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MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Department of English Language and Literature


IMPLEMENTING
LEARNING STRATEGIES INTO MILITARY
LANGUAGE COURSES

Diploma Thesis





Brno 2010

Supervisor: Written by:
PhDr. Alena Kaprkov Bc.ZdenkaBushellov


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Brno, December 10, 2010 Bc.Zdenka Bushellov


Declaration

I hereby declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only sources listed in
the bibliography.

I agree with the diploma thesis being deposited in the Library at the Faculty of Education at
the Masaryk University and with its being made available for academic purposes.
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Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank my supervisor PhDr. Alena Kaprkov for her valuable
guidance and kind help during working on my diploma thesis.
Furthermore, I would like to thank the students of the Defence Language Institute
in Vyskov for allowing me to include them into my research.


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Abstract
My diploma thesis deals with language learning strategies and their implementation into
military courses. It focuses at the question whether training and using suitable strategies
within the course material have positive influence on learning process, and whether it can
help the students learn more easily and effectively.
The theoretical part emphasises the important areas that influence the quality of
learning. It firstly looks at the topic of communicative learning and defines communicative
competence. Also, it gives various definitions, classifications and descriptions of particular
strategies. Last but not least, the attention is paid to adult learners and the role of
instructional material.
Based on the questionnaire results the practical part centres around training
particular language learning strategies through individual tasks and activities. The strategy
training effectiveness is discussed through interviews with the students.

Anotace
Moje diplomov prce se zabv strategiemi uen cizmu jazyku a jejich zaveden do
vuky ve vojenskch kurzech. Prce se zamuje na otzku zdali vcvik a pouvn
vhodnch strategi v rmci kurzu m pozitivn vliv na vyuovac proces, a zda mohou
studentm pomoci uit se snadnji a efektivnji.
Teoretick st upozoruje na dleit oblasti, kter ovlivuj kvalitu vuky.
Nejprve se zabv tmatem komunikativnho uen a definuje komunikativn kompetence.
Dle uvd rzn definice, klasifikace a popis jednotlivch strategi. V neposledn ad je
vnovna pozornost dosplm studentm a roli vukovch materil.
Na zklad vsledk dotaznku se praktick st zamuje na vcvik strategi uen
cizmu jazyku formou jednotlivch kol a aktivit. Efektivita vcviku je diskutovna
formou rozhovor se studenty.


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Key words
language learning strategies, communicative learning communicative competence, strategy
training, direct and indirect strategies, adult learner, instructional material.



Klov slova:
strategie uen cizmu jazyku, komunikativn uen, komunikativn kompetence, vcvik
strategi, pm a nepm strategie, dospl student, uebn materil.










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Content
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................. 8
THEORETICAL PART ................................................................................. 10
COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING ............................................................ 10
Traditional Approach vs. Communicative Language Teaching......................................... 10
Language learning in STANAG courses ............................................................................ 11
Communicative Competence as a Part of Language Education ........................................ 12
INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGIES ............................... 15
Definition of Language Learning Strategies ...................................................................... 15
Classification of Language learning Strategies .................................................................. 17
DIRECT STRATEGIES ..................................................................................................... 18
Memory strategies .............................................................................................................. 18
Creating Mental Linkages .............................................................................................. 20
Applying Images and Sounds .......................................................................................... 21
Reviewing well ................................................................................................................ 22
Employing action ............................................................................................................ 23
Cognitive strategies ............................................................................................................ 23
Practicing ....................................................................................................................... 24
Receiving and sending messages .................................................................................... 27
Analyzing and reasoning ................................................................................................ 28
Creating structure for input and output ......................................................................... 29
Compensational strategies .................................................................................................. 30
INDIRECT STRATEGIES ................................................................................................. 31
Metacognitive strategies ..................................................................................................... 31
Affective strategies ............................................................................................................. 32
Social strategies .................................................................................................................. 33
LEARNERS IN RELATION TO LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGIES .............. 33
Adult Learners .................................................................................................................... 35
The role of instructional materials in STANAG courses ................................................... 37
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PRACTICAL PART ....................................................................................... 41
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................ 41
BACKGROUND RESEARCH ........................................................................................... 42
STANAG Course Specifications ........................................................................................ 42
Participants ......................................................................................................................... 43
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH .......................................................... 43
HYPOTHESES .................................................................................................................... 44
METHODOLOGY .............................................................................................................. 44
RESEARCH ASSESSMENT .............................................................................................. 46
Questionnaire Analysis: ..................................................................................................... 46
First Section of the Questionnaire .................................................................................. 46
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 54
The Second Part of the Questionnaire ................................................................................ 55
(Strategy Inventory for Language Learning) ..................................................................... 55
IMPLEMENTING STRATEGY TRAINING INTO A STANAG COURSE ................ 58
STUDENTS INTERVIEWS ON STRATEGY TRAINING ........................................... 77
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 79
REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................... 81
APPENDIX ........................................................................................................................... 83





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Introduction
Tell me and Ill forget; show me and I may remember;
involve me and Ill understand.
Chinese proverb

The initial impetus for elaborating this topic matter stemmed from working with
Czech military personnel at the Military English Language Training Institute where the
standard of English language being taught is from lower intermediate to advanced level.
During teaching these adults came to light that the ever-growing need for English language
has created an enormous demand for good quality teaching and teaching materials. Students
demand a high level of fluency, comprehensibility, accuracy and ability to communicate.
Therefore, the demand for an effective teaching methodology is stronger than ever.
Nowadays, the attention in learning-teaching process is paid not only what to learn but also
how to learn more effectively and easily. There are equally important elements of education,
such as active and autonomous search for information, ability to solve problems, ability to
see things in proportions, or ability to draw conclusions and form an opinion. The verbs
search, solve, deduce, create, defend suggest active work. Nevertheless, according to the
current research, teachers still spend 80-90% of the communicative time for themselves by
presenting the subject matter in front of the class. There is just a little time and slim
possibilities for students to express their objections, opinions and thoughts, or communicate
within the classroom. Moreover, some teachers ignore the necessity to guide their students
through how to learn techniques and they do not focus on mastering the students learning
processes.
My diploma thesis is devoted to language learning strategies and their incorporation
into language education and the textbooks which are being used on STANAG courses at the
Defence Language Institute. It aims at the question whether training and using suitable
learning strategies within the course material positively affect adult learners and help them
gain communicative competence and learn English language more easily and effectively.
The introduction to learning strategies on STANAG courses was carried out via materials
used on STANAG courses, such as American Language Course (ALC) books, Campaign,
and others.
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The theoretical part concentrates on the important areas that influence the quality of
learning. It firstly looks at the context of communicative learning in language classroom
defining communicative competence, then various definitions and taxonomies of language
learning strategies and their descriptions are presented. At the end, the attention is paid to
the important issues of learning process, such as adult and military learners, characteristic of
a good learner, and also instructional materials are discussed.
The practical part focuses on discovering the learning strategies being used on
STANAG military courses and students methodological preferences. It is followed by a
strategy training carried out through activities and tasks concentrating on a particular
strategy. The research was done in three phases. At first, a two-part questionnaire was
completed to collect data concerning the strategies, techniques and students preferences
being used on STANAG courses. Secondly, strategy training was presented by
incorporating the strategy activities into course materials. Prominence was placed on
training those strategies that appeared to be least developed through activities and tasks
concentrating on a particular strategy. Also, the attention was paid to enhance ALC learning
material with activities supporting the preparation for STANAG examination. In the end, the
effectiveness of the strategy training was summarized by students. This last phase was based
on interviews with course participants.
My goal is to deal with the important issues in learning process and conditions that
can be created for successful learning, such as what makes a good learner, communicative
way of teaching, adapting language learning strategies, instructional material books etc. I
hope that writing this thesis and completing the strategy training in military environment
will contribute to more effective education in military courses and will help STANAG
course participants to acquire English language better and more easily, and last but not least
make the lessons more interesting. I believe that my work might serve as a source of
supporting information for further research in this field.



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THEORETICAL PART

Communicative Language Teaching
Since the thesis is focused on using various learning strategies in context of
communicative learning in language classroom, I would like to start with an explanation of
communicative learning and its meaning first. In the initial phase the methodology is
identified, and also the main differences between the CLT and traditional methods are
depicted. Further, this chapter deals with the question of communicative competence.

