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By way of introduction: my website, my CV/résumé and some key years in my career 1969; 1978; 1983; 1985; 1988…. and some key courses in my career GER 10X, GER 320/415/515, FLL 4XX/5XX. Interested in professional language teaching? Let's talk: email me; and I'm good for a free lunch or cup of coffee (my schedule).

Link to my collection of movies and soundclips about language-learning. I'll use some of them to illustrate my points here. Further down there are also some links to published documents (sometimes with just the first pages / abstract, for legal reasons).

1) Why learn about learner styles and strategies? To improve our teaching and thus the learning outcomes. Related points: decrease our own frustration (long-term: burnout); not to be confused with "dumbing it down".

2) Larger topic: The "baggage" we bring to the language classroom. We are native speakers, or if not, we are survivors of what may have been "non-professional" language teaching. Most likely, when we enter the classroom as teachers we have not had extensive training for it.

Some common errors: a) "That's the way I learned this language" (Should others have to learn that way too? Are you SURE that's when and how you learned that language? Are you merely teaching the way you were taught?). b) "linearity" - just go through the material (textbook, usually), page by page, chapter by chapter, once only; c) over-emphasis on lecture-style presentation of grammar (the map is not the territory; the standard language is not the real language; the logical system is not the acquisition sequence or the way the mind of the proficient speaker/writer generates language.). d) teacher-centered classroom - can be frightfully boring, or entertaining but ineffective.

3) This informal presentation is related to the more organized professional topic of "Styles- and Strategies-Based Instruction" (SSBI), which has its own collection of research, pedagogical resources, and experts / gurus. (Link to PSU FLL 2006 $50K NCLB Grant Project). Here, though, we're at the level of learning about styles and strategies. How this will affect your teaching will be determined later.

4) We need to look at ourselves too - the teachers. We have our own TEACHING styles and strategies, which interact with our LEARNERS' styles and strategies. See sources 0075, 0359, 0384 (listed below)

5) What about learners' and teachers' ATTITUDES? Not part of this presentation, but need attention: Why are we teaching it? Why are they there learning it - or not learning it? (aside from the issues of 'TUDE - motivation, etc. - and generic learning skills). See sources 0069, 0177, 0283, 0319, 0366, 0369, 0400

Illustration of points 3 & 4 ("Car Talk: French Test")

5) OOPS! Can't make decisions or judgments about any of this unless we understand and adopt STANDARDS, and along with standards, ASSESSMENTS. Links to my introductions to standards & assessment and to the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview. The bottom line: In the US, the dominant standards are those of ACTFL (www.actfl.org - see menu "publications"); but recently we've been looking at lot at the new European Union Language Competencies ("Europass").

An example of language learning strategies at work - and at play (Disney)

…and when clueless teacher meets clueless learners (somewhere south of East LA)

and here's a teacher who is so caught up in a narcissistic self-image of language teaching that nobody learns - and he pays a price for it.

One very negative teacher response: learning styles do not exist ("My way or the highway" - though some such people can be very nice). Illustration (prep school Latin)

Problematic teacher responses: 1) "Well, that's how I learned it!" (so why shouldn't I teach that way and they learn that way?) 2) Studying a language developes X [strength in some other skill / knowledge in some other area]: mental discipline (like geometry), understanding of English grammar. Maybe so, maybe not - and is it our aim to do that, or to teach languages? 3) Teaching as though all / many of our students were going to become majors and then professors.

(click picture or here to see full-size cartoon)

A moment of self-examination: When we claim "They can't learn this language unless they do [X]!", are we REALLY saying instead, "The only way I know how to teach this language is to do [X]"??

Problem specific to post-secondary: College students come to us with a "tilted" view of language learning and thus of LS&S; we may have to "re-educate" them. PSU first-year German uses an intake questionnaire that asks students what sorts of materials and activities they expect in our course and how that relates to what they may have experienced in earlier language study (including how they like or dislike what we do and what they've experienced).

