Situated development and use of language learner strategies: Voices from EFL students

Abstract

Language learner strategies (LLS) have long been viewed as a variable of individual differences, or as cognitive skills. This study, focusing as it does on the data taken from a series of focus groups with 47 senior secondary students in mainland China, seeks a new interpretation of strategy development and use from a sociocultural perspective. Evidence provided from the focus-group discussions shows that in the mainstream exam-orientated culture in mainland China, the grade-getting goal was likely to determine the general orientation of strategies for a variety of classroom learning tasks and shape the changes in strategy use over time which emerge at different learning stages. The results also indicate that the processes of strategy development and use were mediated by learners' personal discourse patterns embedded in their situated learning experience; by cultural artifacts (tasks); and by interpersonal interactions with their teachers, peers and family members; and situated in their communities of language learning practices and social cultures. In addition, the study underlines the need to take into account learning goals and the nature of learning tasks in LLS research, and to create a situated strategy development community as part of strategy instruction or training programs. © 2010 Association for Language Learning.