Traditional Approach vs. Communicative Language Teaching
The notions of a school, a teacher, or learning process are connected with either
positive or negative memories. Most of the students remember their teacher as person who
explains the topic, practices it, then examines and marks the students. This experience shows
that a good teacher is the one who can explain the topic material well and who can keep the
discipline in the classroom. There is no doubt that explaining the heart of the matter to
others is an important skill, but it is not the only way how to teach.
In history it was important for students to master certain amount of knowledge and
become literate. The only place where the most information and knowledge was gained was
the school. Therefore, traditional way of teaching was a natural tool to achieve the
objectives. Teaching process was based on activity of a teacher who presented already
formulated knowledge to the students who obediently listened to teachers explanation.
There was no time to let the learners search for information, communicate with each other,
use the trial and error method, or even work on their own procedures and experiments.
Nunan emphasizes that in traditional language teaching the aim of the learner was to
approach the target language norms of the native speaker as well as to master structures of
the language (Nunan, 1999, p. 9). In such class the language teaching puts forward the
linguistic system to the learners. Practice and drilling help students learn bits of the language
by heart. Traditional classroom does not consider students as cooperative people, but rather
as individuals who work on the same task, but not on a common task as a team. Students
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are presented with grammar rules first, and then they are given opportunities to practice its
usage by mainly repetitive and drilling exercises.
I have similar experience from my school years, even though I studied in 1990s.
Grammar-translation method was, and still is, widely used in Czech schools. I remember
textbooks where, as I understood, speaking and communication were not the aims. A lecture
with such book would consist of a list of vocabulary to learn, an article to read, abstract
grammar rules to understand, and repetitive and drilling practice exercises, many of them
with translation and substitution only. I gathered I had to memorize the grammar principles
and vocabulary otherwise I would get a bad grade. The only goal I had was to avoid the bad
grades. It never even came to my mind that language is for communication and speaking. I
misunderstood the one simple obvious thing that I learn to use. Brumfit (1992, p. 51) is
more specific about this issue and says that: Traditional methods are aimed at grammatical
competence and evaluation, since they concern accuracy, monitoring, reference rules,
explicit knowledge, and the evidence of skills as the most important sections of language
learning
Conversely, the real language use requires language abilities based on fluency,
functions, comprehensibility, and implicit knowledge rather than grammatical competence.
Acquiring the language skills is not just an intellectual exercise. There may be a variety of
reasons for language study such as travelling or working abroad, promotion at work,
admission requirements to a school, reading English texts, watching movies in original
script, meeting foreign friends etc. Majority of them will need communication at some point.
Language practice should provide opportunities for students to cooperate, communicate, and
interact. This led to the expansion of interactive approaches in which grammar is determined
to the performance of communicative tasks. The role of methods used on STANAG courses
is dealt with in a latter chapter of this work. The next chapter details the STANAG courses.

Language learning in STANAG courses
Communication is an inseparable part of our daily life. Nevertheless, sometimes it
can cause occasional misunderstanding for military personnel attending international
missions, or during official meetings and negotiations. For this reason, the NATO language
subcommittee adopted American language descriptions for language assessment called
STANAG (Standardized Agreement). There are five levels of English comprehension for
each of the four language skills. Therefore, the principal language skills being practiced
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with our students at our department are: listening, speaking, writing, and reading. These
skills are structured from level 0 to level 5 and are known as Standardized Language Profile
(SLP), a level five being fully educated native speaker. Within the NATO countries, English
language is tested according to these descriptors. The key aim of teaching English in
military establishments is to teach military personnel the highest degree of attainment.
Every soldier who is assigned to work in NATO must qualify with an SLP 3,3,3,3 in order
to accomplish military assignments on operations abroad and gain competence to use
English for communication. Our students are required to reach levels SLP 1, 2, 3 according
to their position within the Czech Army. A table of foreign language examinations and
English language qualifications is listed in Appendix 1.
Witnessing how teaching English within NATO countries has gained importance in
the last few years, and how costly and time consuming endeavour it has been, the context of
teaching in particular has become more and more concentrated on a communicative
approach of teaching, in order to avoid any misunderstanding during the fulfilment of
military tasks. Soldiers need to be able to fully understand, cooperate, and communicate
clearly with their counter parts. They need to acquire courage to use the target language as
well as to get the necessary input and practice in the classroom so that they are ready for
real-life situations.
Nowadays, the term communicative competence appears frequently. The essential
skill of communicative competence we shall consider further in the following chapter.

Communicative Competence as a Part of Language Education
All language learning strategies are oriented towards the broad spectrum of
communicative competence. But what does it mean communicative competence? Why has the
term communicative competence been one of the most frequently used terms recently in
educational environment? The word communication
1
has a Latin origin. It comes from a word
commonness, which suggests join activities, togetherness, cooperation and mutual acts.
From the acquiring the language point of view, communication means dynamic action, and
the negotiation of meaning between people who share some language knowledge which is
being used.

1
The term communication is used either as an uncountable noun for the act or process of communicating, or
as a countable noun for something communicated; as a message, a letter, etc (Longman Dictionary of
Contemporary English, Longman Group UK Limited 1987).
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As Oxford (1990, p. 7) summarizes, communicative competence is ability to
communicate. In addition, she provides a comprehensive, four-part definition of
communicative competence:

1. Grammatical competence or accuracy is the degree to which the
language user has mastered the linguistic code, including vocabulary,
grammar, pronunciation, spelling, and word formation.
2. Sociolinguistic competence is the extent to which utterances can be used
or understood appropriately in various social contexts. It includes
knowledge of speech acts such as persuading, apologizing, and describing.
3. Discourse competence is the ability to combine ideas to achieve cohesion
in form and coherence in thought, above the level of the single sentence.
4. Strategic competence is the ability to use strategies like gestures or
talking around and unknown word in order to overcome limitations in
language knowledge.
(Oxford, 1990, p. 7)
The result from such a definition is that communicative competence does not only
refer to the skill of speaking. In fact, it is concerned with both spoken and written language
and thus all four skills. There are many different ways of saying the same thing, and learners
choose one according to the situation. This definition also implies that it is not enough just
supply students with language structures, rules and vocabulary but teachers should teach
students the use and usage of words and phrases.
A question arises: How can students be taught genuine communication in a classroom
environment? Rewell (1994, p. 6) claims that communication stems from necessity, and this
element is usually absent in a classroom situation. Considering ALC course books and many
other textbooks, a learner often knows in advance what he/she will say, and also what
everyone else will say or ask. To illustrate this point, I have taken a paragraph from textbook
material we use:
T: (Students are talking over a picture) Ask your colleague what Anna was wearing
yesterday.
S1: What was Anna wearing yesterday?
S2: She was wearing a combat uniform. (ALC, 1991, book 5)

This example illustrates that there is no exchange of any information, no surprise, no
choice of what to say. Therefore, students do not really need to listen to what is being
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expressed. Rewell (1994, p. 6) mentions the necessity of an information gap,
unpredictability, and skill-getting through skill-using rule, which can be created in
classroom by the use of activities where the participants are only in possession of part of the
total information. Students then have a certain amount of choice in what to say, they ask
questions because they dont know the answer, and they have a reason for listening to one
another.
She further suggests the use of activities practicing the natural use of language, such
as: jigsaw listening or reading; assembling component parts of a puzzle (instructing);
scientific experiments; making things; describing the differences between words or things; or
activities where one person has all the information, and the rest of the class either has to find
out the information, or those who know must give instructions to those in the dark in order to
make for authentic communication. She also suggests trial and error learning, activities where
learners are playing a part in situations which are not predictable (e.g. role-plays: You are
neighbours. You left the back door open. Your neighbours dog got in, ate your dinner, and
was sick on your kitchen floor). (Rewell, 1994, p. 6-7)

It is possible to summarize all the above mentioned views about communicative
competence: the communicative competence is (1) the ability to communicate which includes
both, spoken and written language, plus all four skills, (2) it aims mainly at the use and
usage of the language rather than teaching students only language rules, structures and
vocabulary.
Turning to point (2), many students seem to learn better if they are thinking about the
language matter. Harmer (2007, p. 57) gives an example where a teacher instead of explicitly
teaching the grammar subject of present perfect tense exposes his learners to examples of
grammar matter and then allows the students, with his help and guidance, to work out for
themselves how it is used. However, discovery learning may not be suitable for all grammar
or lexical items, or for every learner. Adult learners may feel more secure with a rule because
over-complex language may cause difficulty for them.
Oxford (1990, p.8) sees the aim of language learning strategies as being oriented toward
the broad goal of communicative competence. Development of communicative competence
requires realistic and meaningful interaction among students. She emphasises that: Learning
strategies help learners participate actively in authentic communication (1990, p. 8). The
issue of learning strategies and their contribution to the goal of communicative competence is
the subject matter of a next chapter.
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Introduction to Language Learning Strategies
There has been an influential shift within the field of language learning and teaching
over the last two decades in the Army of the Czech Republic. Nowadays, the Ministry of
Defence consider language learning as one of the most important priorities. This important
fact indicates that teachers should streamline the language education continually, improve
and search new ways for effective learning, motivate students so that they are capable to
perform all the requirements which are imposed on them. Language learning strategies,
being specific actions, tactics, or techniques, facilitate the target language by the language
learner. Learning strategies affect the nature and the quality of learning processes, as well as
focus on how to manage language learning easily and more effectively. Prior to adopting
this approach in military courses, it is good to know what learning strategies are actually
about. Therefore, topics in the next chapter include various definitions of learning strategies.

