Assignment – FP014 LS

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT:
LEARNING STRATEGIES

GENERAL INFORMATION:

This assignment must be done in groups and has to fulfil the following conditions:

- Length: between 4 to 6 pages (without including cover, index or appendices –if

there are any).
- Font type: Arial or Times New Roman.
- Font size: 11.
- Spacing: 1.5.
- Alignment: Justified.

The assignment must be written in this Word template and has to follow the instructions
on quotes and references detailed in the Study Guide.

Also, the assignment has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the
document: “Subject Evaluation”. Sending it to the tutor’s e-mail is not allowed.

It is strongly recommended to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the
document “Subject Evaluation”.

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 Assignment – FP014 LS

Assignment instructions:

Under point 3.3.7 Issues in Strategy Instruction (in your written material) the
following questions are considered as crucial before implementing strategy training with
students:

 Should the strategy instruction be short-term or long term? How long should it
last? A class? A term? A year? At regular intervals? Etc.
 Should the treatment of strategies be implicit (or “blind”) or should it be explicit
(“informed” or “strategy-plus-control”)? Or should it be a combination of both
approaches?
 Should the teacher try to cover a comprehensive list of different strategies, or
should the focus be on a limited number of strategies?

Bearing this in mind, design one strategy training lesson (1 or 2 hours long) aimed at a
group of students of your choice. Make sure to first contextualize the target group and
the type of strategies you want to work with.

Important: You must write your personal details and the subject name on the
cover (on the next page). Assignments that do not fulfil these conditions will not
be corrected. You have to include the assignment index below the cover.

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Student’s full name: Julio Alejandro Benavides V.

Jenny Carolina Velásquez.
Julia Nathalia Zamora

Group: FP-TEFL_2017_02

Date: October 30, 2018

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT: LEARNING STRATEGIES

Index

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………….. 4

Short-term or long term? …………………………………………………………………..5

Strategies ……………………………………………………………………………………..5

Strategy training lesson ……………………………………………………………………7

References …………………………………………………………………………………13

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Introduction

4.1 According to Oxford (1990), strategies are steps taken by students to enhance their
own learning. However, it seems to be something students in general do not adopt as
well as teachers and parents hope. Right after a class is over, only a few continue to
reflect on learning contents they have just been confronted with in the classroom,
especially in these days, learners rarely organize learning contents in a meaningful and
coherent style. It is true, that many of them (and of course many of us) do not feel the
necessity of understanding and fixing knowledge gaps, and actually they are not
interested in closing those gaps, since, students fail trying to apply such beneficial
cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies typically results in a lack of
understanding and, in that way, also leads to poor long-term retention.
Regarding to language teaching and learning; as an example: vocabulary teaching, if 4.2

students are provided with answers, or taught vocabulary items in a conventional way,
only their immediate problem is deciphered. But if the students are taught vocabulary
learning strategies, to work out the answers for themselves, they may be empowered
to manage their own learning. Learners need to learn how to learn and teachers need
to learn how to facilitate the process (Oxford, 1990, p. 201). Most teachers tend to
teach in the way they were taught or in the way they preferred to learn. The
effectiveness of vocabulary learning strategies resides in the fact that it requires
learners to be more active in comparison to those who are less strategically engaged
in the task. Consequently, language learners are seen as active participants in the
learning process (Williams & Burden, 1997).
Last but not least, motivation plays an enormous role as an instruction, and of course it
is on charge of us (teachers), success is closely linked to motivation, if teachers can
make strategy instruction effective, they can directly influence the motivation of their
4.3
learners. (Learning Strategies. P.53) Strategy instruction is about helping students to
develop their own strategy use, so as to make them more effective learners. The
majority of students learn best through active, engaging learning opportunities. Many
instructional strategies embrace this and feature components that ensure that learning
is fun and engaging. Teachers must make every effort to feature instructional strategies
that keep students engaged, on their toes, and wanting more.

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Short-term or long term?