A "Darwinian" dimension: Does our profession select for certain learning styles (and strategies)? Maybe so heretofore (emphasis on literary scholarship, traditional European languages). BUT there are newer influences that promote attention to LS&S: 1) input from other language areas, including "LCTs" and ESL; 2) new attention to languages in relation to social issues, internationalization, business; 3) entrance of new teachers from other areas of interest (psychology, social work, activism).

Now familiar: the various generic theories of "intelligences" and the many instruments for assessing them, with various labels.

Often we see lists of 4-8 personality types and learning styles. Let's look at one such description of Learning Style Preferences and a table that systematizes learning styles (Cohen, et al, Styles- and Strategies-Based Instruction: A Teacher's Guide, pp. 7, 13, excerpted to comply with © laws).

They may be quite different from us (nationality, social background, educational experience, life experience, cultural values), and they may be scared about language learning (possibly covering it with diffidence). They may view us quite differently from the way we view ourselves (and vice versa). Illustration ("Woman of the Year").

The topic is still not well developed for our field, or at least in the well-known discussions and instruments there is little mention of foreign/second-language learning.

The Divine Perspective and a moment of levity: The Monks of Skete and a Catholic theory and pedagogy of dog training (source 0251). To get the dog to OBEY us, we must first LISTEN to the dog. (The two verbs are related in several languages.) Find out what your students want and need, and how they behave as learners (in general, of languages).

Cohen and several other colleagues have applied the concepts of Learning Styles more specifically, which points in the direction of pedagogy for our particular purposes. But first we have to assess how our learners go about learning languages. Example from Cohen (setup and excerpt from survey). Cohen includes a version for surveying younger learners.

It is not enough that we and our students throw around labels for learning styles. (Side issue: We also can't let students shirk specific kinds of activities by claiming that those activities don't suit their learning styles.)

We have to provide the STRATEGIES that can exploit those styles in which a student is strong and compensate for those in which the student is weak.

Cohen's individual take on this is that our learners MUST become conscious of language-learning strategies by seeing for themselves how their language learning improves when they apply a suggested strategy. Whatever our own view about that, introducing learning strategies by using them to teach/ learn would seem to strengthen the point, and it uses the time more efficiently.

An example from Cohen: Grammar Learning Strategies. Thought question: How does this compare to the teaching and learning of grammar with which you are familiar (as a learner? as a teacher?)

Program: what are its goals, who its learners? See sources 0319, Houston study; 0176 Spanish for Working Medical Professionals;

Course: the dimension of LS&S quickly involves us in other current pedagogical topics: content-based instruction, team-based learning, differentiated instruction. Entire courses now explore those approach, for example GER 320/415/515 "SpeakEasy", the German business simulation and company-in-the-making. See sources 0019 theater production; 0172 Global Simulation; 0175 Promotional Video Production; 0355 Creating a Language Learning Community in Literature Classrooms (and, for the urgent need for change in such courses, 0104 Donato)

Assessment: Can barely mention that here. Assessment of student learning; assessment of teaching; assessment of textbooks

Cultural variation: LS&S and various subgroups of learners (see bibliography)

Courses available: FLL (Godfrey, Winter 2011; Fischer, Spring 2011); Applied Linguistics (Arnold, Differentiated Learning); School of Education - talk to your adviser, talk to me

Rich oppportunities for research and publication

relation to PSU resources (Center for Academic Excellence), goals (Learner Outcomes Assessment), conference participation, and projects

(all from ACTFL Foreign Language Annals, unless otherwise noted; where there are linnk, most are to abstract or first page only)

0002 Schulz, Renate. Changing Perspectives in Foreign Language Education: Where Do We Come from? Where Are We Going?

0019 Ryan-Scheutz, Colleen, and Laura M. Colangelo. Full-Scale Theater Production and Foreign Language Learning

0069 Alalou, Ali, et al. Using Student Expectations and Perceived Needs to Rethink Pedagogy and Curriculum: A Case Study

0070 Olsen, Solveig. “A Plea to Graduate Departments” [for better teacher training of grad students]

0072 Govoni, Jane M., and Carine M. Feyten. Effects of the ACTFL-OPI-Type Training on Student Performance, Instructional Methods, and Classroom Materials in the Secondary Language Classroom