Definition of Language Learning Strategies
The issues: how learners process, learn, or remember new information, and what kinds
of strategies they employ to understand has been the primary concern of the authors dealing
with foreign language learning. A number of researchers have attempted to define language
learning strategies (LLS). Leaver, Ehrman, and Shekhtman (2005, p. 65) specify learning
strategies in general as activities and techniques students use to learn. Similarly, OMalley
and Chamot (1995, p. 1) define learning strategies as special ways of proceeding information
that enhance comprehension, learning, or retention of the information such as repeating new
words aloud to remember them, using the surrounding context to guess the meaning of
unknown words, or showing the main ideas in a text in a form of a map.
Ellis (2008, p. 76) adds to the LLS definition that: They are typically problem-
oriented. In short, students apply learning strategies when they face to a problem, such as
how to summarize a text, or how to remember a new word.
Rebecca Oxford, one of the leading specialists in the language learning strategies field,
emphasises two important reasons of strategy importance. Firstly, she says that learning
strategies are tools for active, self-directed involvement, which is essential for developing
communicative competence. Secondly, she says that learners who have developed
appropriate learning strategies have greater self-confidence and learn more effectively
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(Oxford, 1990, p. 1). She adds that learning strategies are specific actions taken by the
learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and
more transferrable to new situations (p. 8). Further she identifies twelve key features of
strategies, among others, she emphasises contribution to communicative competence,
developing the skill of students self-direction, expanding the role of teachers, or involving
problem-oriented tasks (Oxford, 1990, p. 9).
Nunan (1999, p. 171) corresponds to Oxfords point of view and adds that
strategies are the mental and communicative procedures learners use in order to learn and
use the language. Underlying every learning task is at least one strategy. Nevertheless,
Nunan claims that in most classrooms learners are unaware of the strategies underlying the
learning tasks in which they are engaged in. Conversely, Ellis (2008, p. 77) states that
learners are generally aware of the strategies they use. Learning strategies are mostly
unobservable, though some can be connected with behavior that is possible to observe, such
as taking notes in order to remember the information. In my opinion, the recognition of the
strategies depends on the age and students maturity. Students should be able to report and
explain their mental processes of choosing and applying a particular strategy. Especially
adult learners are able to describe what they did to try to learn something through
interviews, questionnaires, or diaries.
Nunan further brings a research which shows that learners who are taught the
strategies underlying their learning are more highly motivated than those who are not. The
knowledge of learning strategies is not automatic. Learning strategies need to be trained and
learners need time to experiment with different strategies in order to reach more effective
learning (Nunan, 1999, p. 171-172).
An insight into the issue of a learner in relation to language learning strategies and a
general characteristic of a good learner are the subjects of an individual chapter included in
this thesis. Since learners differ quite widely in their preference and adaptation to styles of
learning, there is no definite list of LLS, but generalized categorization which is the subject
of the next chapter.
To conclude, all language learning strategy definitions correspond in one matter, and
that is, that they make language learning easier, faster, more enjoyable and more effective.

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Classification of Language learning Strategies
A number of researchers have attempted to classify LLS in various ways.
Nevertheless, as it was stated in a previous chapter, the diversity of students, their individual
needs and personality have resulted in the use of varied and often overlapping terminology.
Consequently, a definite taxonomy of LLS does not exist so far.
Ellis and Sinclair (1991-a, p. 151) divide learning strategies into four rather detailed
sections: meta-cognitive, cognitive, social and communication. OMalley and Chamot
(1995, p. 8) apply similar classification to language learning and add new category, which
they call affective - social or socioaffective. Nunan, who is the author of many textbooks,
has developed his own typology of strategies. He divides them into four major classes:
cognitive, interpersonal, linguistic and affective (1999, p. 183).
Rubin, who pioneered much of the work in the field of strategies, draws a distinction
between direct and indirect strategies according to how they involve the target language.
The primary category is direct strategies, and it includes strategies that directly affect
learning, thus cover mental processes in language learning, such as clarification/verification,
monitoring, memorization, guessing/inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, and practice.
As the name suggests, these are specific techniques that students can use to internalize the
language. On the other hand, the second category, indirect strategies includes strategies that
indirectly contribute to learning, such as evaluating ones learning, cooperating with others
and creating practice opportunities and using production tricks (Rubin in OMalley and
Chamot, 1995, p. 4). According to Rubin, there are three types of strategies that contribute
directly or indirectly to language learning: learning strategies, communication strategies,
and social strategies.
Oxford (1990, p.14-15 ) goes in more detail while describing learning strategies. She
also uses sorting the strategies into direct and indirect categories which are closely
interconnected and further distinguished into subgroups. She offers a good way of linking
strategies with all four skills- speaking, listening, reading and writing.
For my thesis topic, the implementation of language learning strategies into military
course materials and for the research evaluation, the Oxfords taxonomy was chosen. Her
overview is well-arranged and transparent. The questionnaire used in the practical part of
my research was inspired by Vlckova and Prikrylovas Foreign Language Learning Strategy
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Questionnaire for Comprehensive School (2002) who also give priority to Oxfords
classification of strategies. The following chapters describe the strategies in more detail.

Direct Strategies
Oxford (1990, p.37) makes a distinction between direct and indirect strategies.
Direct strategies directly affect a specific learning task, such as memorizing and retrieving
new information, analyzing and reasoning, or guessing. She associates direct strategies to
the Performer at the stage play, explaining that they deal with the new language itself in a
variety of specific tasks and situations (Oxford, 1990, p. 14). Among direct strategies whose
common feature is the requirements of mental processing of the language belong: memory,
cognitive and compensation strategies. Oxford (1990, p. 37) explains that each of the
strategies group does the mental processing of the language in a different way. A diagram of
memory strategies shows the relationship among particular strategies.

Original source: Oxford, 1990, p.38
Memory strategies
Memory strategies, sometimes called mnemonics, help students memorize, store
and retrieve new information, and according to Oxford (1990, p. 38) they have been used
widely for thousands of years, especially before literacy. As an example, she mentions
orators in ancient times remembering their long speeches by linking different parts of the
speech with different places or things. Nowadays, memory strategies are still considered as
a very important mental tool. Lots of classroom information can be encoded in mnemonics,
Memory
strategies
Creating mental
linkages (grouping,
associating/elaborating
, placing new words
into a context)
Applying images and
sounds (using imagery,
semantic mapping,
using keywords,
representing sounds in
memory)
Reviewing well
(structured reviewing)
Employing action
(using physical
response or sensation,
using mechanical
techniques)
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such as remembering the order of the British royal houses with "No Plan Like Yours To
Study History Well" (Norman, Plantagenet, Lancastrian, York, Tudor, Stuart, Hanoverian,
Windsor). Frequently, these tricks are remembered from childhood till adulthood. From
my own experience, I can still remember the periodic table according to the rhymes and
sentences in Czech language as I had learned at school (vertical lines: Hanu Libal Na
Kolinka Robustni Cestar Franta, Bezela Magda Canonem Srazila Banan Ramenem...)
Turning to the topic of using memory strategies when learning foreign
languages, they relate to the whole work with new information including input, learning and
output phase. Scrivener (2005, p. 254) gives a detailed description of each phase:
Input phase: students are exposed to the language matter, they notice
specific items when they are being used in text,
Learning phase: students understand the form, meaning and use of an
item,
Output phase: students try things out, have opportunities to practice,
use the new language, and remember items.
Oxford (1990, p. 39) points out that memory strategies reflect techniques and
activities which all involve meaning and the material to be retrieved must have
significance for learners. Memory strategies deal with the new language information
including remembering words. There is no doubt that grammar and vocabulary is the base
of second language acquisition. Grammar on a certain level of learning language is a
closed set, but the vocabulary is an open set. That is why the importance of teaching
vocabulary should be emphasized. Remembering new words is hard. It takes a lot of effort
to keep new words in memory. Jill Hadfield (1999, p. 4) presents three distinct processes
of remembering vocabulary: fixing the meaning of a word (memorizing), making the word
my own by personalizing it so that it becomes a part of students individual word store
(personalising), and using the word creatively in the context (communicating). It is
possible to equate this process with Scriveners ways of recording lexical items. He says
that remembering involves four things: putting into storage (corresponds to memorizing),
keeping in storage (corresponds to personalizing), retrieving and using which corresponds
to communicating (Scrivener, 2005, p. 241). Students are supposed to follow this process
while learning vocabulary. That is why they need to know various memory strategies to
assist them with better remembering and retrieving vocabulary. Arthur Bornstein (2007),
a founder of School for Memory Training, offers a number of strategies for successful
remembering vocabulary, such as notes on the walls, using visual methods, saying or
20

writing words, recording words/phrases, grouping words, retrieving words in certain time
intervals, playing games, associations, using active, positive, fun connections, or using lot
of imagination while learning new vocabulary. Oxford (1990, p. 39) emphasises that the
arrangements and associations must be personally meaningful to the learner, and the
material to be reviewed must have significance.
The memory strategies described in the following chapters are offered by Rebecca
Oxford. They are divided into four categories: creating mental linkages, applying images
and sounds, reviewing well and employing action.

Creating Mental Linkages
This group comprises of three strategies that form the foundation of the rest of the
memory strategies.
One strategy involves grouping words so that a set is learned together. Oxford
introduces grouping as an activity dealing with classifying or reclassifying into meaningful
groups, including also labelling groups (Oxford, 1990, p. 58-59). Classifying can be done in
various ways: according to the topic, conceptual similarities (e.g. hot, warm, boiling),
dissimilarities or opposites, word classes, , positive-negative groups, practical or linguistic
function, etc. Nunan considers classifying helpful for learners because it is easier to
memorize items that are grouped together in meaningful way than trying to remember
isolated items (1999, p. 185). Similarly, Scrivener (2005, p. 242) defines grouping as
...more effective than studying unrelated individual words.
Another strategy is called associating/elaborating. Learners are trying to find a
connection of a new term with familiar language information already stored in their
memory, so-called footing. They use various aids to associate new words. Hadfield
supports the usefulness of this strategy by stating that students have to fix the meaning of
the word in their minds by personalizing so that it takes on a colour and a character and
becomes part of their individual word store (Hadfield, 1999, p. 4). Oxford (1990, p. 41)
highlights that this strategy must be meaningful to students. A similar strategy based on
the principle of associating is the semantic mapping (sometimes called word web or mind
web).
Placing new words into a context is another strategy which should be considered. This
technique involves a form of associating/elaborating, in which students are trying to link the
21

new information with a context. Placing a word or phrase, which is supposed to be learned,
in a meaningful sentence, a story, or conversation leads a student to the context
involvement. This strategy is useful in situations when students are asked to remember
words without any supporting or explanatory context. In such cases, learners create their
own context and place new words, phrases, or expressions into their meaningful context.
Hadfield points out that it is helpful if students relate the new word to their personal
experience (1999, p. 5).

