What do we mean by language learning strategies? Oxford (1990) learning strategies as specific actions taken by learners to make learning “easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective and more transferrable to new situations” (p.8). About 62 strategies divided into direct strategies and indirect strategies. Language learners use these strategies, either consciously or unconsciously, to develop their communicative competence.

Memory strategies follow some simple principles, such as association making and reviewing. For example, new words and phrases can be associated with visual images, sound, motion or touch to help learners store and retrieve them for communication.

Cognitive strategies include four sets of tools - practicing, receiving and sending messages, analysing and reasoning, and creating structure for input and output. For example, learners can repeat, work with sounds and writing, and use patterns; skimming and scanning can help them to find the main idea; adult learners often use analysing and reasoning to understand meaning and expression of the target language as well as making new expressions.

Compensation strategies are used for comprehension of the target language when learners do not have sufficient knowledge of the target language. For example, if the learners do not know new words or phrases, they can guess the meaning based on the context.

Metacognitive strategies help learners to coordinate language learning, pushing learners to focus on certain language activities and skills, maximize their energy and effort, monitor errors and evaluate their learning progress.

Affective strategies deal with emotions, attitudes, motivation and values that have an impact on learners and language learning in an important way, including lowering anxiety, encouraging, taking emotional temperature. Good language learners control their attitudes and emotions about learning. Anxiety can be both helpful and harmful: a certain amount of anxiety can help learners to optimize their performance level, but too much anxiety could possibly hinder language learning.

Social strategies include asking questions, cooperating and empathizing with others. For example, learning can be enhanced when people interact with each other to clarify a confusing point or when they participate in a group discussion or cooperative learning group to solve a problem. Empathy means to think from another person’s perspective by putting oneself in that person’s situation, which can develop cultural understanding and awareness of others’ thoughts and feelings.

Oxford (1990) suggests three sets of social strategies:

1. ask questions for clarification or verification and for correction
2. cooperate with others which covers cooperating with peers and cooperating with proficient users of the new language
3. empathize with others which includes developing cultural understanding and becoming aware of others’ thoughts and feelings

Oxford (1990) identified three main sets of affective strategies:

1. lower anxiety which includes (a) using progressive relaxation, deep breathing, or meditation, (b) using music, and using laughter
2. encourage oneself which includes (a) making positive statements, (b) taking risks wisely, (c) rewarding
3. take emotional temperature including (a) listening to the body, (b) using a checklist, (c) writing a language learning diary, and discussing feelings with someone else.

Since social and affective strategies are indirect strategies, we need to make an effort to push ourselves to try to use some of these strategies. It also happens that strategies that work for one person might not work well for another because of our different learning styles. Therefore, we need to try different strategies to find out whether they are suitable for us or not.

We also need to be aware of the fact that the effectiveness of using these strategies might not be evident even after we have tried them several times. We often need to keep trying for a while and reflect on our learning experiences before we try something different.

In Activities 4 and 5, we talked about some activities that can be used to implement social and affective strategies. Here is a summary:

• Ask for help, repetition, clarification, confirmation
• Cooperate with others - work with others to achieve a common goal
• Take risks - pushing yourself to experiment with language and ideas without fear of making errors
• Encourage and reward yourself - make positive statements during a task and congratulate yourself and others upon completion
• Lower anxiety - reduce stress by reminding yourself about your learning goals, the progress you have made and resources available