2. In this presentation we will focus on how students can
retain, or keep, new knowledge. We will also look at
strategies which work together with students’ learning
styles to improve students’ learning experiences. We will
explore how students can change their viewpoints on the
overall learning process to have more effective results.
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3. What are Learning Strategies?
• Language learning strategies are “specific actions, behaviors, steps,
or techniques, that students (often intentionally) use to improve
their progress in developing L2 skills” (Oxford, 1993, p. 18).
• These strategies help students retain, or remember, the new
language.
• The strategies are self-directed.
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4. The Importance of Learner Strategies
• Strategies help …
• develop students’
communication skills in the L2.
• students become better
language learners in general.
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5. Types of Learning Strategies
O’Malley (1985) first
identified language
learning strategies and
their general
characteristics.
• Evaluating one’s own learning style and learning needs
• Planning for an activity/assignment
• Monitoring progress
• Evaluating the effectiveness of tools
Metacognitive
Strategies
• Using resources and instructional tools
• Note-taking
• Repetition
• Using imagery
• Making inferences (guesses)
• Identifying key words
Cognitive
Strategies
• Cooperating/sharing ideas (cooperative learning)
• Clarifying information
• Self-talk for motivation
• Asking questions
Socio-affective
Strategies
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6. Metacognitive Strategy Example- Think Aloud!
Students answer questions aloud to the class
before, during and after reading.
• Step 1: Introduce the questions
• Step 2: Students read parts of the text.
• Step 3: Students answer the questions about the
text or their knowledge of the topic aloud.
• Step 4: Teacher facilitates discussion based on
students’ answers.
For more fun, students can choose questions
randomly from a hat!
• What do I know about
this topic already?
• What do I think I will
learn about this topic?
• The most important idea
was…
• I got confused when…
• This reminds me of…
• My favorite part was…
Example
Questions
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7. Cognitive Strategy Example- Review Guides
Students create their own review guides for quizzes
and tests based on what they learned.
• Step 1: Introduce the topic for the quiz or test.
• Step 2: Students create a study guide independently
or in groups based on teacher’s guidelines.
• Step 3: Students submit their study guides on test
day.
For more fun, students can write example test
questions on their study guide and exchange them
with a partner. They can answer their partner’s test
questions for bonus points!
•Draw a picture to help you
remember the most difficult
vocabulary words
•Create example sentences for each
vocabulary word
•Write your notes into
•Create test questions based on the
topic.
•Color code notes for key words,
dates, names, examples, etc.
•Develop a mind map for to show
processes.
Example
Review
Guide
Components
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8. Socio-affective Strategy Example-
Think, Pair, Share!
Students answer questions aloud to the
class before, during and after reading.
• Step 1: Teachers ask students to think
about a topic independently.
• Step 2: Students are paired with
another student.
• Step 3: Students share their ideas about
a topic with their partners.
For more fun, students can rotate
partners in a circle for activities with
multiple questions. This way, they will
have multiple opportunities to share.
• Allow students to choose which
partner shares the information
• Group students in a creative way
(eg. group by same birthday month,
same favorite food, same country,
etc.)
• Expand the share into whole class
discussions.
• Record responses in a mind map on
the board
• Have students write responses
anonymously if the topic is sensitive.
Other
Ideas
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9. What is Styles and Strategy-based Instruction?
• A learner-focused teaching approach
• It combines learning styles and
learning strategies with classroom
activities.
• Students are given the opportunity to
understand not only what they learn,
but also how to learn the language
more effectively and efficiently.
• Learners are essentially learning how
to learn based on their learning style.
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10. Phases of Strategy-Based Instruction
Preparation
Awareness-
Raising
Training Practice
Personalization
of Strategies
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11. Phase 1: Preparation
• Goal: find out how much students already
know about and can use strategies
• Teachers can’t assume that students don’t
know about strategies.
• Students have most likely developed some
strategies previously.
• The thing is that they may not use them
systematically, and they may not use them
well.
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12. Phase 2: Awareness-Raising
• Goal: alert learners about strategies they might never
have thought of or may have thought about but had
never used
• Teachers raise awareness about:
• what the learning process may consist of
• their learning style preferences or general approaches to
learning
• the kinds of strategies that they already use, as well as
those suggested by the teacher or classmates
• the amount of responsibility that they take for their
learning
• approaches that can be used to evaluate the students’
strategy use
• These strategies are always explicitly (directly) taught
by instructors.
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13. Phase 3: Training
• Goal: explicitly teach how, when, and
why certain strategies can be used to
learn language
• Teachers…
• describe, model, and give examples of
possibly useful strategies.
• ask for additional examples from students
based on the students’ own learning
experiences.
• lead small-group or whole-class discussions
about strategies (why they are used;
planning an approach; evaluating the
effectiveness, etc.).
• encourage their students to experiment
with a broad range of strategies.