Not only in education but in general purposes in life we need to take into account that
we need strategies for planning our lives, projects, adventures, and goals among
others. Related to education, especially in second language acquisition, we need to
focus in both short and long term, because there are many aspects we need in the
future to apply; it is like math, you need to learn how to add and subtract to go beyond,
because in a long term you will need them to learn more complex calculations.
In language learning is similar, short term activities are the less complex activities,
vocabulary, numbers, nouns, adjectives, and some action verbs. On the contrary a
long-term plan identifies and organizes all the initiatives and content over the course of
a year or maybe more, where content will need to be created. Simply identifying your
plan will help you create content more easily and on a consistent basis. It is necessary
to learn how to create realistic goals for learners, in this long term, we plan and hope
that an structure or more structures related to the same one could be learned, let us
talk about present simple (be) (do/does) affirmative and negative statements, Y/N
questions, positive and negatives answers, information questions and answers, as you
can see it is more complex, but with short term activities well designed and developed
this step for sure will be a success. “A Learning Strategy is a person’s approach to
learning and using information” (Learning Strategies, P. 52).
When teachers are continuously exploring and tweaking their delivery system, a
beautiful thing happens. Over time, they become more effective at not only finding
great instructional strategies but also with implementing them into their class. Likewise,
when students are exposed to a variety of instructional strategies it broadens the scope
of how they learn essentially giving them multiple ways to process and learn new
information. (Meador, Derrick. Building an Arsenal of Effective Instructional Strategies)

Strategies

5.1 The target group is going to be an English course from the Language center in the
University of Nariño, it is a level one course which according to the CEFR is
categorized in Elementary or level A2. They are 27 students aged between 16 and 18
years old. Each level takes a semester (115 hours) divided into two hours per day, they
receive classes from 8 to 10 in the morning from Monday to Friday.

Due to the fact of the time students have to study in this course, it is considered more
appropriate to use short term instruction strategy since they just have a semester

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divided into two hours per day, it is necessary to use the time as much as possible, in
this specific case the lesson is designed to last two classes.

When using short time strategies students should focus on them little by little, we
introduced the ones that can be related between them and are connected in some way,
Some of them are cognitive strategies which are the ones that elementary students are
more related with and the others are metacognitive with the purpose of providing them
with the necessary strategies to improve their performance in each of the skills and in
the way they are learning. Besides teaching learning strategies will combine explicit
and implicit strategies; using the combination of both approaches promotes students
sense of belonging and self-regulation and helps them to use what they learnt, identify
and develop learning strategies in a systematic way. Some activities will inform the
students how they are learning to learn and some others will seem activities without
showing that as a direct purpose but implicitly looking for information about what they
have learnt and what they have done and felt while learning. In the ones that direct
approach to strategy instruction is used, the teacher raises learner awareness of the
purpose and rationale for strategy use, identifies the specific strategy being used and
systematically provides opportunities for practice and self-evaluation. But as we know
that some students feel discourage by analyzing some strategies, we also consider
some “blind” and “indirect” training which of course is the opposite thing. We will show
the strategies in a more detailed way in the “strategy learning lesson” that we will
present below.
6.1

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Strategy training lesson

Lesson
Overview
Lesson Plan What did I do?
Title
Open In what ways can you monitor your actions in past?
/Essential How can you improve your performance when talking about
Question
something in past?
Lesson This lesson is taught to get students to be able to talk about
Summary situations in simple past. Before this lesson they have already
7.1

studied grammatical structures including affirmative, negative and

question sentences in past with verb to be and with regular and
irregular verbs, so this class will provide them the opportunity to
apply what they already learnt and to identify the mistakes they are
committing regarding grammatical structures or pronunciation. In
this lesson we will practice through listening, reading and oral
exercises to determine what are the strengths and the weakness
students have when talking about past and also to practice and
reinforce the acquired knowledge. Students will watch a video and
listen to an audio and will have to answer questions regarding the
content and the way they feel about their learning in simple past
with regard to that activity. After that students will create some
questions using simple past structures to interview someone else in
the class and they will have to identify their own mistakes regarding
grammar structures answering a simple questionnaire. Finally,
students will have to work in pairs to interview to their classmates
orally and record it with a phone camera; at the end of this exercise
they will watch and review the interview and will answers some
questions to evaluate their production regarding the use of grammar
structures, the pronunciation and the way they feel at the moment of
carrying out the activity.
Subject Area(s) English

Grade Level Elementary group from a private English course, students are
between 16 and19 years old.

