- Introduction
- Methodological
problems - Developing
awareness - Negative attitudes and
beliefs - Conclusion
- References
Studies of successful learners show that
‘good’ learners organize their learning, set their
own goals and objectives, seek practice opportunities and
monitor and
evaluate themselves effectively (Oxford 1990: 137). But learners
cannot develop these strategies unless they become aware of
themselves as learners and of the factors that influence their
learning. One way to raise awareness is by keeping a learning
diary. Diary keeping not only encourages introspection and
preserves valuable insights, but may also reveal negative
attitudes and beliefs that are hindering the learning
process.
The diary analysed here was written by a mature student
from Spain following a beginners’ course in German at a
south London college and shows how he develops over some two and
a half months from an initial stage in which he overestimates his
ability as a learner – and suffers anxiety and
disappointment as a result – to a stage in which he has a
far more realistic appraisal of his strengths and weaknesses and
has actually started to enjoy the course despite poor teaching.
To what extent keeping a diary contributed to this change is not
clear. At any rate, he seems to have found the experience
rewarding since he writes: "Next time I’ll write my diary
AUF DEUTSCH (in German)".
Rubin (in Wenden and Rubin 1987) defines learning
strategies as "any set of operations, steps, plans or routines
used by the learner to facilitate the obtaining, storage,
retrieval and use of information". However, as Ellis (1993:9)
points out, there is no agreement on exactly what (…)
learning strategies are, how many of them there are, what they
consist of, etc." For example, while Ellis and Sinclair consider
keeping a diary to be a primarily metacognitive strategy (1989:
151), Oxford regards it as an affective strategy. In fact, it
could be either. Nevertheless, most writers do agree in making a
distinction between direct and indirect strategies, i.e. between
those that "require mental processing of the language" (Oxford
1990:37) and those that provide indirect support for language
learning "without (in many instances) directly involving the
target language" (ibid: 135).
This particular diary mainly reflects the writer’s
use of indirect strategies and there are good reasons for this.
Firstly, many direct strategies (e.g. cognitive and memory
strategies) are difficult to observe since they are mental
processes with little external behaviour. The learner himself may
not be aware of using them. To study direct strategies,
concurrent methods (e.g. "think-aloud" protocols) rather than
retrospective methods (e.g. questionnaires, interviews, diary
studies) are generally preferred. Secondly, some strategies such
as compensation strategies, which are observable, may not
be valued by the learner if, as in this case, he conceives of
language mainly in terms of formal accuracy.
On the other hand, indirect strategies are the most
difficult to classify. Because our ideas may affect our feelings
and interactions with others, what might be seen metacognitively
as "seeking practice opportunities", might also be classed
affectively as "taking risks wisely" or socially as "cooperating
with proficient users of L2" depending on whether we wish to
emphasise rational planning, subjective emotion or social
interaction.
The diary itself is handwritten on 19 pages of A4 and so
is too long to reproduce here. In any case, I do not have the
author's permission to do so. However, I shall quote short
extracts from it to give a sense of the author’s voice
.
Although the diarist seems to be an "authority-oriented
learner" in that he would prefer teachers to explain everything,
correct him constantly and set goals and objectives for him (see
Nunan 1991:170) – his only objective for after the course is to
keep his next diary in German – , he does attempt both to monitor
and evaluate himself from the very beginning ("terribly
disappointed with the language skills that I supposedly have")
(p.1) and understand his learning difficulties ("my listening
skills have never been good at all") (p.1) and also to solve them
by resorting to alternative cognitive strategies in class ("have
a look at my book") (p.1) and outside the classroom ("a few hours
on the train") (p.1.). Later, he goes on to evaluate such things
as the teaching methods and procedures used in the classroom, the
quality of the teaching, the underlying view of language in the
course book (functional/notional) and the workbook (structural)
as well as the relative difficulty of the lessons for himself and
his classmates.
At the same time, his desire to understand his learning
difficulties drives him, at one point, to consult not only his
teachers but also his wife in order to discover "whether German
is a phonetic language or not" (p.2). Once he comes to realise
that "German is a fairly structured language, therefore a
systematic approach to teaching it would work" (p.3), he is only
a small step from realising that "a systematic approach to
learning would also help" (p.3). Indeed, he soon shows
initiative in this respect ("I can do the exercises and then look
up the answers") (p.4) and he seems to be fairly well organised
("I study a minimum of 45 mins. most days at least 4 days a
week…") (p.5). However, perhaps his most valuable insight
is when he realises that he is "the type of character that goes
up and down" (p.14) and that this affects the way he learns
German. Presumably, this insight helped him to become more
independent and less disheartened each time he went through a
‘down" period ("German is really beginning to click in even
though the teaching hasn’t improved very much")
(p.15).
