Learning Styles and Strategies of Language Learners

          Theories of learning seek to explain how people learn and what common characteristics there are in all learning.  To understand deeper, let’s discuss the following: different types of learning essential in cognitive tasks, variation in strategies employed by individuals, and variation in personal cognitive styles of learning.

            Gagne (1965:58-59) identified eight types of learning as follows:

·         Signal learning – the learner learns to make a general diffuse response to a signal.  It is also called the classical conditioned response by Pavlov.

·         Stimulus-response learning – The learner acquires a precise response to a discriminated stimulus. 

·         Chaining – The learner acquires a chain of two or more stimulus-response connections.

·         Verbal association – The learner learn chains that are verbal.  However, the existence of language in human beings makes this special type because internal links may be retrieved from the learner’s previously learned selection of language.

·         Multiple discrimination – The learner learns to make a number of different identifying responses to many different stimuli.

·         Concept learning – The learner acquires the ability to make a common response to a class of stimuli even though the individual members of that class may differ widely from each other.

·         Principle learning – The learner learns a chain of two or more concepts.  It functions to organize behavior and experience.

·         Problem solving – The learner combines previously learned concepts and principles in a conscious focus on an unresolved or ambiguous set of events.

From the eight types of learning, we can better explain these through certain theories of learning.  The first five types seem to fit easily into a behavioristic framework, and the last three, on the other hand, are better explained by Ausubel’s or Rogers’ theories of learning.  In relation to second language learning, it is implied that definite “lower” level aspects of second language learning may be treated by behavioristic approaches and methods, while definite “higher” order types of learning are more effectively taught by methods derived from a cognitive approach to learning.  That is why, language teachers need to address the congruency between methods of teaching and whichever aspect of language is being taught. Recognizing the interrelatedness of all levels of language learning.

            In language learning, there are two identified basic categories of strategies namely: learning strategies and communication strategies.  A strategy is a particular method of approaching a problem or task, a way to achieve a particular end and a planned design for controlling and manipulating certain information.  Hence, a learning strategy is defined as a method of perceiving and storing particular items for later recall.  A communication strategy, on the other hand, is defined as a method of achieving communication, or encoding or expressing meaning in a language.

            In the literature of language learning strategies, four terms have been selected for explanation: transfer, interference, generalization, and simplification.  These manifest interaction of previously learned material with a present learning.  These four terms can be considered in two associational pairs.  First is transfer and interference.  Transfer is a general term used to describe the carryover of previous performance or knowledge to consequent learning.  Positive transfer occurs when the prior knowledge is correctly applied to present subject matter.  Negative transfer, on the other hand, occurs when the previous knowledge disrupts the present subject matter.  This can be referred to as interference, wherein the previously learned material interferes with succeeding material.  Second is the generalization and simplification.  Generalization is done when one infers or derives a law, rule, or conclusion from the observed instances.  This can be explained more by Ausubel’s concept of meaningful learning which says that meaningful learning is when items are subsumed or generalized under higher-order categories for meaningful retention.  Also, two aspects of the generalization process are inductive (parts to whole) and deductive (whole to parts) reasoning.  However, simplification is the process of reducing events to as few parts or features as possible.  It is the same with generalization.  But the former can be contrasted with complexification.  It is used to counteract a tendency to oversimplify or overgeneralize to the point of omitting essential parts of the whole.

            In second language teaching, these four play a vital role.  Interference is done when the native language causes interfering effects on the target or second language.  It is clear from learning theory that a person will use whatever previous experiences he has had with languages in order to facilitate the second language learning process.  Generalization and simplification is mostly done in learning another language, most especially when one tries to grasp and retain concepts ad principles of such language.  But there are instances that after a learner gained some experiences and familiarity with the second language, they similarly will overgeneralize or oversimplify within the target language.  And that’s the vital role of a language teacher, on how to help the child overcome overgeneralization and oversimplification as well as interference when transfer from one language to another is done.

            A communication strategy is the end goal of a language.  Therefore, communications strategies are systematic attempts to express meaning in the target language in which the speaker must attend to both the form and function of a language.  These strategies will enable the learner to fill in some gaps where a learner is uncertain of the correct or appropriate linguistic form.  So, a language teacher needs to aid the learner on building his communication strategies to be able to communicate well with others in the target language.

            According to Ausubel (1968:170), cognitive style is the self-consistent and enduring individual differences in cognitive organization and functioning.  It really mediates between emotion and cognition.  For example, a reflective cognitive style regularly grows out of a reflective personality or a reflective mood.

            To understand deeper, let’s have the five cognitive styles that are relevant to second language learning.  First if field independence and dependence.  A filed-independent style enables one to distinguish parts from a whole, to concentrate on something, to analyze separate variables without the contamination of neighboring variables.  Sometimes, the backfire of field-independence is that when someone was forced to see only the parts and fail to see the whole picture.  In here will come the role of field-dependent style which enables one to perceive the whole picture, the larger view, the general configuration of a problem or idea or event.  Affectively, field-independent persons tend to be generally more independent, competitive, and self-confident.  While field-dependent persons tend to be more socialized, derive their self-identity from persons around them, and usually more empathic and perceptive of the feelings and thoughts of others.

            Second, reflectivity and impulsivity.  These two types or learners vary on the aspect of decision making.  David Ewing (1977) refers the above style into two: systematic and intuitive styles.  An intuitive style tends to make a number of gambles, with possibly a small number of successive gambles before a solution is achieved.  While systematic style tends to weigh all the consideration in a problem, work out all the loopholes, then, after extensive reflection, carefully formulate a solution.  In second language acquisition, reflective learners tend to make fewer errors in reading than impulsive learners (Kagan 1965).  However, impulsive learners are usually faster readers, and eventually master the “psycholinguistic guessing game” (Goodman 1970).

            Third is the tolerance and intolerance of ambiguity.  Tolerant means free to entertain a number of innovative and creative possibilities and not cognitively or affectively disturbed by ambiguity and uncertainty.  Intolerance enables one to guard against the acceptance of every proposition, to close off avenues of hopeless possibilities, to reject entirely contradictory material and to deal with the reality of the system that one has built.

            Fourth is narrow and broad categorizing.  Narrow categorizers, like impulsive learners, are willing to take the risk of being wrong in problem-solving situations by attending to “smaller” subordinate concepts, while broad categorizers chooses a larger slice of the pie in an attempt to encompass more possibilities.  For example, when children first produce past-tense forms of verbs as separate, narrowly categorize items, but then shift to a broad classification of all verbs in a regularized/broader category.  And fifth, skeletonization and embroidery.  Skeletonizing involves “pruning” out some particulars by retaining a substantive core of general facts which subsume the details.  While embroidering involves “importing” or adding some material in order to retain original details that otherwise might be forgotten.

            In this article, we have looked at a number of significant cognitive variables in the learning of another language.  Am awareness of these factors will help a language teacher to perceive in the learners he encounter some wide-ranging individual differences.  Knowing the individual differences of the learners will be of importance to a language teacher on how he will adjust his lesson or how he will teach the lesson so that a language leaner would be able to learn the language.  And as I always say, we should treat our learners equally but differently in terms of language learning differences.  And one should know and understand that a learner is not only a cognitively thinking person but also an affective thinking person.