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14. Phase 4: Practice
• Goal: students experiment with a broad range
of strategies
• Learners need many opportunities to try
strategies of a variety of tasks
• Teachers should create “strategy-friendly”
activities that…
• reinforce strategies that have already been dealt
with.
• allow students time to practice the strategies at the
same time they are learning the course content.
• include explicit reminders of strategies being used
while completing the task.
• During the activity, students should…
• plan the strategies that they will use.
• pay attention to particular strategies while they are
being used.
• reflect on their use of strategies.
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15. Phase 5: Personalization of Strategies
• Goal: students create their own versions of
strategies learned, evaluate to see how they
are using the strategies, and then think about
how to use these strategies in other situations.
• To make sure that learners continue to use the
strategies, teachers can…
• use the course material they already have and then
determine which strategies might be inserted.
• start with a set of strategies that they wish to focus
on and design activities around them.
• insert strategies randomly into the lessons when
appropriate.
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16. In order for students to reconsider
their ways of learning and learn new
strategies to fit their learning styles,
they need to learn to think about
their thinking and understand the way they learn.
Now, let’s look at metacognition, a process that explains how students
can become aware of their thinking and learning strategies.
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17. Metacognition – Some Quotes
“Metacognitive strategies enable learners to play an active role in the
process of learning, to manage and direct their own learning…” (Chari
et al, as cited in Rahimi & Katal, 2011)
“…developing students’ critical thinking skills is facilitated through
metacognition.” (Magno, 2010)
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18. Metacognition
• Metacognitive strategies help
students understand the way they
learn.
• They help students “think” about their
thinking and make their thinking
process visible to themselves and
others.
• This helps them learn problem solving
skills.
• An example might be when students
notice which words they don’t
understand, or when they stopped
understanding something they heard
or read.
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19. Metacognition
Students use metacognition when they
are aware of their own learning
strategies and mental processes.
For example:
• A student consciously uses the skills of
predicting and inferring when they
read a story.
• A student is aware of her kinesthetic
learning style and chooses to tap a
rhythm with her finger when learning
new material.
• A student circles unfamiliar words in
the text and decides how to figure out
their meaning.
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20. Primary Components of Metacognition
As teachers, we can help learners develop the following strategies:
• Preparing and planning for learning.
• Selecting and using learning strategies.
• Monitoring strategy use.
• Organizing various strategies.
• Evaluating strategy use and learning.
It is important for L2 learners to become self-directed learners in order for
them to be able to handle the language demands they will experience
outside the language classroom in real life academic, social, and professional
contexts. (Anderson, 2002)
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21. Using Metacognitive Strategies
Successful learners know how to:
Plan and Organize
Monitor their Own Work
Self-Reflect
Direct their Own Learning
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22. Metacognitive Strategies
The following reading strategies involve learners taking an active role in their
own learning process.
1. Relate the text to oneself
2. Relate the text to the world
3. Think aloud to interact with the text
4. Make inferences from the text
5. Create mental images of what was read
6. Guess the meaning of new words in context
7. Identify main ideas in a text
8. Monitor text comprehension
9. Summarize and synthesizing texts
10. Predict what happens next
Strategies
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23. Metacognitive Strategy Example
Think Aloud and Self-Reflect
Technique
• Think-aloud requires readers to
stop and reflect on what they do
and don’t understand when
listening or reading.
• Teachers model think aloud
strategies to make their own
thinking and comprehension
process visible.
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24. Metacognitive Strategy Example
Teachers can model their thinking process using the Think
Aloud strategy, such as:
Teacher reads: ‘’We had to vacate the house.’’
Teacher says: “When I see the word vacate, I think of
vacation, which means to go away somewhere. So maybe
vacate means they had to go away or leave the house.”
Students are taught to respond using prompts such as:
“This reminds me of . . . ,”
“I wonder if. . . ,”
“I got stuck on the word . . .”
They can also reflect in writing by responding to the following
prompts:
“What I learned…”
“I would like to learn more about….”
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25. Ways to Teach Metacognitive Strategies
• Incorporate metacognitive strategies into lessons.
• Model and explain the usefulness of strategies, so students will agree
to the added effort that strategies require in the learning process.
• Continue training students to monitor their own use of metacognitive
strategies using lesson exit slips and self-checklists.
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26. Critical Thinking Skills
Learners can use metacognitive
strategies to develop critical thinking skills.
Critical thinking is the ability to
think clearly and rationally about
what to do or what to believe.
(Lau & Chan, 2019)
It is important to think critically to be successful in learning and in life.
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27. Critical Thinking Skills
Some examples of critical thinking skills
include the following :
• Understand the logical connections between ideas
• Identify, construct and evaluate arguments
• Detect inconsistencies and common mistakes in reasoning
• Solve problems systematically
• Identify the relevance and importance of ideas
• Reflect on the justification of one's own beliefs and values (Lau & Chan, 2019)
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28. Foundations for Critical Thinking Skills
• The Bloom’s taxonomy of learning
presents 6 levels of thinking by
which teachers can categorize
student learning experiences.