Negative attitudes and
beliefs
As mentioned earlier, ideas affect feelings and
relationships with others, and this can be seen clearly in the
diary. Indeed, most of the learner’s affective problems can
be traced to three underlying assumptions:
- that he is a gifted learner;
- that learning is a competitive activity;
and - that language learning is mainly about achieving
formal accuracy.
His mistaken notion that he is a gifted learner causes
him much disappointment when put to the test and even
prevents him, occasionally, from writing his diary ("I
didn’t feel I would sit down and write that I’m not
doing very well") (p.2). Although he tries to be honest, one
suspects that he would like to be seen as average (if not gifted)
and so tends to dwell upon negative experiences in class
(self-justification). Interestingly, he only quotes his
classmates when they make negative comments about the teaching.
The social desirability factor is always a danger in
introspective studies of this kind.
People that need to impress others are often
impressionable themselves. At one point, the diarist remarks: "I
like translation exercises and I particularly like to do them
with the Head of German who seems to be … very
knowledgeable (educated)" (p.7). What her education has to do
with her ability to teach elementary level German is not
specified, but one suspects that the diarist rejects other
teachers because they cannot satisfy his need for an authority
figure. Interestingly, when his wife plays this role for him, his
opinion of the Head of German changes: "She’s got no proper
teaching techniques" (p.12). Typical of insecure people, his view
of others is as variable as that of himself.
The diarist’s need to compete is a major source of
anxiety for him ("every time we do something new I feel lost
… they’ve done German before") (p.3). He attempts to
compensate for his feelings of inadequacy with fantasies about an
alleged superiority in grammar ("I’ve got an advantage over
my classmates and that is that I know some grammar") (p.5). He
does not seem to know much, however, since he admits: "I still
don’t understand … the words accusative, dative,
nominative, etc." (p.8). Also, he seems to have certain
prejudices against German, at least initially. He finds the sound
of the language "like barking dogs" (p.8) and complains of "long
words with lots of consonants" (p.1) even though, at this stage,
he has only learnt "how to introduce myself and ask someone
else’s name" and "to spell my name" (p.1).
Low self-esteem is a problem that besets many learners
and results from the learner placing the locus of control
outside him or herself. Low self-esteem seems to be at the
root of this diarist’s mood swings, his competitiveness,
anxiety, disparagement of teachers – and the German language –
and his need to compensate for perceived inadequacies in himself
through fantasies about superiority in grammar (compensatory
fantasies about control). As such, it works against the
development of effective (i.e. realistic) metacognitive, social
and affective strategies. Teachers are often surprised that what
is taught is often so different from what is learnt or that
learners seem to be following their own agenda. Diary studies
such as this bring home the principle (accepted more in theory
than in practice) that the learner is central to the learning
process.
Obviously teachers need to set clear learning goals,
explain the purpose of activities to students and help them to
organise their learning. But this is not enough. Even if learners
do not keep learning diaries, they need regular opportunities to
discuss difficulties and feelings about learning (in their L1 if
necessary) with teachers and other learners, to set realistic
goals for themselves and to experiment with different ways of
achieving them. The basis of self-esteem inside and outside the
classroom lies in positive interactions with others. Thus,
learners may also need explicit training in communication
strategies (e.g. asking for repetition and clarification;
confirming guesses) before undertaking extensive pairwork and
groupwork activities.
Finally, I strongly recommend that trainee teachers keep
a diary and discuss their insights and problems with colleagues
for at least part of their course. We cannot teach others in any
real sense what we have not learnt for ourselves.
Ellis, R. (1993). ‘Second language acquisition
research: how does it help teachers? An interview with Rod
Ellis’. ELT Journal Jan. 1993. Oxford:
O.U.P.
Ellis, G. and Sinclair, B. (1989). Learning to learn
English. Cambridge: C.U.P.
Nunan, D. (1991). Language Teaching Methodology.
Prentice Hall (U.K.).
Oxford, R. (1990). Language Learning Strategies.
New York: Newbury House Publishers.
Wenden, A.L. and Rubin, J. (1987) (Eds.) (1987).
Learner strategies in language training. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
Douglas Andrew Town
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MA
(English Language Teaching), Diploma in
Translation (Spanish)
Profesor de la
Universidad de
Belgrano, Argentina (Licenciatura en Inglés).