A Fresh Start: Integrating Explicit Instruction in Language Learning Strategies and Study Skills for Beginning University Students

Abstract

For over thirty years since Oxford’s seminal publication (1990), a solid body of research has amply demonstrated the potential of employing language learning strategies (LLS) for enhancing and maximising the foreign language learning process inside and outside the classroom (Oxford, 1990, 2008; Macaro, 2007; Cohen & Macaro, 2009; Cohen, 2011; Chamot & Harris, 2016). However, it seems worthy of note that the majority of this investigative research seems to focus on a teacher-led or methodological perspective, promoting classifications of strategy types and activities to encourage the development of appropriate strategy repertoires in the teaching or learning environment. Due to this focus on general strategy integration in the context of language acquisition, we feel that there is a growing need for explicit instruction in LLS and study skills addressing the needs of higher education learners as a means to foster a more critical approach and awareness of their own second language learning process in view of the ever-growing availability of digital resources. It is with this aim in mind that, at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the authors have designed and implemented a compulsory subject based on LLS and study skills for beginning first-year university students (‘freshers’) embarking on their undergraduate degree in Modern Languages. It seems evident on surveying the undergraduate programmes on offer at Spanish universities that this is an innovative approach as the inclusion of strategy research and instructions seems mostly to feature in second-cycle teaching methodology subjects with a notably low number of universities offering a specially tailored subject for students to explore their own learning process and equip them with the strategies and skills they will need on their academic journey. Hence, we will highlight the structure of our own course syllabus and will subsequently present quantitative and qualitative data gathered from questionnaires measuring students’ satisfaction administered at the end of the semester, with promising results, as well as from Oxford’s SILL (1990) questionnaire that measures their use of LLS both at the beginning of the course and on its completion, highlighting an increased preference for compensation and metacognitive strategies over other types. We shall conclude by encouraging participants to consider including strategy training programmes similar to the one described here on a policy level due to its perceived instrumental effectiveness with adult and higher education learners (Hassan, et al., 2005).