Applying Images and Sounds
These strategies focus on ways to remember new information by means of visual
images and sounds. Four strategies are included in this group: using imagery, using key
words, semantic mapping, and representing sounds in memory.
Relating new information to mental or visual image in memory is a strategy called
using imagery. The image can be either real (a picture or an object), or in the mind (a
mental representation or an image of a word). For example, students are asked to visualize
abstract words in order to remember them easier. This strategy can be helpful especially for
visual (seeing) style students. Leaver, Ehrman, and Shekhtman (2005, p. 65-67) define that
visual style students understand grammar or vocabulary better when they can read about it
in a book or when they see a picture of what they heard or read, they often recognize words
by sight, use lists to organize their thoughts, or recall information by remembering how it
was set out on a page. Using imagery is very useful strategy, not only for young learners,
but also for adults. Things that we can imagine in mind, words which easily evoke pictures
are much easier to remember.
Semantic mapping is a strategy in which students arrange words into a diagram or a
picture which has a key heading and related words (sub-headings). Words are highlighted
and linked via lines or arrows, which help learners to visually see how certain groups of
words relate to each other. Oxford defines semantic mapping as strategy involving
meaningful imagery, grouping, and associations (1990, p. 41). Scrivener (2005, p. 245)
describes this strategy as topic webs and adds that this way of recording lexical items may
reflect more accurately the way that we store lexical item networks in our brains-and may
therefore be more useful for students than the traditional lists. Nunan speaks about concept
mapping which shows the main ideas in a text in the form of a map (1999, p. 183).
22

Semantic mapping can be used as a brainstorming activity prior to an assignment,
organizing strategy during an assignment, or as a post- assessment activity.
Remembering a new word by using auditory and visual links is introduced by
Oxford (1990, p.41) as using keywords. She describes that the first step is to identify a
familiar word in ones own language that sounds like the new word (auditory link). The
second step is to generate an image of some relationship between the new word and a
familiar one (visual link) (1990, p. 41-42). She gives an example that the word Minnesota
can be remembered by the image of mini soda.
Remembering new words according to its sound, all of which create
meaningful and sound-based association between new words and already known material,
represents a broad strategy called Representing sounds in memory. This technique
involves linking a new word with a word in your or any other language that sounds like the
target word, such as English bill (request for payment) and Czech byl (he was). Another
helpful and very popular technique is using rhymes, songs or poems. It is very effective way
of how to remember new vocabulary, master pronunciation or learn grammar.

Reviewing well
As the name suggests, structured reviewing in spaced intervals is very important
strategy related to a process of repeating new information in order to store it in memory. All
stages of working with new information are important, but the initial stage of putting new
information into storage would not be effective without practicing, retrieving and using
phase. Language practice activities are undoubtedly the most important. Some teachers
spend too much time on input phase, but the real learning experience comes when students
try to use the language. Oxford (1990, p. 42) calls this strategy spiraling, because students
keep spiralling back in certain time intervals to the subject matter taught, and at the same
time learning new information. The goal is to become familiar with the information which
then becomes natural and automatic. A typical activity of a restricted output stage is drills.
Although some teachers consider drills old-fashioned and rarely use them, I honestly think
that students need to be able to automate the new knowledge. They need to practice the item
which they are trying to learn many times before they eventually start using it.

23

Employing action
There are two strategies described in this section. Using physical response (TPR)
appeal especially to young learners but can be also enjoyable for adult students. Some
military learners might feel embarrassed, considering the uniform and the age factor. TPR
involves acting out a new expression. The physical movement influences well the way how
the new language item is kept in memory.
Using mechanical techniques Oxford (1990, p. 43) introduces as a strategy which
involves using creative but tangible techniques, especially involving moving or changing
something which is concrete, in order to remember new target language information. An
example of such a technique is using flashcards which can be used as a tool for many
activities, such as definition game, description game, story-telling activities, guessing game,
etc.


Original source: Oxford, 1990, p.38

Cognitive strategies
As it has been already stated above, many methodologists have classed language
learning strategies in a different ways. Frequently, in many publications cognitive strategies
overlap with memory strategies. One group of linguists distinguishes memory strategies
from cognitive ones (Oxford 1990, p. 18-19), whereas the other group includes memory
Cognitive
strategies
Practicing (repeating,
formally practicing with
sounds and writing
systems, recognizing
formulas and patterns,
recombining, practicing
naturalistically)
Receiving and sending
messages (getting the
idea quickly, using
resources for receiving
and sending messages)
Analyzing and
reasoning (reasoning
deductively, analyzing
expressions, analyzing
contrastively,
translating)
Creating structure for
input and output
(taking notes,
summarizing,
highlighting)
24

strategies such as grouping, visualisation (imagery), or associating into cognitive section,
such as Nunan (1999, p. 183), Ellis and Sinclair (1991a, p. 152-153), or Ellis (2008, p. 77).
Cognitive strategies are fundamental in learning languages and are typically found to
be most popular among language students. As the name suggests, they refer to cognition,
which is the process of knowing, understanding, and learning something (Longman,
2005). They refer to the steps used in learning or problem-solving. These procedures and
strategies are used by students to perform tasks successfully. Although they vary from
repeating to analyzing and summarizing, they are unified by manipulation or transformation
technique of the target language by the student. Oxford (1990, p. 43) defines four sets of
cognitive strategies: practicing, receiving and sending messages, analyzing and reasoning,
and creating structure for input and output.
Practicing
Practicing has always played an important part in language learning and it is one of
the most effective cognitive strategies. It helps students to transfer knowledge from their
short-term to their long-term memories. Having committed a new knowledge or information
properly in memory is not possible without training. If students think about what they are
repeating and try to organize the new information in their heads, they have better chances of
remembering the subject matter. Nunan (1999, p. 184) defines practicing as doing
controlled exercises to improve knowledge and skills. Unfortunately, very often the
chances to practice in class are pushed aside by one student who recites while others sit
back. The aim of a teacher is to provide enough practice for all his/her learners in order to
reach acceptable proficiency, which requires a lot of practice time. Oxford (1990, p. 44)
offers following strategies reinforcing the student practice: repeating, formally practicing
with sounds and writing systems, recognizing and using formulas and patterns, recombining,
and practicing naturally. The most important strategy of the five practicing strategies is
definitely practicing naturally.
Saying or doing something over and over, listening to something several times,
rehearsing, or imitating a native speaker are strategies called repeating. The aim is to
practice new language information until students start using it automatically and naturally.
The more students come across with language, the more repeated encounters they have, and
consequently they have better chances of remembering new knowledge. Harmer points out
that just repeating something several times is not useful, the important factors are the lapses
in between (2007, p. 56). He suggests activities, such as re-formulating what has been said,
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re-using words and grammar, paraphrasing, which provokes re-structuring of noticed
language.
Even though strategy of repeating sounds might not seem very creative, Oxford
(1990, p. 70-71) suggests some appealing ways, which can improve all four language skills.
One of these strategies is repeated listening to native speakers or new language on a tape
or record, preferably with the silent rehearsal. Another way is reading a passage several
times for different purposes followed by review, yet another is imitation of native speakers
which can be used in speaking and writing. All these strategies are very useful for all
learners, especially for adult students. Learners can improve their use of structure,
pronunciation, vocabulary, intonation, idioms, and style.
The next strategy introduced in cognitive section is more focused on perception of
sounds (pronunciation, stress and intonation) rather than on meaning and comprehension. It
is a strategy called formally practicing with sounds and writing system. Oxford (1990, p.
71-72) explains that this technique is mostly used while doing listening exercises purely
through perception (purely audio speech) in order to keep visual and conceptual clues to
minimum. Ellis and Sinclair (1991a, p. 152-153) include written repetition into this section
of strategies where students are supposed to imitate a language model several times in order
to aid retention and production.
Recognizing and using formulas and patterns focuses on using routine formulas,
which are single and unanalyzed units such as Hello, how are you?, and unanalyzed
patterns, which have at least one slot to be filled, such as Im fine,_______ . These
strategies are widely used in different textbooks.
Oxford (1990, p. 45) describes the strategy of combining known elements in new
ways to produce a longer sequence, such as linking one word or phrase with another into a
whole sentence. It is known as a strategy of recombining.
Practicing naturalistically is an effective and most important cognitive strategy
which trains students to use real language in natural and realistic settings, either inside or
outside the classroom. The emphasis is given to the practice with an authentic material
where learners have to deal with written text and speech which is hard for them to
understand. They miss quite a few words but they are still able to extract the general
meaning. Harmer defines authentic materials as language where no concessions are made
to foreign speakers. This is normal, natural language used by native or competent speakers
of a language (2007, p. 272). Activities such as participating in conversations, listening to
authentic speech, reading English books and articles, writing in target language, watching
26

