Styles- and Strategies-Based Language Instruction

1
Styles- and Strategies-Based Language Instruction

• Andrew D. Cohen
• University of Minnesota
• Martha Nyikos
• Indiana University

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What is Styles- and Strategies-Based Language
Instruction?

• Learner-focused.
• Explicit highlighting learners styles and
  strategies in performing instructional
  activities.
• Learners understand both what to learn and how to
  learn it.
• Making sure learners are true partners with their
  teachers in the instructional effort.

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Evolution of Styles- and Strategies-Based
Instruction

• 1960's Psychology of Learning
• Learning to learn,
• Cognitive theory based on the information
  processing model (declarative knowledge facts
  procedural knowledge procedures for using
  declarative knowledge),
• Away from behaviorist (stimulus-response),
• Towards a more reasoned learning of rules
  automatic rule learning/acquisition.

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1970's - Good Language Learner Prescriptive
approach to language learner strategies (Rubins
Good Language Learner, 1975).E.g. Good
Guesser
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1980s

• Classifications of Strategies, Descriptions of
  Learners (by OMalley Chamot, Oxford, and
  others).

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1990's Strategies-Based Instruction (SBI)
Experimenting with different kinds of
interventions. University of Minnesota
experiment with intermediate learners of French
and Norwegian. Initiation of SBI summer
institutes.
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2000's SSBI Sorting out the
strategy classification systems, The
intersection of styles, strategies, and
motivation on the accomplishment of language
learning and language use tasks.
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Self-Directed Learning

• Components of SSBI
• Strategy Preparation
• Strategy Awareness-Raising
• Strategy Instruction
• Strategy Practice
• Personalization of Strategies
• Options for Teachers
• Insert strategies in established materials.
• Start with strategies and design materials.
• Insert strategies spontaneously when appropriate.