About us

We're students in English Language at UQROO, we would help you to improve your learning strategies for your different linguistics skills so that you can learn easier and decide which strategy(ies) are attractive for you.
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viernes, 7 de mayo de 2010

WELCOME



During our life, it is common to question ourselves how we learn and what we can
do to learn more. This blog was created for help you to find the most common ways
for learning. Everyone has different ways of learning, but it's important to know
which of the several ways are the most attractive for you.

Remeber, you have to keep in mind that not all the learning strategies function for everyone. Sometimes, the students keep using some strategies because the other people had recomended them or because they noticed that they were useful for others but they don't realize that they don't have the same impact on them; perhaps, this occur because there is a influence of the multiple intelligences, if you are not musical maybe listen to music could not help you, or if you are not spatial or visual making relations with words and images could not help you.

Good Luck!!!! and we hope you can find
useful strategies for learning English!!!!!!!!!

jueves, 6 de mayo de 2010

Our Weblog Experience

sábado, 1 de mayo de 2010

Why some strategies are useful for learning a second language????




As Wenden (1985) reminds us, there is an old proverb which states: “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him how to fish and he eats for a lifetime”. Applied to the language teaching and learning field, this proverb might be interpreted to mean that if students are provided with answers, the immediate problem is solved. But if they are taught the strategies to work out the answers for themselves, they are empowered to manage their own learning.


The term language learning strategy has been defined by many researchers. Wenden and Rubin (1987:19) define learning strategies as "... any sets of operations, steps, plans, routines used by the learner to facilitate the obtaining, storage, retrieval, and use of information." Richards and Platt (1992:209) state that learning strategies are "intentional behavior and thoughts used by learners during learning so as to better help them understand, learn, or remember new information." Faerch Claus and Casper (1983:67) stress that a learning strategy is "an attempt to develop linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in the target language." According to Stern (1992:261), "the concept of learning strategy is dependent on the assumption that learners consciously engage in activities to achieve certain goals and learning strategies can be regarded as broadly conceived intentional directions and learning techniques." All language learners use language learning strategies either consciously or unconsciously when processing new information and performing tasks in the language classroom. Since language classroom is like a problem-solving environment in which language learners are likely to face new input and difficult tasks given by their instructors, learners' attempts to find the quickest or easiest way to do what is required, that is, using language learning strategies is
inescapable.

Review of literature

The book Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition talks about the topic we putting across, for example it says that students apply learning strategies during this process and that they can be described and classify.
Some studies have been based in the learning strategies, and the uses it has in different students.
In this book we can find a study about the learning strategies use by beginnig and intermediate ESL students. this study tried to identify


Also it says that students create practice opportunities and naturalistic practice in for the reading skill as well for the listening skill. Moreover, it says that the main strategies that are more used frequetly for reading include double-check monitoring, comprenhension monitoring, problem identification, substitution, resourcing, interpretetion, reading the passage aloud in the second language acquisition to help comprenhension, etc.

It also talks about gender differences in strategy use but it doesn't put across any clear conclusion about this given that the number of male and female students that were the objects of this study were small; however within this group was
an indication of more careful, planned approach on the strategies of advance organizations and direct attention more frequently than boys, while in writing, oral work and grammar tasks, planning, monitoring, evaluating and pattern/rule application were more common among girls than boys...Males by contrast were more likely than girls to use sound to determine the appropriteness of their use of language...On a more positive note, however, females would appear to engage in a greater degree of cooperation which may be beneficial to oral proficiency...Here, girls were much more likely to employ strategies of creating practice opportunuties and naturalistic practice... In all of the skill areas considered, both males and females used a mixture of strategies that can be viewed as either positive or negative.
(Graham, 1997)

There are some studies that you can find in some books and also you can find the definition, strategies. You can find some information about learning strategies focused on learning grammar and vocabulary, as well as in other areas.
Grammar Learning Through Strategy Training.
Learner Strategy Use and Performance on Language Tests

Videos

This section is about some interviews that we made to some teachers and students from the Uqroo. The questions we made to both teachers and students were a little different. Here You can check them and listen to their opinions about some strategies that they consider are useful for learning a second language.Moreover, you can notice that you will learn with some daily activities that you usually do in your native language just that this time you have to do it in the other one.Likewise, you can be aware of some strategies that can help you and that you didn't think about up until then.

Teachers' Opinions
The purpose of these interviews were to know what strategies are useful for learning a second language.
This is an English teacher Genny Mena who works at Uqroo University.

This is an English teacher Jose Luis Borges who works at Uqroo University.



Students' Opinions
We asked Enlish language studens about what strategies they use in order to improve each skill (listening, speaking, writing and reading.)