This paper aims to investigate the autonomy of second-year English majors in English skill classes at Sai Gon University through four main focuses such as learners’ motivation to be engaged in autonomous learning, their attitudes towards autonomous learning, their level of self-esteem, and their frequency of using learning strategies for language skills. 176 second – year English majors at SGU answered the questionnaire from the researcher.
Trang 1ĐẠI HỌC SÀI GÒN OF SAIGON UNIVERSITY
Email: tcdhsg@sgu.edu.vn ; Website: https://tapchikhoahoc.sgu.edu.vn
AN INVESTIGATION ON THE FREQUENCY OF USING LEARNING STRATEGIES OF THE SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS IN
PRODUCTIVE SKILLS IN ENGLISH CLASS AT SAIGON UNIVERSITY
Khảo sát về tần suất sử dụng các chiến lược học tập của sinh viên năm hai chuyên ngữ trong việc học các kỹ năng nghe nói tiếng Anh ở Trường Đại học Sài Gòn
ThS Phạm Lê Kim Tuyến
Trường Đại học Sài Gòn
Abstract
This paper aims to investigate the autonomy of second-year English majors in English skill classes at Sai Gon University through four main focuses such as learners’ motivation to be engaged in autonomous learning, their attitudes towards autonomous learning, their level of self-esteem, and their frequency of using learning strategies for language skills 176 second – year English majors at SGU answered the questionnaire from the researcher The study’s findings show that the participants express high frequencies of using learning strategies in productive skill in English skill class with 78% for speaking skill, and 68% for listening skill Besides, the most popular learning strategies applied are metacognitive, cognitive, and compensation whereas memory, affective, and social ones are not fully exploited These findings lead to the fact that the participants are able to become considerably positive autonomous learners Finally, the research suggests some implications for cultivating the learners’ employment of learning strategies in productive skills as wells as fostering their autonomy in learning English
Keywords: English class, English majors, learning strategies, productive skills
Tóm tắt
Bài viết khảo sát việc tự học của sinh viên năm thứ hai chuyên ngữ trong các lớp học kỹ năng tiếng Anh tại Đại học Sài Gòn với bốn vấn đề trọng tâm: động lực của người học để tham gia vào việc tự học, thái
độ của họ đối với việc tự học, mức độ tự tin, và tần suất sử dụng các chiến lược học tập cho các kỹ năng ngôn ngữ của họ 176 sinh viên chuyên ngữ năm hai tại Đại học Sài Gòn đã trả lời bảng câu hỏi khảo sát
về tần suất sử dụng các chiến lược học tập trong các giờ học kỹ năng Nghe, Nói Nghiên cứu cho thấy sinh viên được khảo sát thể hiện tần suất sử dụng các chiến lược học tập trong kỹ năng Nghe, Nói Tiếng Anh rất cao với 78% đối với kỹ năng Nói và 68% đối với kỹ năng Nghe Bên cạnh đó, các chiến lược
học tập được áp dụng phổ biến nhất là siêu nhận thức, nhận thức và khen thưởng trong khi các chiến lược học tập liên quan đến trí nhớ, tình cảm và xã hội không được khai thác triệt để Từ đó, có thể thấy
rằng đối tượng sinh viên được khảo sát có thể trở thành những người tự học thật sự rất tích cực Nghiên cứu cũng đưa ra một số đề xuất thực tiễn trong việc trau dồi cho người học sử dụng các chiến lược học tập trong các kỹ năng Nghe, Nói, đó cũng là một phần trong việc thúc đẩy sự tự học của họ trong việc học tiếng Anh
Từ khóa: lớp học tiếng Anh, sinh viên chuyên ngữ, chiến lược học tập, kỹ năng nghe nói
Trang 21 Introduction
No matter how many attempts have
been continuously made towards
enhancing the efficiency of English
teaching in Viet Nam, the quality of EFL
learning is still far from satisfactory,
especially for productive skills (listening
and speaking skills) There are, of course,
several reasons to blame for this, both
subjective and objective However, it
would absolutely be a mistake if we did not
mention those stemming from learners
themselves In fact, students think there is
no place other than the classroom where
they can learn English They seem to
depend too much on their teachers without
the initiative to learn on their own
Nevertheless, the fact is:
… No school, or even university, can
provide its pupils with all the
knowledge and the skills they will need
in their active adult lives It is more
important for a young person to have
an understanding of himself or herself,
an awareness of the environment and
its workings, and to have learned how
to think and how to learn…
(Trim, 1988, cited in Lijuan Jiao,
2005, p 27)
In this background, learning strategies
have been a buzzword within the context of
foreign language teaching in the past
decades, especially in relation to life-long
learning skills More and more teachers are
focusing on developing students’ ability in
learning English independently with a hope
that they are more interested and active in
learning English, consequently learning
more effectively and gaining all-round
abilities As a result, it is extremely
important for teachers to help students
master how to learn by themselves as well
