered.
2.2. Second Language Vocabulary Learning Strategies
Despite the great amount of research conducted in Language learning strategies, very little is known about the preferences for vocabulary learning strategies specifically. What seems clear, is that several key factors influencing vocabulary learning strategy preference have emerged from research, including, gender (Bielska, 2002), age and culture (Schmitt, 1997). Additionally, most ESL learners seem to prefer strategies that involve shallow levels of processing, such as consulting a bilingual dictionary (Schmitt, 1997; Fan, 2003; Tsai & Chang, 2009), whereas the least preferred strategy relates to the use of monolingual dictionaries and wordlists.
Interestingly, preferences seem to relate more consistently to proficiency levels (Schmitt, 1997; Tsai & Chang, 2009), whereas gender differences in strategy use seem to be contradictory across studies. For example, Schmitt found that university and college-level students used more strategies than high-school level students, and also the strategies used by university level students were more the kind of deep processing ones. As Schmitt claims “... many of the strategies that become more important with age involve the kind of "deeper processing" (imagining, association, analysis) that the Depth of Processing Hypothesis (Craik & Lockhart, 1972) suggests. These strategies require a greater cognitive effort, but more mature learners seem to realize their value" (Schmitt, 1997, 224). Similarly, Tsai & Chang found that more proficient students were, according to a local university test score, the more strategies they used. Neither Schmitt, nor Tsai & Chang found significant differences regarding gender, whereas Bielska (2002) found that women tended to use more strategies, and these were mainly of indirect kind, related to social interaction, whereas men tended to use more cognitive ones.
Although the trend of using cognitive strategies seem to be somewhat consistent across studies, results are not entirely generalizable, since most of the studies were conducted with asian students. Therefore, it is the interest of the present study to verify if this trend is replicated in a different context, with different cultural conventions, and different L1, a factor that may benefit the use of different types of strategies based on the similarities between languages, such as cognates.
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