• It starts at the bottom with basic
skills like remembering facts, which
have a low level of critical thinking.
• Understanding the topic and
applying it requires more complex
thinking.
• At the top are the activities that
require the most critical thinking:
creating and evaluating.
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29. Foundations for Critical Thinking Skills
• By providing a hierarchy of levels,
this taxonomy can assist teachers in
designing learning tasks, drafting
questions and assignments, and
providing feedback on student
work that increases their thinking
and problem solving skills.
• Consider the activities used in your
class. Are students using higher
order thinking skills (HOTS)?
Insert image if Danae is able to create one.
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30. Bloom’s Taxonomy
The following academic language functions fall under the levels of
Bloom’s taxonomy:
[lowest] Remembering: Recalling information, listing, describing, naming,
Understanding: Explaining ideas, summarizing, interpreting,
classifying.
Applying: Using information in another familiar situation.
Analyzing: Breaking information into parts and exploring
relationships between parts.
Evaluating: Justifying decision, critiquing, judging,
[highest] Creating: Designing, planning, producing, inventing.
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31. Higher Order Thinking Tasks
• Research shows that most classroom
instruction and assessment only
activates the two lower levels of
cognition, understanding and
remembering.
• To develop critical thinking and
problem solving skills, students need
to practice self-reflection and employ
metacognitive strategies at the
analysis, synthesis and evaluation
levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.
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32. Higher Order Thinking (HOT)Tasks
To develop critical thinking, students need repeated
exposure to Higher Order Thinking (HOT) tasks,
assignments and assessments.
Tasks designed at the higher levels (analysis, synthesis
and evaluation) use some of the following action
verbs:
Analyzing: Analyze, examine, investigate, explain,
categorize.
Evaluating: Judge, decide, argue, debate, recommend,
criticize.
Creating: Create, invent, predict, plan, imagine,
propose, formulate.
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33. HOT Strategy Example
Think about the type of writing prompts you create and ensure they are
written to engage students’ higher order thinking skills.
Examples:
Essay prompt written an the remembering level of Bloom’s taxonomy:
Write an essay to describe your last shopping trip. Provide as many details as
possible.
Essay prompt written an the analyzing level of Bloom’s taxonomy:
Write an essay to recommend ways to shop in your local supermarket that
would save someone time and money.
Essay prompt written an the creating level of Bloom’s taxonomy:
Write an essay to critique consumer shopping habits and suggest ways they
can improve them.
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34. Helpful Tip
When developing small group tasks or
whole group questions that elicit higher
order thinking and involve problem
solving, provide sufficient wait time.
Language learners need time to think and
to process both the ideas and the
language.
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35. Conclusion
• Strategies-based instruction is designed to…
• raise awareness about strategies
• train students in strategy use
• give them opportunities to practice strategy use
• encourage them to personalize these strategies for themselves.
• Metacognitive strategies help students understand the way they learn and
help students “think” about their thinking.
• Critical thinking skills allow learners to think clearly and rationally and to
better understand and function in the world around them.
• Metacognitive strategies and critical thinking skills can be taught via
strategies-based instruction.
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36. How can you adjust your
everyday teaching methods to
include learning strategies and to
foster metacognition and
critical thinking skills?
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Reflection
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37. References (Copyright)
This content is copyrighted, and cannot be adapted in any way, or distributed after the end of this course. It is not Public Domain or Creative Commons-licensed, and therefore
not for public use. Please do not save a copy for your personal use, and do not use it after the course ends.
• Cohen, A. D., & Dörnyei, Z. (2002). Focus on the language learner: Motivation, styles, and strategies. In N. Schmitt (Ed.), An introduction to
applied linguistics (pp. 170-190). London: Arnold.
• Lau, J., & Chau, J. (2014-2019). What is Critical Thinking? Retrieved from: https://philosophy.hku.hk/think/critical/ct.php
• Lessard-Clouston, M. (1997). Language Learning Strategies: An Overview for L2 Teachers, Retrieved from TESL Journal, Vol. IX, No.4
http://iteslj.org/Articles/Currie-MITheory.html.
• Mango, C. (2010). The Role of Metacognitive Skills in Developing Critical Thinking. Metacognition Learning , 5, 137-156
• O'Malley, J.M. & Chamot, A.U. (1990), Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition, CUP
• Oxford, R. (1993). Language learning strategies in a nutshell: Update and ESL suggestions, TESOL Journal, 2(2), 18-22.
• Oxford, R. L. (2013). Language learning styles and strategies. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (4th ed).
Boston: Heinle & Heinle/Thompson International.
• O'Malley, J.M. & Chamot, A.U. (1990), Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition, CUP.
• Rahimi, M. & Katal, N. (2011) Metacognitive strategies awareness and success in learning English as a foreign language: an overview. Procedia -
Social and Behavioral Sciences, 31, 2012, 73-81.
References (OER)
• Anderson, N.J. (2002). The role of metacognition in second language teaching and learning, Eric Digest, April. Retrieved from:
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED463659
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