as evaluate their learners’ learning process basing on the learning strategies they apply
in their autonomous studying
2 Learning Strategies
2.1 Definitions of Learning Strategies
It seems that there has been no unanimous opinion on the definition of learning strategies According to Elli (2004, cited in Wang Xianrong, 2015, p.7), the concept of learning strategies is still “a somewhat fuzzy one” and “not easy to tie down” Hence, in an attempt to draw some main characteristics of learning strategies,
we will review several definitions of learning strategies given by a number of leading figures in the second and foreign language field
O'Malley and Chamot (1990) define learning strategies as, “ special thoughts
or behaviors that individuals use to help them comprehend, learn, or retain new information” It can be understood from this definition that learning strategies can
be either observable (behaviors) or unobservable (thoughts) Besides, this definition evidently mentions the goals of learning strategies that are to help students achieve comprehension and learning new information
Furthermore, Oxford (1990, cited in Selma Deneme, 2008) provides one of the most comprehensive definitions, considering learning strategies as “specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, and more transferable
to new situations” In Oxford's (ibid.) definition, the changed nature of learning when learning is enhanced by strategies is clearly described as “easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, and more transferable to new situations”
Trang 3It can be seen that while the scholars
refer to “special” (O’Malley et al., 1990) or
“specific” (Oxford, 1990) actions, thoughts
and behaviors, they do not explicitly state
whether strategies must be conscious In
other words, it is still not evident whether
consciousness is an essential feature of
learning strategies or not Chamot (1992,
cited in Wang Xianrong, 2015) definitely
refers to strategies as “deliberate actions”,
but other researchers avoid addressing this
issue Hence, we believe that strategies are
conscious in most cases, but sometimes
they are probably unconscious
Additionally, a distinction has also been
made between learning strategies and study
skills that are sometimes interchangeably
used with each other According to
O’Malley and Chamot (1990), they wrote:
“Study skills describe overt behavior, such
as taking notes, writing summaries, or using
reference materials, while learning
strategies generally pertain to unobservable
mental processes.”
2.2 Classification of Learning Strategies
In fact, different scholars have their
own understanding of learning strategies It
is no surprise that there exists a diversity of
classifications of learning strategies
Rubin's (1981, cited in O’Malley and
Chamot, 1990) model of classification of
learning strategies in second language
acquisition makes a distinction between
“direct strategies” and “indirect strategies”
“Direct strategies”, according to Rubin, are
those that contribute directly to the
learner’s language learning and include: (a)
classification/ verification, (b) monitoring,
(c) memorization, (d) guessing or inductive
inferencing, (e) deductive reasoning, and
(f) practice “Indirect strategies” are those
that benefit language learning indirectly:
(a) creating opportunities for practice, and (b) using production tricks such as using circumlocutions, synonyms, or formulaic interaction As Rubin’s model was based
on her observations of the learners, particularly the good language learners, it certainly makes contribution to outlining the important strategies used by successful language learners
Nevertheless, O’Malley and Chamot (1990) distinguishes three major types of learning strategies in accordance with the level or type of processing involved:
“metacognitive strategies”, “cognitive strategies”, and “social/ affective strategies” Although these two researchers made strenuous efforts in providing these useful classifications, there was a need to develop
a more comprehensive classification system Oxford (1990) is generally believed to have established one of the most widely accepted classification taxonomies in the language learning area Initially adopting a version of Rubin’s direct or indirect distinction, Oxford (1990) also divides language learning strategies into two main classes, direct and indirect, which are further divided into six categories of learning strategies: memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, and social strategies Each of these will be respectively identified below and also illustrated with examples
Memory strategies: are those used for
storage of information They are specific devices used by learners to make mental linkages that will allow new information, most often vocabulary, to enter and remain
in long-term memory, such as to make associations with what has already been
Trang 4learned, to draw pictures to help remember
new words, and to repeatedly pronounce or
write new words in order to remember
them
Cognitive strategies: are the mental
strategies learners use to make sense of