Student - Students will use the past tense and identify the mistakes when
Objectives use it in order to find the way to improve it.

- Students will be able to use the past tense to form questions and

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8.1

to talk about things that already happened

Assessment
Interview about things they did the last day.
Student Each activity will implement a way to know if the student achieves
Assessment the objectives.
(include rubric)
For the listening part, student will be exposed to a video and an
audio record, during that activity the student will answer the
questions related to that material regarding general comprehension 8.2
but also evaluating the use of simple past, similar to the following
example.

And they will also have to monitor their listening performance

marking an x in the box they feel they are according to the activity
they have done.

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 Assignment – FP014 LS

For the writing part students will have to elaborate questions for an
interview using simple past, after doing it, they will have to answer
the following questionnaire that will help them not only to identify
their mistakes but to solve them.

Finally, students have to make an interview and review their

production in pairs; when doing it they will have to answer the next
questionnaire to evaluate their results regarding the use of simple

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 Assignment – FP014 LS

past and to find out how they felt in that specific activity.

Procedure 1. Introduce the Past Simple of regular verbs

Give an example in Present Simple: I talk to my sister every day.
Lead in to past simple: Yesterday, I talked to her. Write this on the
board. Give more examples with regular verbs and write each verb
in its past form on the board.
T: I visited her. We watched TV. She cooked lunch. We listened
to music.
Make sure students understand that the past form is the same for all
persons. Give as many examples with regular verbs as needed.
2. Practice Past Simple of regular verbs
Go around the class and make statements in present simple, which
students must change to past simple:
T: I sometimes walk in the park.
S: You walked in the park yesterday.
Now’s a good time to practice the different pronunciations of the –ed
past form. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j32SurxnE4s
3. Introduce the Past Simple of irregular verbs
Give an example in present simple: I have lunch at 12 every day.
Lead in to past simple: Yesterday I had lunch at 12. Write this on the
board. Give more examples with irregular verbs and write each verb
in its past form on the board.
T: Yesterday I spoke to a friend. We went to the movies. We saw
Eclipse. My friend ate popcorn. I drank soda.
Make sure students understand that the past form is the same for all

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persons.
Give as many examples with irregular verbs as needed.
4. Practice the Past Simple of irregular verbs
Go around the class and make statements in present simple, which
students must change to past simple:
T: I usually drink orange juice for breakfast. S: Yesterday you
drank orange juice.
5. Introduce the Past Simple – Negative forms
Say, 'Yesterday I talked to John. I didn't talk to Sarah.' Give more
examples alternating between affirmative and negative
statements:
Sarah had lunch at 12. She didn’t have lunch at one. You went
to the gym yesterday. You didn’t go to the movies.
And so on with all persons, singular and plural. Write the negative
form on the board. Then have students do the same, always
alternating between affirmative and negative statements.
6. Introduce the Past Simple – Interrogative forms
Model questions with did:
T: Did you come to school yesterday?
S: Yes. / No.
T: Ask me!
S: Did you come to school yesterday?

Continue with more questions from students. Model questions with

what time, where, when, why, etc.…Write examples on the board.
First, they ask you, then they ask classmates, then they ask a
classmate about another classmate (What did Bobby do last night?),
and so on. Make sure they ask questions in all persons, both
singular and plural. If they are unsure as to how to ask a question,
model it for them first.
7. Introduce the Past Simple - Short answers
Ask yes or no questions and teach students to give short answers:
T: Did you come to school yesterday?
S: Yes, I did / No, I didn’t.
Students ask classmates yes or no questions, and classmates reply
with short answers.

Prerequisite To make the past simple tense, we use: past form only or auxiliary
Skills Needed did + base form
Look at these examples:
I lived in that house when I was young.
Joseph didn't like the movie.
What did you eat for dinner?
Julia drove to London on Monday.
Mary did not go to work yesterday.
Jenny was at work yesterday.

