ACHIEVING SUCCESS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING

1. ACHIEVING SUCCESS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING Dr. Mashadi Said, M. Pd Presented to welcome the 2006 students of English Department, Gunadarma University August 14, 2006

2. “What do successful learners do?”“Are there any certain strategies they employ?”

3. What Are the Theoretical Underpinnings and Assumptions About Learning? Some language learners are more successful than others The Learning process includes both explicit and implicit Successful strategies can be used to good effect by less effective learners

4. Teachers can promote strategy use • Once trained, students become the best judge of how to approach the learning task. • Self-direction promotes learning both inside and outside the classroom

5. What Do We Mean By Learner Strategy? • Leaner strategy refers to tactics, techniques, approaches, or deliberate actions that learners take in order to facilitate the learning and recall of linguistic and content area information

6. What Are The Strategies of Successful EFL Learners? • Metacognitive Strategies • A strategy which involves: (1) knowledge about the learning process; (2) planning for learning; (3) monitoring learning while it is taking place; (4) self-evaluation of learning after the learning task has been completed.

7. Selective Attention • Deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of language input or situational details that will cue the retention of language input

8. Advance preparation • Planning for and rehearsing linguistic components necessary to carry out an upcoming language task.

9. Self-monitoring • Correcting one’s speech for accuracy in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, or for appropriateness related to the setting or to the people who are present.

10. Delayed Production • Consciously deciding to postpone speaking to learn initially through listening comprehension

11. Self-evaluation • Checking the outcomes of one’s own language learning against an internal measure of completeness and accuracy

12. CognitiveStrategies • refer to the steps or operations used in learning or problem-solving that require direct analysis, transformation, or synthesis of learning materials

13. Repetition • Imitating a language model, including overt practice and silent rehearsal

14. Resourcing • Defining or expanding a definition of a word or concept through use of target language reference materials

15. Directed Physical Response • Relating new information to physical actions, as with directives. • Raise your hand. Point at the screen. • Sit down. Shake your head.

16. Translation • Using the first language as a base for understanding and/or producing the second language

17. Grouping • Reordering or reclassifying and perhaps labeling the material to be learned based on common attributes

18. Note-taking • Writing down the main idea, important points, outline, or summary of information presented orally or in writing

19. Deduction • Consciously applying rules to produce or understand the second language SUBJECT + VERB DO/Does + subject + verb-1

20. Recombination • Constructing a meaningful sentence or larger language sequence by combining known element in a new way I saw a rabbit near my house.

21. Imagery • Relating new information to visual concepts in memory via familiar easily retrievable visualizations, phrase, or locations Backache burn bleed

22. Auditory Representation • Retention of the sound or similar sound for a word, phrase, or longer language sequence

23. Key Word • Remembering a new word in the second language by (1) identifying a familiar word in the first language that sounds like or otherwise resembles the new word, and (2) generating easily recalled images of some relationship between the new word coffee for kopi tea for teh

24. Contextualization • Placing a word or phrase in meaningful language sequence • boss and his wife boyfriend Invite your old English teacher for Sunday lunch closest friend neighbors

25. Elaboration • Relating new information to other concepts in memory.

26. Transfer • Using previously acquired linguistic and/or conceptual knowledge to facilitate a new language learning task She/he is a doctor. He/she is … .

27. Inferencing • Using available information to guess meanings of new items, predict outcomes, or fill in missing information Anything to declare? The customs hall at Gitwack airport. The passengers on the flight from Rome are going through customs.

28. Social-affective Strategies • a learning strategy which refers to the suing social interactions to assist in the comprehension, learning, or retention of information

29. Cooperation • Working with one or more peers to obtain feedback, pool information, or model a language activity

30. Question for Clarification • Asking a teacher or other native speaker for repetition, paraphrasing, explanation and/or examples

31. WHAT DO OTHER SUCCESSFUL EFL LEARNERS SAY ABOUT LEARNING ENGLISH? • Lots of listening before speaking “I liked to hear a lot of English before I tried to say anything in it.” “I listened to the radio, watched TV or went to the movies.” “I just sat and listened to real people.” “Some of my listening were inattentive, but at other times I concentrated my attention on one aspect of the sound after another.” “At the beginning, I tried to guess what was being said.” “I have found that for some unknown reason I can frequently get meanings better if I consciously try to focus on each sound – each vowel and each consonant – as it goes by.”

32. Tie language to some coherent reality • “When I began to say things, I preferred that what I said be true to some coherent reality, even if only a ‘reality’ that I had made up in my own mind.” “I would be less concerned with how communicative my sentences were (how much new information they conveyed to other people), or even with how (on what levels) they were communicative. “I paraphrased.”

33. . Produce true sentences in families • “I liked, at least part of the time, to be able to produce these true sentences in families that were partially like one another: • That is a bench. That is a porch. Those are armchairs. Or I’m drawing a picture. I drew two pictures this morning. Did you draw any pictures yesterday?

34. Understand what is going on linguistically • “Whenever I ran into unexpected complications in moving from one sentence to another in these families, I’d like to understand fairly soon what was going on. On the other hand, I’d rather my teacher not seize on my request for a brief explanation of one particular thing that I don’t know, and turn it into an occasion for telling me everything she or he thinks I ought to know about the general topic..

35. Verify understanding by trying it out • Once I thought I understood a new complication, I’d like to have chance to verify (and if necessary, to modify) my understanding of it by making or hearing new families of sentences. I find things stay with me better after I have put them into a meaningful exchange with someone else

36. Do some mechanical practice • Having clarified my understanding of the new point in this way, I would like to have (in fact, I insisted on having) a chance to do a fair amount of purely mechanical practice. • I did a certain amount of memorization, because memorization is easy for me and because I have frequently been able to use in conversation various adaptations of things I had learned by heart

37. Practice aloud • I tried for retention of new words and structures mainly through practicing out loud, my memory seems to be more aural and kinesthetic than visual. I used the ‘shadowing’ technique. Even more, however, I developed my pronunciation by just listening to and repeating after tapes

38. Repeatedly listen to and produce the same material with a native speaker • Another of my favorite techniques is to tell something to a speaker of the language, and have that person tell the same thing back to me in correct, natural form. I then tell the same thing again, bearing in mind the way in which I have just heard it. This cycle can repeat itself two or three times. It easily (for me, at least) leads not only to greater correctness, but also to memorizations, and as I said in (6), I am one of those people who can draw on memorized material while I am speaking. An essential feature of this technique is that the text we are swapping back and forth originates with me, so that I control the content and do not have to worry about generating nonverbal images to match what is in someone else’s mind. That was one benefit of Derek’s decision to invent a brother for himself. I think Gwen would like this little device, too

39. Find the right people to talk with • I sought out the right kind of person. I was aware of how much better I do with people who seem to enjoy talking with me. I preferred someone who had the knack of speaking to me in language that was authentic, but that was only a little beyond my level.

40. Guide my own learning • I preferred to guide my own learning as much as I can

41. Try for interaction, not just language practice • I would try to arrange matters so that whatever competence I developed would be not only ‘linguistic’ but also ‘interactive’

42. Hope to see you again