their learning They help learners process
and use the language for learning or for
accomplishing a task involving the
language Examples of cognitive strategies
are to watch TV in English, to listen to
radio or CDs in English, to use English
computer programs, and to find similarities
between first and second languages
intended to make up for missing
knowledge while listening, reading,
speaking, or writing For instance, use
gestures or body language (for speaking),
rephrase (for speaking and writing), ask for
help (for listening, speaking, reading, or
writing), and make guesses based on the
context (for listening and reading)
Metacognitive Strategies: help learners
regulate their learning “Meta” means
“above” or “beyond”, so metacognitive
strategies means “beyond” the cognitive
They encompass the planning, organizing,
evaluation, and monitoring of one’s own
language learning, such as to organize time
for learning, or to check one's progress
Affective strategies: are concerned
with the learner’s emotional requirements
such as confidence to help learners deal
with their own emotions, motivations,
attitudes while learning English Examples
of such strategies are fo try to relax when
feeling anxious about learning, or to
reward oneself for succeeding
Social strategies: refer to how learners
interact with other people in the context of
learning languages and related culture In
addition, they are believed to lead to increased interaction with the target language Take such social strategies, among others, as asking someone to speak slowly, practicing with others, or asking the teacher or friends to read your essay as some examples
As noted in the model shown above, Oxford (1990) broke down the social or affective category of O’Malley and Chamot (1990) into two categories, social and affective and included more strategies into these two categories The O’Malley and Chamot’s model contains only a few strategies in the social or affective category, implying that social or affective strategies, in comparison with metacognitive and cognitive categories, are not very important Furthermore, Oxford’s model unites the whole range of compensation strategies for making up for missing knowledge which, according to O’Malley and Chamot’s model, are classified under the label of cognitive strategies Nevertheless, regardless of advances provided by this model, Oxford (1990) emphasizes:
there is no complete agreement on exactly what strategies are; how many exist; how they should be defined, demarcated and categorized; and whether it
is possible to create a real, scientifically validated hierarchy of strategies
However, as Oxford’s framework is comprehensive, elaborate, systematic and used by researchers and teachers around the world, this classification will be adopted to serve as the basis for this study
3 The Study
This paper was a part of a larger study entitled “An investigation on the autonomy
of second-year English majors in English
Trang 5skill classes at Sai Gon University” The
study was conducted at Sai Gon
University, Vietnam with the participation
of 176 second – year English majors The
study employed questionnaire as the main
instrument for collecting both qualitative
and quantitative data to answer the
question: “How often do the second-year
English majors employ learning strategies
in productive skills (listening and speaking
skills) in English class?” In general, all the
questions in the questionnaire were built on
the researcher’s teaching experience,
knowledge, document review related to
learning strategies as well as the feedback
from the participants in the pilot study
4 Findings
4.1 Students’ frequencies of using
learning strategies in the listening skill
Listening is an important skill in
language learning In fact, listening is the most fundamental skill to develop the other three skills namely speaking, reading, and writing Therefore, awareness and use of listening skills would apparently assist students in increasing their listening comprehension skill In this study, respondents were asked to rate their frequencies of employing twenty-five selected listening strategies in the learning process, which are divided into three main parts under the sub-headings of "Before listening” “While listening”, and “After listening” From the table, we will easily get
an idea of how often respondents of the study actually carry out listening strategies
to help understanding in order to deal with a listening task from the pre-listening phase to the post-listening phase The results are
clearly described in the table below:
Table 1: Students’ frequencies of using learning strategies in listening skill
Learning Strategies Strategy
category
FREQUENCY Very
often Often Sometimes Rarely Never
High Strategy use
Medium Strategy use
Low Strategy use Before listening, ………
1 I check that I understand the
task I have to do
2 I decide what my listening
purpose is and I listen with that
goal in mind
3 I decide specific aspects of
information to listen for, and focus
on hearing that type of information
(ex: number, date, name, etc.)