English films, listening to English songs, using the internet significantly contribute to the
use of language for actual communication. Above all, they make the course more practical
and realistic, and develop the fundamental aim of learning language, communicative
competence.
Nunan (1999, p. 212) strongly supports the use of authentic data from the very
beginning of a course. He suggests activities such as listening to extracts from radio and
television, public broadcasting announcements, conversations and discussions, telephone
conversations, voice mail, etc. He considers essential to expose students to authentic
materials for several reasons: Firstly he explains that the non-authentic materials lack
negotiation of meaning and linguistic features, such as overlaps, hesitations, repetition,
clarification, and so on. Secondly, he says that using authentic sources prepare students for
genuine conversations and lead to greater interest and variety in the material that learners
deal with. Scrivener states that authentic exposure promotes noticing and is widely used in
task-based learning (2005, p. 116-117).
On the other hand, authentic materials can be extremely de-motivating for students
since they are hard to understand and depend on proficiency, and consequently students
experience failure. In my opinion, a teacher should not press students to deal with a too hard
task, but instead he/she should let students read and listen to things they can understand and
choose such tasks that help students to understand the language better. For beginners, the
activities and tasks may be simplified, but not in unnatural way.
In STANAG courses, students have the best possibility to practice speaking
naturally, especially with native speakers, or through role-plays, discussions, and speaking
games. Listening in our courses is realized mainly through related material to the ALC
textbooks and supplementary textbooks. However, there are other possibilities to implement
authentic and untraditional sources into lessons more often, especially with the technology
development. Students can listen to a wide range of authentic material according to their
selection, watch films, listen to the songs, radio stations, listen to the sources on the internet,
use web-quest, etc. Turning the topic to reading skills, there are many possibilities for our
students to read authentic texts. They can either use the school library or they read texts
which are in the scope of the language lessons, or they can work with the internet and read
various sources which pique their interest. Lesson reading material should be carefully
chosen by a teacher in order to attract students attention and their drive to continue and
27

finish the reading after the lesson. Writing skill can be developed through writing letters, e-
mails, essays, or while performing tasks and projects.

Receiving and sending messages
There are two strategies discussed in this section. First, getting the idea quickly,
and second using resources for receiving and sending messages. The former one uses two
specific strategies for extracting ideas, while the latter one involves using a variety of
resources for understanding and producing meaning. No doubt, these strategies are useful
since some students have difficulties with reading skills and complain that they need a
dictionary all the time, or it takes them too long to go through a text and the interest of the
subject matter is soon lost. In order to make students better readers, they should be aware of
different strategies and reading techniques which can show them that it is not vital to
understand every word, but often skimming and scanning, or other reading techniques can
take place.
The technique of getting the idea quickly uses skimming, often called reading or
listening for gist (general idea), which is a fast technique to determine the main ideas, topic,
overall theme, etc. Also scanning is a strategy involving fast reading, where students are
supposed to find a specific point or detail, such as names, address, dates, etc. This strategy
helps learners understand what they hear or read in English language. With the growth of
internet technology, these techniques can be done in realistic and more enjoyable ways.
Frequently, these techniques are in the content of various textbooks.
The last strategy in the section of receiving and sending messages is using recourses
for receiving and sending messages, which relates to the usage of printed and non-printed
resources in order to understand incoming messages or producing outgoing messages. An
example of a recourse which should be widely used by learners is definitely a dictionary.
Harmer distinguishes between reference and production dictionaries. He explains that: A
reference dictionary is one where a student looks up a word to see what meanings it has,
how it is used and the way it is spelt and pronounced. On the other hand, production
dictionaries are used the other way around: [] starting with a meaning they wish to
express and looking for the word that expresses it (2007, p. 239). In short, reference
dictionaries are packed with much information about a target word, and in contrast,
production dictionaries allow students to find new words and find out the meaning of what
28

is heard or read. Except dictionaries, CD-ROMs, grammar summaries, vocabulary
overviews can be helpful for developing this strategy. Preferably, learners master this
technique and work independently.

Analyzing and reasoning
This section includes a set of five strategies concerning logical analyzes and
reasoning which can be applied to various target language skills. Adult learners tend to
create general rules when new information is available, try to find solution to a problem by
thinking of all the possibilities. Therefore, these strategies are allied to them: reasoning
deductively, analyzing expressions, analyzing contrastively, translating and transferring.
The strategy of reasoning deductively relates to process from general to specific,
which means using general rules and applying them to new target language situations.
Students are given explanations or grammar rules in order to understand a particular
situation, construct, or translate a piece of information. It is opposed to inductive reasoning.
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English explains the term analyze as to
examine or think about something carefully, in order to understand it (1990). What is
characteristic for a strategy called analyzing expressions is the determination of meaning of
a new expression by breaking it down into fragments, and using the meanings of various
parts in order to guess the meaning of the whole expression. Students definitely become
more confident if they manage to discover the meaning of a new expression by themselves.
Analyzing contrastively is a strategy in which learners compare the elements (such
as sounds, vocabulary, or grammar) of the new language with elements of students own
language in order to determine similarities and differences. Example of this strategy can be
the word cream which students understand immediately, because it corresponds to Czech
word krem. There are a few other words similar in both, Czech and English, such as sister-
sestra, brother-bratr, mother-matka, salad-salat, pudding-puding, yogurt-jogurt, restaurant-
restaurace, etc., or even names, like Anna, Marie, David, Filip-Philip, and so on. However,
as Oxford (1990, p. 84) reminds, teachers should warn their students to beware of false
friends which are words that sound or look similar in both languages, but have different
meanings, such as bagr in Czech is a large machine that digs and moves earth, and bugger
in English is an offensive word for someone who is very annoying or unpleasant.
29

The strategy of translating can be helpful especially in early stages of language
learning since it makes things explicit for learners. However, as Oxford (1990, p. 84)
stresses word-to word translation should be avoided. Harmer (2007, p. 133) sees some
benefits in using mother tongue in a language classroom. First, he points out that: It is
useful for students to notice differences between their L1 and the target language. It will
help learners understand certain language matters, explain things that are not clear, explain
errors, or it can also be effective way of reviewing how well learners have understood the
subject matter at the end of each unit. Further, he explains that using L1 has a positive effect
on group dynamics- students can give ongoing feedback about the course.
Oxford (1990, p.85) describes transferring as a strategy which means directly
applying previous knowledge to facilitate new knowledge in target language. She gives an
example of transferring where a student with hearing the expression of weekend (vikend)
correctly knows through transfer that it means the same as in Czech hezky vikend (Have a
good weekend).

Creating structure for input and output
Strategies that are trying to help students structure and organize the new language
input into manageable shape are: taking notes, summarizing, and highlighting. These
strategies are essential for both comprehension and production in the target language.
Taking notes, as the term suggests, this strategy involves writing down the main
idea or specific points in students own words. Ellis and Sinclair (1991a, p. 152) name this
strategy as noting down, and define it as writing down important items as they occur.
However, this strategy is highly personal, therefore, there is no right way of practicing it.
Some notes that students take are likely to be well organized, some chaotic. Yet even those
notes that seem chaotic can be highly effective for the person who took them. This suggests
that instead of telling students how to take notes, we should offer them various examples to
choose from, such as a semantic mapping, point by point, diagrams, etc.
The strategy of summarizing involves putting the main ideas into own words,
including the important points only. It is a beneficial technique, especially for beginners,
since students cover the main points succinctly and it helps them to recapitulate the main
facts. Nunan (1999, p. 184) includes this strategy into linguistic section and defines it as:
Picking out and presenting the major points in a text in summary form. This form does not
30

have to be only in spoken or written form, easy way of how to summarize subject matter can
be through depicting pictures. Summarizing also works well as a test-preparing strategy.
Highlighting is the last of the three strategies included in this section. Oxford (1990,
p. 47) presents this strategy as using a variety of emphasis techniques (such as underlining,
starring, or color-coding) to focus on important information in a passage. This strategy is
also used to emphasize main ideas and supporting details to help students to improve the
organization of their writing.
Based on the DLI research into learning strategies being used on STANAG courses,
of the five strategies under investigation, the compensation and metacognitive strategies
were the most developed. Affective strategies have not been included into the questionnaire.
Therefore, activities and tasks concerning these sections were not included into the strategy
training, and consequently they are just briefly introduced in this part of work.

Compensational strategies
Another section of language learning strategies is named compensational strategies,
and as the name suggests, they enable learners to understand and use the new language even
with incidental lack of knowledge, unknown word, or missing information. These strategies
serve learners to overcome these language gaps and help them to use the new language for
both, comprehension and production. Oxford points out that these techniques are intended
to make up for an inadequate repertoire of grammar, and especially, of vocabulary (1990,
p. 47).
Oxford (1990, p. 48) distinguishes ten compensational strategies forming two sets:
(1) Guessing Intelligently in Listening and Reading, and (2) Overcoming Limitations in
Speaking and Writing.
Guessing strategies entail using variety of linguistic and non-linguistic clues to
guess the meaning. Generally, good language learners try to guess unknown expressions in a
large extend, whereas less adept learners try to look up every word into a dictionary.
Eight strategies used in this set dedicate to the question How to overcome
limitations in speaking and writing. Some of the strategies are determined solely for
speaking, some can be used for writing as well: using linguistic clues, using other clues,
switching to the mother tongue, getting help, using mime or gesture, avoiding
31

communication partially and totally, selecting the topic, adjusting or approximating the
message, coining words, and using a circumlocution or synonym.


