An ELT Glossary : Learning strategies

Learning strategies are techniques used by learners to organise their learning or to work out and remember any aspect of the content to be assimilated. For example,  in an ELT context : using vocabulary cards with the L1 word on one side and the L2 word on the other. 

The strategies a learner chooses may be heavily influenced by their past experience of learning, which will have a cultural bias. Eg Some Arab learners may be overdependent on rote learning.

An ELT Glossary : Repair Strategies

A term used in conversational analysis to describe the way participants deal with mistakes, misunderstanding etc during discourse.


Repair strategies may involve :


a) Self repair  - the speaker recognises the problem and corrects/explains herself. Eg :

A: Go straight on to the end of the road and then turn right at the end, by that cafe. No sorry - it isn't there any more. It's a supermarket now. Turn right by the supermarket.


b) Other repair - a listener recognises there's a problem and queries it. Eg :

A : Go straight on to the end of the road and then turn right at the end,
B : Right? Are you sure? Isn't it left?
A : Oh yes, sorry - I meant left.

An ELT Glossary : Communication Strategies/Coping strategies

By definition, someone learning a foreign language will not be fully proficient in that language. There will be many linguistic items, lexical and structural, which they do not yet know, and even if they are known may still be part of receptive rather than productive competence - ie they will be understood when encountered in speech or writing, but may not come spontaneously to mind when the learner is attempting to express his or her own ideas. Similarly, when listening or reading s/he may come across items which are unknown

In order to compensate for this, the learner can use communication strategies (also called coping strategies) to "fill the gaps". These include eg :

• circumlocution strategies : when the learner cannot think of the specific word s/he wants to use, s/he can explain it using circumlocution  -  literally "talking around" the word. Eg, It's the thing that you put on a horse's back when you ride.
• avoidance strategies : an idea can be expressed more simply - eg instead of I'd have gone if I'd known, a learner who was unsure of the formulation of the third conditional structure might say I didn't know so I didn't go
• asking for clarification : if a speaker uses an unknown word, the learner may ask "What does XXX mean?"

More from the Notebook

Developing CIrcumlocution Strategies


Further Reading

Bygate, M. Speaking, CUP