4 I look carefully at the title and
any pictures to make predictions
on what I am about to hear
Trang 6Learning Strategies Strategy
category
FREQUENCY Very
often Often Sometimes Rarely Never
High Strategy use
Medium Strategy use
Low Strategy use
5 I think of what I have known
about the topic
6 I try to remember as many
words as I can do to deal with the
topic
While listening,…
7 I identify if it is a conversation,
an advert, a news bulletin, or a
lecture
8 I periodically check if the
information is making sense to me
9 I pay attention to the tone of
voice and any background noises
for clues
10 I use other clues like key words
to identify the rough gist
11 I use context, like familiar
words, pictures and the content to
help me guess the meanings of
unfamiliar words I hear
12 I imagine scenes or draw
pictures of what I am hearing
13 I use my knowledge of the
world to make sensible guesses
14 I don’t give up and just make
wild guesses if I can’t hear
anything
15 I try to break the stream of
sounds down into individual words
and write them down to see if they
are like the words I know
16 I listen out the names of people
and places
17 I listen out of grammar clues
like tenses and pronouns
Trang 7Learning Strategies Strategy
category
FREQUENCY Very
often Often Sometimes Rarely Never
High Strategy use
Medium Strategy use
Low Strategy use
18 I don’t panic when there is
something I don’t understand, but
I carry on listening for general
idea because I don’t need to
understand every word
20 I encourage myself by saying
positive statements such as “You
can do”
After listening,…
21 I check whether I
accomplished my task for listening
22 I summarize (in my head or
writing) important information
that I heard
23 I rate my comprehension by
reflecting on how much I
understood what I heard
24 I check whether my predictions
were correct
25 I decide whether the strategies
or techniques I used helped me
understand, and think of other
strategies that could have helped
It is evident from table 1 that the
picture emerging here was quite cheering
with seventeen out of the twenty-
five listening strategy items surveyed
displaying the proportion of high strategy
use being well over 50% This obviously
shows that the participants of the study
significantly showed high strategy use on
the majority of listening strategies given
in the table above Interestingly enough,
these twenty-five strategies belonged to four strategy categories: metacognitive, cognitive, compensation, and affective with the number of cognitive strategies being the highest (9), followed by metacognitive strategies (6), compensation strategies (2), and affective strategies (1)
In addition, clearly, the most frequently used strategy item in the cognitive strategy was strategy number seven - “I identify if it
Trang 8is a conversation, an advert, a news
bulletin, or a lecture” (81%), whereas the
most frequently employed strategy items in
the metacognitive and compensation
categories were self-evaluation strategy
number twenty-one - “I check whether I
accomplished my task for listening” (88%)
and compensation strategy number
eighteen - “I don't panic when there is
something I don't understand but I carry
on listening for general idea because I don't
need to understand every word” (79%)
Nonetheless, still, there exist five
listening strategies where well over 28%
of the English gifted learners displayed
their low strategy use, in which, most
noticeably, imagery strategy number
twelve in the cognitive category - “I
imagine scenes or draw pictures of what |
am hearing” was either “rarely” or “never”
used by as many as 54% of the participants
in the Study, making this strategy item
the least frequently adopted learning
strategy among the 25 listening strategies
examined Next came elaboration strategy
number seventeen - “I listen out for
grammar clues like tenses and pronouns”
(48%), followed by elaboration Strategy
number nine - “I pay attention to the tone
of voice and any background noises
for clues” (39%), elaboration strategy
number five - “I think of what I have
known about the topic” (35%), and
self-evaluation strategy number twenty- five -
“I decide whether the strategies or
techniques I used helped me understand,
and think of other strategies that could
have helped” (35%)
Now that we have had a brief account
of students’ frequencies of employing
learning strategies in the learning process,
let us now look at how frequently students adopted the selected strategy items according to listening stages, namely pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listening respectively
4.1.1 Students’ frequencies of employing pre-listening strategies
As far as pre-listening strategies are concerned, the majority of these strategy items appeared to be of popularity among the respondents with up to four out of the six strategies displaying their high strategy use by well over three-fourths of the surveyed students Among these four learning strategies, surprisingly enough, there were three metacognitive strategies and one cognitive item, thus somehow proving that the former seemed to be preferably used in the pre-listening stage than the latter In details, metacognitive strategy number one - “identifying the purpose of a listening task”, metacognitive strategy number two - “setting goals and objectives”, and metacognitive strategy number three - “focusing on specific information” were either “very often” or