Indirect strategies
As the term suggests, indirect strategies promote learning languages in an indirect
way. They are not directly involved with the target language but they manage and contribute
to language learning. Both, direct and indirect strategies are interconnected and provide
support for each other. Oxford (1990, p. 15) likens indirect strategies to the Director of the
play who serves a host of functions, like focusing, organizing, guiding, checking,
correcting, coaching, encouraging, and cheering the Performer (direct strategies). The
Director is an internal guide and support to the Performer. This section is made of
metacognitive, affective, and social strategies.

Metacognitive strategies
Metacognitive strategies are regarded as very important in successful learning.
Oxford explains that it is a set of strategies is used to oversee, regulate or self-direct
language learning, and they are intended to help learners to control and coordinate their own
learning process by the use of centring, arranging, planning, prioritising and evaluating
students learning (Oxford, p. 136). Thus, they relate to everything that deals with learners
control of his/her own learning. Ellis and Sinclair (1991a, p. 151) emphasise that
metacognitive strategies are those which are more generalized, unlike cognitive ones which
are more task specific. Moreover, memory strategies are definitely more effective when they
are supported by metacognitive strategies.
Language learners are often overwhelmed by too many unfamiliar words, confusing
spelling, difficult grammatical rules, etc. With this novelty many students, and especially
beginners, lose the track and focus on the language. Using metacognitive strategies can give
students ideas of how to arrange and plan their learning and overcome these difficulties.
Oxford (1990, p. 136) uses an acronym to remember this strategy set: Metacognitive
strategies make language learner more CAPE-able. She distinguishes three strategy sets: C
stands for Centering your learning, A stands for Arranging and planning your learning, P
stands for Planning your learning, and E means Evaluating your learning.
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A group called centering your learning offers three strategies that aid students to pay
attention and devote students energy to language tasks, activities, skills, or materials. These
are: overviewing and linking with already known material, paying attention and delaying
speech production to focus on listening.
Arranging and planning your learning is another set of six strategies, all of which
help learners organize and plan the language learning in order to get the most out of
language learning. These strategies refer to many areas: finding out about language learning,
organizing, setting goals and objectives, identifying the purpose of a language task, planning
for a language task, and seeking practice opportunities.
Two strategies are included in a group called evaluating your learning. As the
name suggest, they help students in checking their language performance.
Self-monitoring- involves noticing and learning from errors
Self-evaluating- concern evaluating the overall process.


Affective strategies
Language learning can be frustrating in some ways and can cause emotional
difficulties. A good language student is more or less conscious of these emotional problems.
He/she tries to create associations of positive affect towards learning as well as towards the
foreign language and its speakers. Oxford emphasises that this set of strategies develop the
self-confidence and perseverance needed for learners to involve themselves actively in
language learning (1990, p. 8). Consequently, affective strategies are important for
attaining communicative competence, helping students face up to and overcome possible
emotional difficulties.
Majority of adult learners know how to control their negative emotions. On the other
hand, all learners need positive attitudes and emotions to make language learning effective.
Among affective strategies belong: Lowering your anxiety (using progressive relaxation,
using music, using laughter), encouraging yourself (making positive statements, taking
risks wisely, rewarding yourself), ad taking your emotional temperature (listening to your
body, using a checklist, writing a language learning diary, and discussing your feelings with
someone else).

33

Social strategies
Social strategies are indirect strategies since they contribute indirectly to learning
and do not lead directly to the acquiring, storing, and retrieving of language. As the name
suggests, these strategies relate with social activities, interaction, or empathetic
understanding. They are important within the field of communicative competence and
include activities in which students are exposed to possibilities to practise their knowledge.
Ellis (2008, p. 77) presents social/affective strategies in his strategy classification. Similarly,
Ellis and Sinclair (1991a, p. 154) include strategies, such as negotiation, resourcing, role-
playing into a social strategy group.
A. Asking questions
Asking for clarification and verification
Asking for correction
B. Cooperating with others
Cooperating with peers
Cooperating with proficient users of the new language
C. Empathising with others
Developing cultural understanding
Becoming aware of others thoughts and feelings

To conclude all that has been said about language learning strategies is that the
knowledge of learning strategies is not automatic. Learning strategies need to be trained and
students need time to experiment with different strategies in order to reach more effective
learning. Another issue to be investigated is a learner in relation to language learning
strategies, and defining a good learner.

Learners in Relation to Language Learning Strategies
Certainly, students are the central objective in language teaching. It is them who
teachers prepare the lessons for, and it is them who the course material is written for, but what
do learners expect from language classes? Ellis and Sinclair (1991a, p. 8) describe that
learners have their individual expectations concerning language learning, their teachers role,
and their own roles. These expectations are very often resulting from the past learning
experience and learners cultural background.
34

Although I taught quite a few military courses with same course objectives, materials
or students age, the classes were quite different. The difference has to do with interpersonal
and social factors that have developed within each class (in STANAG courses relating also to
a rank position in military career), different teacher and learner expectations about the nature
of learning process, attitudes, values, and individual personalities. Nunan (1999, p. 156)
emphasises that students come to class with different expectations, and it is up to the teacher
to create a climate in which different role expectations are articulated to the students and
accepted by them.
In this chapter my concern lays on the learners expectations, and their roles in
language class in relation to language learning strategies. I see the learner from the
perspective of communicative language teaching which is implicit in language learning.
Majority of language learning strategies are oriented towards students acquisition of
communicative competence. This aim requires development of communicative skills in
interaction among students. Oxford (1990, p. 8) defines features of language learning
strategies dealing with learners, she says these strategies:
1) allow learners to become more self-directed;
2) contribute to the main goal, communicative competence;
3) involve many aspects of the learner, not just cognitive.
Nunan (1999, p. 10) shares similar view as Oxford, and adds that: The notion that
different learners have different communicative requirements, and that these ought to be
reflected, both in the context of the curriculum and learning process (how it is taught), was
also reinforced by an ideological shift in focus away from the teacher towards the learner.
Consequently, the next step in the development of a learner-centered classroom is to train
learners to identify their own learning styles and strategies.
Another interesting view into LLS is presented by Ellis and Sinclair who claim that a
successful language learner uses more strategies than the unsuccessful one. They summarize
a general characteristic of a good learner into seven categories: good language learners are
self aware, inquisitive and tolerant, self-critical, realistic, willing to experiment, actively
involved, and organized (Ellis and Sinclair, 1991a, p. 6). Although this is very interesting
insight into what might make a good learner, it is very general view because learners differ
from each other. As an example, Leaver, Ehrman, and Shekhtman explain that there is a
close relationship between styles and strategies: Individuals with one set of styles
35

(preferences) probably use very different strategies from those with another set of styles
(2005, p. 65). For example, a preference for reading over talking can indicate a visual style
(rather than auditory). In short, although the relationship between LLS and the students
proficiency is clear (more advanced students use a greater variety of LLS), students should
be encouraged to discover what works best for them as individuals.
Learners need to become familiar with the techniques which meet their needs, and if
learners feel uncomfortably in any environment or doubt about their own learning approach,
then it surely has a negative impact on their motivation and the quality of their learning.
Ellis and Sinclair (1991a, p. 5-6) associate with this view and say that:Each learner
develops strategies and techniques which suit his or her individual needs and personality
and implements these in different ways.
Nevertheless, just teaching new strategies to learners will not achieve much unless
learners begin to want bigger responsibility for their learning. Since adult learners are
mature enough to take on the responsibility for their learning and they are the centre of my
attention, it may be helpful to examine this age group in the following chapter.

Adult Learners
This chapter will try to answer what it concerns to teach adult learners. I try to depict
the advantages and problematic areas of teaching in adult classes. Comparing adult learners to
younger students, there are some differences. Teaching adult learners may seem as problem-
free process, but even adults have many characteristics which can make learning difficult.
Many students returning to STANAG course to learn English have come to class with
their past school experience. Concerning the languages, they previously used to concentrate
on studying grammar, structures, word to word translation, or textbook mechanical drills with
just slim opportunities to use the language as a means of communication. Unfortunately, ALC
course books are structured in very similar way.
I noticed that many students find it difficult to change their learning style into student-
centred learning, thus interactive and communicative activities. They expect to be traditional
students, as they used to be in past, who were always told exactly what, how and when to do
things. It is hard to re-program such students, because they do not see the point of pair or
group work, games, tasks, sophisticated activities, and above all, they prefer teacher-front
tutoring. They rely entirely on the teacher and expect him/her to be in control of learning
process all the time. Harmer (2007, p. 85) confirms that: Adult previous learning experiences
36

may have predisposed them to one particular methodological style which makes them
uncomfortable with unfamiliar teaching patterns. Conversely, they may be hostile to certain
teaching and learning activities which replicate the teaching they received earlier in their
educational career.
Hopefully, though, teachers of adult learners take all these factors into consideration.
They need to be able to modify the learning process, so that it would be suitable for their
students. They need to try to minimize the bad effects of past learning experiences, reduce
the fear of failure by offering achievable activities, and listen to the students preferences
and concerns.
Admittedly, many adult learners have usually had a few attempts to learn language,
and many of them given up each time. Why do adult learners leave their learning effort so
easily? Perhaps they set themselves unrealistic aims, and consequently they are unhappy with
the progress they make. They may be dissatisfied with the teacher, course material, or they
find the course difficult. Many older students worry that their intellectual powers may be
diminishing with age (Harmer, 2007, p. 85). This, combined with traditional methodology
often leads to de-motivation, frustration and ineffective learning.
Nunan (1999, p. 15) underpins the practice of innovating adult learning by systematic
sensitizing and gradual involvement of learners into process underlying their learning, as well
as taking greater responsibility for their learning. Students need to use multiple ways of
studying in order to find out how to learn through discovering various learning strategies, so
that they can become better learners. Harmer (2007, p. 85) highlights the importance to
involve adults life experience in the learning process which can be done by incorporating
various alternative methods, such as projects, tasks, research, simulating of real-life situations,
etc, or implementing a whole range of learning strategies into the learning process.
Turning to the topic of advantages of teaching adults, they have a wide range of life
experiences, therefore the lessons are rich in topics (as mentioned above in issue 10). Unlike
young learners, adults are aware of the achievement they want to reach. Also, adult learners,
and especially military students, are well disciplined and prepared to work, in spite of tedious
lessons or boring materials. Adults are also prepared to persevere in their activity for a longer
period than youngsters, even if too much boredom can lead to de-motivation. Next, the range
of activities can be broader as adult thinking is on higher level. They are able to think in an
abstract way, and therefore to use more sophisticated activities.
37

Next chapter is devoted to the role of instructional materials used in STANAG
courses with regard to communicative teaching methodology.

