I choose this subject of language learning strategies, since it comes back in the OPS of the heritage learning languages; “Practice different language learning strategies. (L1, L4, L5)”. I think this subject can be relevant to all teacher that have students in their classroom with a different language background, since Finnish will be the second language for all these students, secondly it will be of use for all foreign language teachers and of course for all heritage language teachers. For this blog I used two articles about language learning strategies:

• Language Learning Strategies: An Update October 1994 Rebecca Oxford, University of Alabama
• Griffiths, C. & Oxford, R. (2014). Twenty-first century landscape of language learning strategies. System, 43, 1-10. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2013.12.009

Foreign or second language (L2) learning strategies are specific actions, behaviors, steps, or techniques students use -- often consciously -- to improve their progress in apprehending, internalizing, and using the second languae . For example, some seeks out conversation partners. Others groups words to be learned and then labels each group. A third person uses gestures to communicate in the classroom when the words do not come to mind. Othrs learns words by breaking them down into their components. Another method is to consciously use guessing when you reads. Strategies are the tools for active, self-directed involvement needed for developing communicative ability in a scond or foreign language. Research has repeatedly shown that the conscious, tailored use of such strategies is related to language achievement and proficiency. However an absolute definition for language learning strategy does not exsit. Some examples of strategy definitions are:

• “the techniques or devices which a learner may use to acquire knowledge.”
• definition of learning strategies as procedures which facilitate acquisition, retention, retrieval, and performance
• “specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations.”
• “activities consciously chosen by learners for the purpose of regulating their own language learning”

Whereby the last is the most simple and maybe closest definiton of learning strategy.

Good Language Learners

It has been suggested that good L2 learners are willing and accurate guessers; have a strong drive to communicate; are often uninhibited; are willing to make mistakes; focus on form by looking for patterns and analyzing; take advantage of all practice opportunities; monitor their speech as well as that of others; and pay attention to meaning.

There has been found no evidence that good language learners are uninhibited, probably most second langugae learners are inhibited, because they are anxiaus to use their new language and to make mistakes.

Strategies and proficiency

• Use of appropriate language learning strategies often results in improved proficiency or achievement overall or in specific skill areas

However, what these appropriate language learning strategies are, depends on the person. Under-achieving students were quite often using many strategies, though they were not always used appropriately. But the more active strategy users made faster progress than those who employed strategies less often. In other words, a number of studies have demonstrated a significant positive correlation between strategy use and successful language learning.

• Successful language learners tend to select strategies that work well together in a highly orchestrated way, tailored to the requirements of the language task. These learners can easily explain the strategies they use and why they employ them.

In other words these language learners already know what kind of stragies work for them, and how they can actively use them.

• Cognitive (e.g., translating, analyzing) and metacognitive (e.g., planning, organizing) strategies are often used together, supporting each other. Well tailored combinations of strategies often have more impact than single strategies.

The question that rises with me by reading this: Is this an unconcious choice made by the language learners, or should they be guided in making this well tailored combinations of strategies? If you need to guide them, how to do this?

• Certain strategies or clusters of strategies are linked to particular language skills or tasks. For example writing, benefits from the learning strategies of planning, self-monitoring, deduction, and substitution. Speaking demands strategies such as risktaking, paraphrasing, circumlocution, self-monitoring, and self-evaluation. Listening comprehension gains from strategies of elaboration, inferencing, selective attention, and self-monitoring, while reading comprehension uses strategies like reading aloud, guessing, deduction, and summarizing.
• The powerful social and affective strategies are found less often in research. This is,perhaps, because these behaviors are not studied frequently by L2 researchers, and because learners are not familiar with paying attention to their own feelings and social relationships as part of the L2 learning process.

I think this part of language learning is underestimated. Only when you are able to use language in a social and affective way, you really master a language. Escpecially when you are learning this second language as a heritage language it is part of who you are, which is directly linked to your own feelings and social realtionships, and therefore thus part of your learning process.

Factors Influencing the Choice of Language Learning Strategies

Motivation. More motivated students tended to use more strategies than less motivated students, and the particular reason for studying the language (motivational orientation, especially as related to career field) was important in the choice of strategies.

Gender. Females reported greater overall strategy use than males in many studies (although sometimes males surpassed females in the use of a particular strategy).

Cultural background. Rote memorization and other forms of memorization were more prevalent among some Asian students than among students from other cultural backgrounds. Certain other cultures also appeared to encourage this strategy among learners.

Attitudes and beliefs. These were reported to have a profound effect on the strategies learners choose, with negative attitudes and beliefs often causing poor strategy use or lack of orchestration of strategies.

Type of task. The nature of the task helped determine the strategies naturally employed to carry out the task.

Age and L2 stage. Students of different ages and stages of L2 learning used different strategies, with certain strategies often being employed by older or more advanced students.

Learning style. Learning style (general approach to language learning) often determined the choice of L2 learning strategies. For example, analytic-style students preferred strategies such as contrastive analysis, rule-learning, and dissecting words and phrases, while global students used strategies to find meaning (guessing, scanning, predicting) and to converse without knowing all the words (paraphrasing, gesturing).

Tolerance of ambiguity. Students who were more tolerant of ambiguity used significantly different learning strategies in some instances than did students who were less tolerant of ambiguity.

Strategy Training

An important point is how to improve students' learning strategies. Strategy training should:

• be based clearly on students' attitudes, beliefs, and stated needs.
• be chosen so that they mesh with and support each other and so that they fit the requirements of the language task, the learners' goals, and the learners' style of learning.
• if possible, be integrated into regular language learning activities over a long period of time rather than taught as a separate, short intervention.
• include explanations, handouts, activities, brainstorming, and materials for reference and home study.
• not be solely tied to the class at hand; it should provide strategies that are transferable to future language tasks beyond a given class.
• be somewhat individualized, as different students prefer or need certain strategies for particular tasks.
• provide students with a mechanism to evaluate their own progress and to evaluate the success of the training and the value of the strategies in multiple tasks.

Classifying Strategies

Over the years, there has been little consensus in the area of strategy classification and there have been a number of criticisms of various classification systems.

Almost two dozen L2 strategy classification systems have been divided into the following groups:

1. systems related to successful language learners;
2. systems based on psychological functions;
3. linguistically based systems dealing with guessing, language monitoring, formal and functional practice or with communication strategies like paraphrasing or borrowing;
4. systems related to separate language skills; and
5. systems based on different styles or types of learners.

The existence of these distinct strategy typologies indicates a major problem in the research area of language learning strategies: lack of a coherent, well accepted system for describing these strategies.

Implications

Language learning strategies should include the social and affective sides of learning along with the more intellectual sides. The language learner is not just a cognitive and metacognitive machine but, rather, a whole person. In strategy training, teachers should help students develop affective and social strategies, as well as intellectually related strategies, based on their individual learning styles, current strategy use, and specific goals. Particularly important is information on how students from different cultural backgrounds use language learning strategies. Learning style is an important factor, along with gender, age, nationality or ethnicity, beliefs, previous educational and cultural experiences, and learning goals. Additionally, it is likely that different kinds of learners (e.g., analytic vs. global or visual vs. auditory) might benefit from different modes of strategy training. Maybe most important, teachers must have training relevant to their own instructional situations in three areas: 1) identifying students' current learning strategies through surveys, interviews, or other means; 2) helping individual students discover which strategies are most relevant to their learning styles, tasks, and goals; and 3) aiding students in developing orchestrated strategy use rather t