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Credits https://www.rcampus.com/runricshowc.cfm?
so=yes&code=L95572
http://dx.doi.org/10.19044/esj.2016.v12n26p1
Learning On this lesson plan we implemented some of both Direct strategies
Strategies such as: memory strategies like structure reviewing of statements in
Explanation the past simple, applying the ending sound of the regular verbs in
past. We also included cognitive strategies like repeating the verbs
in past and recognizing the pattern of affirmative, negative and
questions in simple past and sending messages about things they
do in the past. On this lesson plan we also took into account some
Indirect strategies such as: metacognitive strategies like paying
attention to the grammar explanations, the students focus on
listening a video that help them to find out the language learning,
they seek for practice opportunity by asking and answering
questions of actions they did I the past, and affective strategies like
making positive statements to their partners and using a checklist to
see what they need to improve in their learning process. We applied
some social strategies like having an interview that reinforce ask
and answer questions in pairs and through this activity they also
cooperate with their partners by asking and giving corrections and
they become aware of their peers thoughts and feelings.
Comparison of The direct strategies applied to this lesson plan contribute directly to
learning the students’ learning for instance: helping their knowledge to their
strategies not long- term memory to recall when needed, they interpret their
utilized learning by analyzing the tasks. The indirect strategies used on this
plan contribute to our students’ individual regulation of their learning
process and help them also to organize, plan and evaluate their own
learning. The affective and social strategies help our pupils to
control emotions and attitudes when they are learning; they have
oral communication and cooperation with their classmates. On the
other side we didn’t include compensation strategies because we
considered that the tasks are suitable to the students so they won’t
face with missing information or communication barriers in using
language.
Justification We chose Direct strategies like memory and
for learning cognitive strategies because through them we make our students
strategies used interact with the material they need to learn, manipulate the
information mentally and physically and besides that, they will be
able to apply specific techniques to the learning tasks on this lesson
plan.
We also chose Indirect strategies such as, metacognitive, affective
and social strategies because through them our students will be
able to think about their learning process, make a plan for learning
the verbs for example, interact with their peers to help them learning
and using affective control the work on learning tasks and monitor
the different learning tasks and evaluate how well they have
learned.

12.1

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References
 Meador, Derrick. "Building an Arsenal of Effective Instructional Strategies."
ThoughtCo, Jul. 5, 2018, thoughtco.com/building-an-arsenal-of-effective-
instructional-strategies-3194257.
 Oxford, R. L. (1990). Language learning strategies: What every teacher should
know. Boston: Heinle and Heinle Publishers.
 Ball P. & Madrid D. (n.d.). Learning Strategies. Fundación Universitaria
Iberoamericana.
 Williams, M., & Burden, R. L. (1997). Psychology for language teachers.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Language Learning Strategies in the Context of Autonomy: Strategy Research
Compendium: Proceedings of the First Annual Strategy Research Symposium,
Teachers College. NY: Columbia University.
 O’ Malley, J. M. & A. U. Chamot (1995). Learning Strategies in Second Language
Acquisition. UK: Cambridge University Press.
 Oxford, R. (ed.) (1996): Language Learning Strategies around the World: Cross-
Cultural Perspectives. University of Hawaii Press: Hawaii.
 Cohen, A. (1998): Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language. Harlow,
Essex: Longman.
13.1

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 Index of comments

4.1 direct quote?

4.2 be careful with punctuation.

4.3 direct quote?

5.1 good. the context is described.

6.1 the questions of the assignment are to be answered once you decide what strategies to train and, then, you
describe them in terms of long or short term, etc.

7.1 so the goal of the lesson is to talk about the past... where are the strategies if this is a strategy training lesson?

8.1 this is a strategy training lesson... and it is not reflected in the objectives of the lesson??

8.2 no assessment of the strategies. Also the second question only assesses grammar, not general
comprehension.

12.1 the conclusion is part of the assessment

13.1 You don't follow APA guidelines. Books and journals should be capitalized. The format is not consistent.

Also, are you sure that all these authors are cited in the text?

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