Questions & Answers

Question: What are the main learning strategies?

Answer: Generally speaking there are two major categories of learning strategies: metacognitive and cognitive strategies

• Metacognitive strategies are the strategies which involve learners in thinking about their learning: for example, what are the factors which affect their learning? What are their needs? How can they plan their learning? How can they evaluate their learning and monitor their progress? What do they need to do next?
• Cognitive strategies are the strategies which involve learners in actually doing things with the language in order to learn it, such as doing a ‘word web’, writing vocabulary lists, doing grammar exercises.

Many language teaching materials tend to focus on the development of cognitive strategies only so that students never have the opportunity to think about what they are doing in the classroom and why. Research has shown that courses that combine the development of cognitive strategies with metacognitive strategies help students to manage their own learning more successfully. Students gradually discover more about themselves as learners, about how to learn a language and can take on more responsibility for their own learning.