“often” used by 87%, 75%, and 78% of the informants respectively while the corresponding figure for cognitive strategy number four - “predicting outcomes” was approximately 79% Equally noticeably, although nearly 35% of the participants in the claimed their low strategy use on cognitive item number five - “I think what
I have known about the topic”, this strategy item also showed their relatively high Strategy use by roughly 45% of the surveyed students Another worth- considering point is that the only memory strategy number six - “I try to remember
as many words as I can to deal with the
Trang 9topic” was reported with well over 70%
of respondents claiming their high strategy
use and medium Strategy use in
comparison with only 28% of the students
showing their low strategy on, representing
a rather encouraging picture of the students
using memory Strategies to assist
themselves in their listening process
4.1.2 Students’ frequencies of
employing while-listening strategies
As regards while-listening strategies,
another picture, which is not any less
cheering, is also revealed as almost 71% of
these fourteen strategy items in total were
displayed their high strategy use by over
half of the participants in the study In
details, there are ten such learning
strategies, of which as many as six strategy
items fell into the category of cognitive
strategies, demonstrating a rather different
pattern compared with the picture
illustrated for pre-listening strategies where
the majority of the most frequently used
strategies were led by metacognitive
strategies Among these six cognitive
items, strategy number seven took a lead
with as many as 81% of the respondents
claiming their high use on, followed by
inferencing strategy number eleven (76%)
and note-taking strategy number nineteen
(75%) It is also worth noticing that the
only affective strategy number twenty - “I
encourage myself by saying positive
statements such as “You can do it”” was
claimed their high strategy use by
approximately 66% of the respondents in
comparison with 17% displaying their
medium strategy use and 17% showing
their low strategy use on this strategy item,
thus suggesting its relatively popular use
among the students in the study
Nevertheless, the most noticeable thing from while-listening strategies is that although there are only two compensation strategies designed for listening skill, both
of them were reported with their high use
by well over 50% of the surveyed students, implying that the majority of the respondents either “very often” or “often” incorporate compensation strategies into
their listening process
4.1.3 Students’ frequencies of employing post-listening strategies
With respect to post-listening strategies, we can clearly see that up to three out of the five strategy items altogether had their percentage of being employed either “very often” or “often” by over 50% of the participants in the study What is more, although there are four metacognitive strategies designed for this listening stage, only two out of the four strategy items, comprising of self-evaluation strategies number twenty-one -
“I check whether I accomplished my task for listening” and number twenty-four - “I check whether my predictions were correct”, were shown their high strategy use by the majority of the respondents with the corresponding figures being 88% and 72% respectively It is also obvious that well over half of the students (54%) adopted the only cognitive strategy item chosen for post-listening phase with high strategy use
4.2 Students’ frequencies of using learning strategies in the speaking skill
Speaking is the productive skill in the oral mode Like the other skills speaking is more complicated than it seems at first and involves more than just pronouncing words In fact, second or foreign language
Trang 10learners often neglect or have difficulty
with oral production no matter how many
words and grammar rules they have
acquired In addition, most often think that
the ability to speak a language is the
product of language learning, but speaking
is also a crucial part of the language
process Furthermore, one special thing
about speaking is that we cannot practice
speaking when we are alone For the other
three skills, we can do alone, on our own,
without anyone else We can listen to the
radio alone We can read a book alone We
can write a letter alone Nevertheless, we
cannot really speak alone That is why we should make every effort possible to find somebody to speak with Thus, speaking strategies seem to be the key to difficulties that most language learners encounter in their master of spoken English In this study, I have chosen eighteen speaking strategies, which are separated into three sub-parts: pre-speaking, while-speaking, and post-speaking strategies The table below sketches the picture about students’ frequencies of using learning strategies in the speaking process:
Table 2: Students’ frequencies of using learning strategies in the speaking skill
category
FREQUENCY Very
often Often Sometimes Rarely Never
High Strategy use
Medium Strategy use
Low Strategy use Before speaking, …
1 I check that I understand the task
I have to do
2 I decide my goal for speaking by
communicate
3 I think about what information is
the most important to the listener
so I can focus on it
4 I think of what I have known
about the topic
5 I brainstorm words and phrases I
can use while talking
While speaking, ……
6 I try to figure out if I’m not
making sense to the listener so I
can correct myself