OP#2: Video task

The goal of teaching strategies in the classroom is to create autonomous learners, who can learn by themselves in and outside school. To facilitate learning for students of all ages there are many language learning strategies to consider. Successful learners, in general, tend to select strategies that work for them depending on the requirements of the task. These learners can certainly tell what strategies they use and why they work so well for them instead of others. Nevertheless, what happens with those students who do not have the capacity to select strategies and apply those which are effective for them?

In this particular case the teacher must be the one offering and teaching different strategies for the different types of learners there might be in a classroom. In the video, the teacher offers a wide range of strategies for students to pick the one that best suits them. Undoubtedly, any type of strategy showed in class must be a reflection of the students’ needs, challenges and strengths. For this reason she uses language specific skills such as knowing how to use English in any area (speaking, reading, writing, and listening); then, cognition and meta-cognition is reflected in the schema-activation, the transfer of knowledge, self-reflection. Affective factors are surely a key factor since we are dealing with motivation, confidence and a trusting atmosphere which can encourage learners’ participation and risk-taking in the class.

If I had to transfer some of the strategies showed in the video to my groups of learners, I would say that all are very useful. In my case, I have all range of ages (from young learners to adults). Thus, if I had to select the most effective ones for some specific groups and ages, I think I would definitely use transfer of knowledge, teaching to others, schema-activation and self-reflection. For instance, teaching to others could be effective if those high-level students could teach the weak ones in the class, just by giving them a hand on certain aspects of grammar or structures in writing. This way both the strong and the weak student would improve some of the weakest aspects.

With young learners schema-activation is quite significant because going from what they already know to the unknown makes a great impact on their learning process, while being unnoticed sometimes. For adolescents and young adults self-reflection strategies are also great because they can develop their autonomous and reflective skills, which are meaningful for adult lives. By transferring part of their knowledge they can also see or identify patterns of grammar as well.

Needless to say, the teacher should always provide affective strategies as well. Motivation and giving them the confidence to keep working and improving should be always present in the class in any task. By doing this we create a trusting atmosphere which encourage them to takes risks and to participate actively and communicatively.