0075 Bell, Teresa, R. Behaviors and Attitudes of Effective Foreign Language Teachers: Results of a Questionnaire Study

0103 Higgs, Theodore V. Teaching Grammar for Proficiency

0104 Donato, Richard, and Frank B. Brooks. Literary Discussions and Advanced Speaking Functions: Researching the (Dis)Connection

0172 Levine, Glenn S. Global Simulation: A Student-Centered, Task-Based Format for Intermediate Foreign Language Courses

0175 Fukushima, Tatsuya. Promotional Video Production in a Foreign Language Course

0176 Lear, Darcy W. Spanish for Working Medical Professionals: Linguistic Needs

0177 Price, Joseph, and Carolyn Gascoigne. Current Perceptions and Beliefs Among Incoming College Students Towards Foreign Language Study and Language Requirements

0212 Siskin, H. Jay, and Emily Spinelli. Achieving Communicative Competence Through Gambits and Routines

0219 Meyer, Renée, et al. Getting Started: Reading Techniques That Work from the Very First Day

0251 Monks of Skete, The Art of Raising a Puppy. (NOT in FLA- check Amazon or Powell's)

0283 Mills, Nicole, et al. A Reevaluation of the Role of Anxiety: Self-Efficacy, Anxiety, and Their Relation to Reading and Listening Proficiency

0284 Wilkerson, Carol. College Faculty Perceptions About Foreign Language

0319 Mandell, Paul B. On the Background and Motivation of Students in a Beginning Spanish program

0320 Woodrow, Lindy. The Challenge of Measuring Language Learning Strategies

0321 Nisbet, Deanna L., Evie R. Tindall, Alan A. Arroyo. Language Learning Strategies and English Proficiency of Chinese University Students

0322 Khalil, Aziz. Assessment of Language Learning Strategies Used by Palestinian EFL Learners

0323 Morris, Michael. Two Sides of the Communicative Coin: Honors and Nonhonors French and Spanish Classes in a Midwestern High School

0355 Creating a (Language) Learning Community in the Literature Classroom (information may be incorrect)

0359 Sparks, Richard L., et al. Foreign Language Teachers’ Perceptions of Students’ Academic Skills, Affective Characteristics, and Proficiency: Replication and Follow-Up Studies

0366 Ossipov, Helene. Who Is Taking French and Why?

0369 Kennedy, Teresa J., et al. The FLES Attitudinal Inventory

0372 Rifkin, Benjamin. Revising Beliefs about Foreign Language Learning

0376 Alalou, Ali. Reevaluating Curricular Objectives Using Students’ Perceived Needs: The Case of Three Language Programs

0377 Lee, Lina. Enhancing Learner’s Communication Skills through Synchronous Electronic Interaction and Task-Based Instruction

0379 Cortés, Kristin Hull. Youth and the Study of Foreign Language: An Investigation of Attitudes

0384 Allen, Linda Quinn. Teachers’ Pedagogical Beliefs and the Standards for Foreign Language Learning

0385 Wong, Wynne, Bill VanPatten. The Evidence is IN: Drills are OUT

0394 Abou Baker El-Dib, Mervat. Language Learning Strategies in Kuwait: Links to Gender, Language Level, and Culture in a Hybrid Context

0399 Nisbet, Deanna L., et al. Language Learning Strategies and English Proficiency of Chinese University Students

0400 Moore, Zena. African-American Students’ Opinions About Foreign Language Study: An Exploratory Study of Low Enrollments at the College Level

0405 Kennedy, Teresa J. Language Learning and Its Impact on the Brain: Connecting Language Learning with the Mind Through Content-Based Instruction

0406 Graham, Suzanne. A Study of Students’ Metacognitive Beliefs About Foreign Language Study and Their Impact on Learning