The role of instructional materials in STANAG courses
Turning to the point of the way military courses are taught nowadays, teaching style
and favourite methods of a teacher depend on the level of his/her interest for language
teaching process which can be further developed by inner or outer factors. Definitely,
language should be learned actively and creatively so that it can be used for production.
Students need to acquire courage to use the target language as well as to get the essential
impetus and practice in the classroom. They should be able to apply in real life what they
have been taught in the classroom.
Using some alternative methods, such as projects, TBL, communicative language teaching,
etc., can be useful on STANAG courses since students are full-time learners with broad range
of hobbies and interests who have access to a wide range of material and resources which they
can reflect into their tasks completion. Also motivation plays an important part in learning
process since learning means overcoming obstacles and sedulity.
One of the important elements of teaching is the teachers attempt to try to engage
students with the content of a textbook. This implies arousing the students interest in a topic,
making sure that the material is clear to the learners, making sure there is variety of activities
developing the subject matter being taught, and last but not least textbooks can offer activities
aimed at training language learning strategies which can help students to manage a subject
matter more easily and more effectively.
This chapter debates the question of the instructional materials which are being used in
English language military courses. I decided to describe general features of the main teaching
material in STANAG courses which is the ALC course book. I will explore grammar,
vocabulary, reading, listening, speaking, writing, function, and communicative competence
aims of the book.
Grammar grammar structures are initially introduced in highlighted boxes,
accompanied by example sentences. It is followed by oral or written drills,
completion and accuracy exercises. Grammar patterns are taught stepwise, new
structures extend those already met before. Book quizzes at the end of each book
provide an easy means of revising key grammar.
38

Vocabulary each chapter is introduced by a list of English words to be learned.
They are divided according to verbs, nouns, phrasal verbs, idioms, expressions,
prefixes, suffixes, and others. Further, words are presented in context of a rather
boring article, new words are underlined, students repeat. Vocabulary is learned in
repetition drills, completion exercises, and dialogues in pairs.
Reading- specially written dialogues, only few short texts. It lacks authentic texts.
The aims of reading- skimming, scanning, silent reading, summarizing, inference.
Listening- special language laboratory reinforcing books can be used to improve
listening skills where two types of listening exercises occur: drills and
comprehension (gist + detail information) exercises.
Speaking- chorus drills, dialogues in pairs, fluency in the later stages, role plays.
Pronunciation exercises deal with sounds, stress, and intonation.
Writing- the books are based on the fact that adults are used to accept information
in written form. That is why completion exercises are widely used thorough the
course books, also writing summaries, paragraphs, and letter writing skills are built
up gradually.
Function- is being taught through dialogues to be read and practiced.
The aims of the course book- The book is to prepare for the book quiz at the end of
each book (week), so that the learners are familiar with the format of the exam.
There is emphasis on vocabulary, grammar, the four skills, and function. Fluency
is developed through dialogue exercises. Aim is to make students understand the
grammar, memorize the vocabulary, be able to understand spoken language, and
succeed in book quizzes.
A few examples of what teachers in our department think about ALC textbooks are
added to the entire overview:
ALC books are good in the fact that it is a complete course and easy to follow for a
teacher, however they are out of date and quite boring for the students. As a teacher I find
they restrict my imagination in teaching if I stick to the books.
This course book gives too little different activities, there are only few exercises which
are repeated over and over, therefore Im forced to go and copy some additional material
from other sources.
Im happy with the textbook. I dont think teachers and students in military courses
need to use much of the interactive activities. A pair work or group work just compounds
mistakes most of the time. It is job creation which requires a great deal of effort and time. As
39

more and more technology is being introduced to the classroom, the modern activities will
rapidly disappear along with the black board. The only reason it is used and fronted is
because of middle management across the world today; those brought up on the trendy
teaching practices of the late 1970s.
I consider the textbook useful if that is what the institutions continue to want. The
educationalists who wrote (published) them will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Unfortunately, until BILC
2
is brought under the control of people who know what NATO
needs, 6001 Stanag will remain a massive waste of resources.
There are different opinions about ALC course books. Positive views can be
summarized into these points: it is a complete course which is easy to follow for a teacher,
lesson plans and preparation are not time-consuming for the teacher, there is loads of function
practice, and last but not least there is a proper revision lesson at the end of each book.
However, there are also low opinions about the book, such as: they are out of date,
in black and white layout, there is little communicative practice, lack of project work or tasks,
there is little fluency practice, exercises very often repeat throughout the books, and also they
are quite boring for students. Some teachers use the course book as the be-all and end-all, and
some as a kind of springboard rather than as a manual which would be slavishly followed.
They make effort and supplement additional materials, cut out, omit, or replace some parts in
order to change the lesson to make it more appropriate for learners. Of course, using the
course book appropriately grows with practice and experience.
It is difficult to categorise because the textbooks vary widely, but just to simplify, I
divided the textbooks into two broad categories. The first is traditional, the second is
communicative. I will introduce each of them in detail: (For the distinction I will stick to
Neville Grants description in his book Making the most of your Textbook, 1987, pages 12 to
14, shortened).

(1) Traditional textbooks
The main feature is that these types of books try to let the students learn the language
as a system. The authors hope that once students learned the system, they will be ready to use
it for speaking. There is a tendency to emphasize structures, grammatical patterns, they focus
on reading and writing activities, and on accuracy.
(2) Communicative textbooks

2
BILC (Bureau for International Language Co-operation) was established in 1976. It adopted American
language descriptions for language assessment under the name of STANAG (Standardized Agreement) 6001.
40

These textbooks try to create opportunities for using the language in the classroom
before using it in real life. The characteristics of such books are following:
- they emphasise the communicative function of the language, not just forms;
- they try to reflect students needs and interests;
- they emphasize skills in using the language, these are activity-based skills
- they reflect the authentic language of everyday life
- they encourage work in groups and pairs
- they emphasise fluency, not just accuracy.
As it was mentioned in previous chapters, the main aim of learning language is to gain
communicative competence as it is characterized in aims of the communicative textbooks.
Nevertheless, there are some voices against. What are the foremost objections of these
teachers and educationalists?
They complain that such textbooks lack system or proper explanation of grammar
rules, also provide little grammar drill and practice. Ellis (2008, p. 73) studied the question of
the way we learn foreign language, and he says: Second language acquisition is
characterized by a natural sequence of development (i.e. there are certain broad stages that
pass through), but the order of development varies in details (i.e. some steps are left out, or
specific morphological features are learnt in a different order). Although various details may
differ in different textbooks, logical progression helps students to acquire their knowledge.
Learners usually accept issues they have been taught as learned after they have completely
understood and practiced them thoroughly. Teachers, then, see the way to understanding in
detailed instructions, explanations, rules, and tables. Surely, tables are helpful, but why
deprive learners of the opportunity to play with the language and try to find the rules
themselves?
Teachers in military courses use textbooks including both, communicative and
traditional aspects. According to the characteristics given in the textbook review, I shall
consider ALC course books following the traditional aspects more (restricting teachers
creativity, tasks and exercises repeat throughout the books, little communicative and fluency
practice, they lack tasks or project work, etc.) There is need for STANAG teachers to grasp
some communicative methodology so that the textbooks are fully used. In the practical part of
this thesis, I will try to suggest variety of activities and promote ALC course books by
incorporating learning strategies in order to help students advice on how to learn techniques.
How strategies can be implemented into the course material is presented in one of the
practical part sections of this thesis.
41

PRACTICAL PART

Introduction

In order to establish whether language learning strategies have influence on learning
in military courses, the next part of thesis focuses on the implementation of learning
strategies into NATOs English Language Curriculum (STANAG 6001). The main interest
in the above, centres around the process of acquiring a foreign language, and especially the
process that comes after an explanation of the subject matter. How, for example, do students
remember new vocabulary? How can a new grammar structure become integrated into a
students existing grammar bank? And more over, is it possible to make it fun?
Students on STANAG courses learn the language for a specific military purpose, and
this pre-determines the choice of the American Language Course textbooks. However,
teachers are the ones who present the textbooks and who decide, with regards to learning
process, upon the methodology. Decisions to improve teaching through the consideration of
factors which affect language learning and the research of learning strategies best suited to
course participants were undertaken in answering the question above.
Intensive STANAG courses last for six months, a relatively short period to master
the language required for a STANAG examination. A knowledge of various strategies,
therefore, can help students take a greater control over their learning, and thus help learners
to gain a degree of independence for their future studies, as well as contribute to the
development of their communicative competence. For some military students, learning
English is a completely new experience, and a particularly demanding one, especially for
adult learners. This is compounded by the fact that learners differ quite widely in their
preference and adaptation to styles of learning. Some students like to have written texts in
front of them and some like to be lectured in grammatical rules. Others do not like
grammatical rules and prefer to use their common sense and favour a more communicative
approach and working out the rules for themselves. However, it is not every student that is
able to decide upon which strategies work best for them and it is for this reason that strategy
training is an effective stimulus to learning. I consider necessary to help learners to provide
enough practice on how to learn techniques and make them familiar with the strategies that
are beneficial for managing their own learning.
42

Background Research
I have been teaching at the Defence Language Institute for six years. At the present, I
am on maternity leave, therefore I was little limited in my research. Nevertheless, I arranged
a time schedule with my work management and taught in STANAG level 2 classes where I
collected data for my research. In the next chapter I will introduce my work place and
language education in STANAG courses.

