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Andrew D. Cohen is a Professor Emeritus in the Second Language Studies Program at the University of Minnesota. He served as the Director of the Language Resource Center at the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) from 1993–2004. His most recent project with CARLA centered on the development of the Spanish Grammar Strategies Website for learners, which is intended to serve as a model for how to support the learning of problematic grammar forms in any language. His latest book, forthcoming with Multilingual Matters, is entitled Learning Pragmatics from Native and Nonnative Language Teachers.

Defining what constitutes a strategy has been a major undertaking of language learner strategy (LLS) theorists. According to Oxford (2017), there exist at least 33 different definitions of LLS, albeit some similar to others. This plethora of definitions is an indication of just how reluctant experts have been to agree on one common definition for this construct. Oxford (2017: 48) offers a comprehensive definition of 116 words, intended to provide closure at the definitional level. Among other things, she includes in her definition that strategies are contextually-specific thoughts and actions that can be both mental and physical; that they can be combined in clusters or chains; that they can have cognitive, emotional, and social roles to play as determined by the individual; and that their use in self-regulation is complex in nature. So what characterizes this definition is an effort to include various approaches to LLS definition. It would appear that this new definition of LLS invites us to deal with strategies in a more rigorous way than in the past, where a one-size-fits-all approach often was used when describing strategies.

Regardless of our definition of LLS, we need to remember that the principal goal of the LLS effort from its earliest years has always been to improve language learning and use for the average learner (Macaro, 2010). One curious phenomenon that I have seen over the years is that irrespective of how rigorous the definition is, the actual processes referred to as “strategies” frequently take on vague labels such as “use a dictionary,” “find a mnemonic device,” or “look for clues in the context.” Presumably, these labels will trigger in the mind of the learner a specific strategy to deploy in the given case for the given task. But there appears to be limited research as to just what the labels represent for learners in terms of intake, and in addition, there is generally not much attention paid to what happens with that strategy on a moment-by-moment basis.

A recent article providing guidelines for conducting a 2-hour Strategy Instruction (SI) workshop for secondary school teachers in Greece, for example, relies primarily on strategies as they appear in the traditional LLS literature (see Kantaridou & Papadopoulou, 2017). What are termed affective strategies, for example, include “encouraging yourself – taking risks wisely, making positive statements, and rewarding yourself.” What do these strategies actually entail at the functional level? What does “taking risks wisely” actually entail and when does it function as an affective strategy? In reality, taking risks wisely involves not just the affective function, but cognitive and metacognitive ones as well. Taking a risk presumably entails moments of planning and then also entails grappling with problematic cognitive material as well. And usually when learners are frustrated at not being able to, say, figure out what a word means in context, they may make a negative rather than a positive comment. It may be this “oh, darn!” moment that can trigger the metacognitive function of planning some other approach to determining what the word means.

The usual vagueness around what actually constitutes the strategic behavior in a given instance would explain why some decades ago there was such an effort to distinguish between something called a “strategy” and something called a “technique” (Stern, 1983) or a “tactic” (Seliger, 1984). This effort was based on a realization that in order for learners to accomplish any given target language (TL) task, they needed to go beyond these general labels to more specific selected processes. Then there was somewhat of a backlash against such a terminological split because at times it was difficult to determine just where the cutoff was between a more general strategy and the more specific techniques or tactics (Cohen, 2007). The resolution was to refer to all consciously selected TL processes as strategies, which is all the more reason for a definitional fine-tuning.

A close-order analysis of strategies also helps to reveal the existence of a continuum from more skill-like to more strategy-like behavior. For example, micro-level inspection of the cognitive functions of a given strategy can help identify possible avenues for SI in order to remediate the specific situation. Up until now, SI interventions have tended not to be fine-tuned in this way. There is evidence from the CARLA Spanish Grammar Strategies website that the use of empirically-validated, rigorously-detailed LLS may have a dramatic impact on language task performance, which is not necessarily the case when strategies are referred to more vaguely (see Cohen, Pinilla-Herrera, Thompson, & Witzig, 2011).

Once we are dealing with strategies that are specific to a given skill area and situated within a given task, what is wanted and needed is more work at the micro-level to determine the moment-to-moment functions that these strategies play in the learning and use of a TL. A close-up analysis of the functions of strategies found that metacognitive, cognitive, affective, and social functions fluctuated not only during the use of a single strategy, but also when learners moved from one strategy to another in sequences, pairs, and clusters (Cohen & Wang, 2017). Such close-order research can help language educators pinpoint instances of success and failure, which can then lead to selective intervention. It seems logical that if learners know just what functions (i.e., metacognitive, cognitive, social, or affective) are being engaged at each moment that a given strategy is being deployed, they may do better at managing their own learning. Analysis of these strategy functions should, for example, help learners and teachers alike to better understand the elusive but often crucial affective function of strategies (e.g., satisfaction or frustration) and the subsequent choice of functions that they trigger.

References

Cohen, A. D. (2007). Coming to terms with language learner strategies: Surveying the experts. In A. D. Cohen & E. Macaro (Eds.), Language learner strategies: 30 years of research and practice (pp. 29-45). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Cohen, A. D., Pinilla-Herrera, A., Thompson, J. R., & Witzig, L. E. (2011). Communicating grammatically: Evaluating a learner strategies website for Spanish grammar. CALICO Journal, 29(1), 145-172.

Cohen, A. D., & Wang, K. H. (2017). Fluctuations in language strategy functions. Paper currently under review for publication in a journal.

Kantaridou, Z., & Papadopoulou, I. (2017). Encouraging language learning strategies – Empowering the learner. In: Z. Gavriilidou, K. Petrogenic M. Plastid & A. Psaltou-Joycey (eds), Language learning strategies: Theoretical issues and applied perspectives (pp. 160-191). Kavala, Greece: Saita Publications.

Macaro, E. (2010). The relationship between strategic behaviour and language learning success. In E. Macaro (ed.), Continuum companion to second language acquisition (pp. 268-299).  London: Continuum.

Oxford, R. L. (2017) Teaching and researching language learning strategies: Self-regulation in context. (2^nd ed). New York: Routledge.

Seliger, H. (1984). Processing universals in second language acquisition. In F. Eckman, L. Bell, & D. Nelson (eds), Universals of second language acquisition (pp. 36-47). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

Stern, H. (1983). Fundamental concepts of language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.