Strategies in English Language Learning

This chapter is addressed to TESOL practitioners to show how learning strategies enhance language learning by helping learners to make decisions about the behaviours they could develop, the actions they should take, and the processes they could follow to maximize learning outcomes. In this way, learners become aware of what they learn and why they learn it, knowledge which enables them to continue to learn outside the classroom, thus becoming autonomous learners. However, as it is not easy for most learners, especially younger ones, to undertake initiatives which require the adoption of autonomous learning, language teachers must guide, encourage, and support their learners’ efforts to self-manage their learning and self-evaluate their progress. First and foremost, therefore, it is necessary to help TESOL teachers to develop awareness about strategies, increase their appreciation of how strategies contribute to and facilitate language learning, and be prepared to adopt strategy teaching, whether they teach English in a second or foreign language environment. For this purpose, the chapter first defines language learning strategies, describes the types of strategies scholars have researched, and reviews the outcomes of studies concerning individual learner characteristics in relation to strategies. It further emphasizes the need for explicit and integrated instruction of strategies in the everyday lesson and provides examples of such instruction which can be easily accommodated in the usual classroom routine.