Learner Training in Foreign/Second Language Learning: A Curricular Perspective for the 21st Century.

Abstract

This review of literature and discussion focus on the explicit training of second language learners in learning strategies and techniques. The history of learner training--teaching how to learn-in second language instruction is traced from the early 1900s, and its goals (educational, personal, and social) are outlined. Metacognitive strategies (planning, monitoring, and evaluating skills) and affective strategies the individual can use to manage learning, strategies for processing learning, and the knowledge (person, task, and strategic) needed to understand the learning process are explained. Suggestions are made for curriculum developers and teachers wishing to design learning plans to promote . autonomous learning. These include deciding on the priority to be given to learner training, whether to separate learner training from language training, and incorporating learner training with the pedagogical task and/or at the level of syllabus design. A variety of indirect and direct methods for implementing learner training are then described. Roles of teacher and learner in these processes are also examined. Contains 134 references. (MSE) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** Learner training in foreign/second language learning: A curricular perspective for the 21st century Anita L. Wenden York College City University of New York January 1998 INTRODUCTION PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Ppc;.\-s-J. \\\C-E-r\ea.irN TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC). 1 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. The introduction of new methods or materials into our classrooms invariably requires behavioral change, the extent of which varies depending upon the nature of the innovation. Using group work as an alternative to frontal instruction, for example, requires that students learn how to work in groups. For CAI to be effective they need to know how to use computers and how to learn from that medium. When the innovation is a new teaching methodology, the behavioral changes will be more extensive and profound, causing change in student and teacher roles as well as the beliefs and related values underlying them. Learner training is one such innovation which has extensive, profound, and even dramatic consequences for the language teaching curriculum. While it may be included among the learnercentered innovations that have re-defined our teaching methods and the content of our teaching syllabi over the last two decades, learner training is not about teaching. Rather, it intends to bring to our attention the underside of teaching, i.e. learning, and the second key actor in the teaching/learning process, the learner. Its aim is to help the learner learn how to learn and, to that end, to make learning the main construct by which we view what happens in whatever context instruction is offered, i.e. the classroom, the self-access center, student-teacher conferences, distance learning, informal settings. Manuals or language learning guides, which appeared in the early 1900's, may be considered an early form of learner training. Inspired in part by the development of structural linguistics, they were written for expatriates who found themselves working in a foreign country without the benefit of formal language training and even, in some cases, a codified analysis of the language they would need to use. However, it was not until the 1970's that the notion of learner training as a valid activity for foreign/second language teaching and learning was conceived. With the development of autonomous language learning in Europe (cf Abe, Stanchina, Smith 1975; Stanchina 1976) and the initiation of the successful language learner research in North America (cf Rubin 1975; Naiman, Frohlich, Stern & Todesco 1978) a direction was set, which charted the course of future research and practice. Therefore, the late 70's and the 80's saw a slow but gradual implementation of self-directed learning and/or cognitive strategy instruction in ESL, EFL, and to a lesser extent, in other FL

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