STANAG Course Specifications
The Defence Language Institute is a language centre located at the Military
Academy in Vyskov where the students study STANAG 6001
3
in order to complete the
language examination. STANAG courses and tests are set for the following languages:
English, German, French and Russian. The test requirements for all 4 STANAG levels are
laid out in the theoretical part of this thesis.
The main language taught at DLI Vyskov is English (levels 2 and 3). The teaching
groups are comprised of 8 to 12 students per class, with 30 teaching hours per week on
average. The following facilities are available to assist with teaching and studying:
headphones, a library of foreign languages, self access centre with internet computing
technology, and teacher-student consultation.
Besides Czech language teachers, the staff include native speakers from England,
America, France, and Austria. The difference between teaching the two most common types
of STANAG courses is, that level 2 is taught mainly by Czech language teachers with
support from native speakers, whereas level 3 is taught mainly by native speakers to focus
on utterance, fluency and conversational practice.
The main teaching materials used in the English language courses are the ALC
books (1 to 34) supplemented by various text books, such as: Campaign, Headway series,
Cravens Listening, Speaking, Reading Extra, Active Listening, Active Listening Extra,
PET and others. Each of the ALC course books are designed to be completed in one week.
Each book finishes with a weekly book quiz which is completed on Friday and focused on
the week subject matter taught.

3
NATO standardized agreement for languages
43

There are four types of courses that students can attend: intensive, combined, enhancement
and terminology. I will introduce each of them individually:
- The Intensive Course is designed for a 6 month period (500 hours) and is taught in
range from 4 to 7 lessons every day.
- The Combined Course is designed for students who cannot be released from their
work place for the Intensive Course and attend one week a month instead over a
period of 10-months.
- The Enhancement Course is designed for students of previous courses who have not
achieved their primary goal and require more time for revision prior to sitting a retest
or deploying on a special task.
- The Terminology Course focuses on military terminology particular to NATO
countries and is aimed at professional servicemen who are due to deploy on
operational tours.
Candidates applying for mission posts and service abroad must accomplish a predetermined
level of the STANAG test prior to their deployment. The test also influences a soldiers rank
and evaluation within the Army.
Participants
Forty seven Intensive Level 2 students participated in the questionnaire to gather the
data on teaching strategies being used in STANAG classes. Following this, a class with 11
students was trained in various strategies to enrich the process of language learning. The
group was a mixture of professional soldiers of various ranks, aged from 25 to 55.

Aims and Objectives of the Research
The primary objective of this research was not only to develop and introduce relevant
learning strategies but to judge their value from the perspective of the students. In pursuit of
this, the following research questions were posed:
(1) Whether and how is the teaching of STANAG courses influenced by the
implementation of language learning strategies;

(2) What is the proportion of learning strategies being used by participants on STANAG
courses;
44

The research was carried out in three directions: (1) finding out which learning
strategies are currently used in STANAG classes and what preferences students have; (2)
training of the learning strategies suitable for adult learners based on military materials; (3)
gaining feedback and evaluating how effective the training had been.


Hypotheses

Three basic hypothesis were formulated to back up the research subject.
H 1: Training of cognitive strategies would be more beneficial to military students, owing
to the fact that soldiers need to be able to fully understand and clearly communicate with
their counter parts in potentially dangerous situations.
H2: The implementation of language learning strategies into STANAG course and their
training would positively influence the learning process and develop students
communicative competence.
H3: Language education enhanced with new strategies and techniques would offer new
possibilities and ideas for learners and advance their language skills on military courses.

Methodology

This chapter details the combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology
employed in the study. At first, quantitative research was used (a questionnaire) to collect
data concerning the students preferences with regards to learning strategies used in
STANAG courses. Those strategies that appeared to be least developed and those that were
considered suitable for adult learners then followed. A qualitative method was then
employed and students were interviewed on how effective the whole strategy training had
been. Each method is described in detail in the following subchapters.
The initial phase of the research methodology (the questionnaire) was carried out in
March 2010. A questionnaire was used because it enables students to reflect on their own
learning processes.
45

The aim of this phase was to:
- gain information on the procedures and techniques that are used and applied by
students.
- find out learner preferences in relation to learning techniques, tasks and activities
- find out whether students on STANAG courses give priority to teaching methods
that are void of strategy training.
The questionnaire was distributed to 47 students. As the field of research was quite broad,
the questionnaire was divided into two parts and, to be fully understood, performed in
Czech. The two parts are as follows:
a) A Comparative Questionnaire of Current and Preferred Learning Techniques:
This part contained five open-ended questions dealing with teaching-learning procedures
being used by STANAG course participants and their methodological preferences. The aim
was to find out activities which students enjoy the most, and the difficulties they face while
learning English.
b) Foreign Language Learning Strategy Questionnaire:
This part of the questionnaire contained 80 multiple choice questions. It was inspired by
Vlckova and Prikrylovas Foreign Language Learning Strategy Questionnaire for
Comprehensive School published on the National Institution of Technical and Vocational
Education (NUOV website, 2002). The main objective of this questionnaire was to find out
the procedures students use while learning languages. The questionnaire was also useful for
students themselves, they gain information on their own learning strategies which they can
then improve upon and apply while managing their own learning.
Dealing with a similar research issue was R. Vecerkova (2010) from the Faculty of
Education at Masaryk University in Brno who wrote a thesis aimed at preparing and testing
a tool for assessing foreign language learning strategies of 6
th
grade elementary school.
Some questions used in this research were similar to the questionnaire completed at the DLI.
The second phase of research stemmed from the needs of the Ministry of Defence to
prepare students for the STANAG examination in a very short time (maximum 500 hours).
Based on the results of the questionnaire, prominence was placed on training those strategies
that were the least developed and least used by students and carried out through activities
46

and tasks concentrating on a particular strategy. The strategies and techniques developing
important skills for passing STANAG examinations were also included.
The last phase of the research was based on interviews with students. The principal
aim was to find data about their attitude to the strategy training and the development of
possible new learning techniques for military course participants. Emphasis was also placed
on gathering information on the usefulness of strategy training for adult learners. At the end
of the training, seven randomly chosen students were interviewed individually and asked
questions relating to their opinion on the effect of the whole process.
Research Assessment
Questionnaire Analysis:
First Section of the Questionnaire
The introductory part of the questionnaire contains five general questions. It is aimed
at adult learners, their preferences and their use of learning strategies while acquiring a
foreign language. Forty seven STANAG course participants completed both parts of the
questionnaire. Owing to the length of the questionnaire it was divided into two lessons. For
a full version of the first part of questionnaire see Appendix 2.
Prior to debating the questionnaire, a table was made which illustrated the average
age of the participants who completed the questionnaire.
Graph No. 1)
Age chart
25-30
30-35
35-40
40-45
45-50
50-51

This table represents the average age of STANAG course participants. It shows that
most students were between the age of 30-40, followed by learners aged 40-45. The next
47

group accounts 45-50 year old students, and the smallest number represents the learners who
ranged from 25-30 and 50-51.
Question 1.
Evaluate the following classroom activities for learning English (1-I like it, 2- I like it
sometimes, 3- I do not like it).
Activities: drilling exercises; listening tasks; listening to native speakers, TV, films or radio;
working with textbooks; reading all sorts of printed materials, reading aloud; memorizing
grammatical rules; doing grammar exercises; practicing conversations; projects; games and
songs; and working on computers.
Graph No. 2)

Question 1 provides information on the popularity of individual activities. It was
discovered that almost all students enjoy listening to native speakers (90%), films, TV,
games and songs (92%), also working on computers (82%) was highly evaluated. It
illustrates that the most popular activities among students are supplementary techniques,
such as games, songs, watching TV, or computing. It is not surprising that lessons taught by
native speakers are the students favourite ones. Native teachers create language authentic
environment and cover mostly conversational lessons and debates, while Czech teachers
cover textbook type materials and grammar. It was good to find out that listening tasks
(70%), conversational practice (82%), and projects (78%) are also relatively top-rated and
48

appreciated by students because these are the key skills, even though projects are rarely used
in ALC books and need to be included into learning process more often. Drilling exercises
(60%), reading all sorts of materials (59%) and doing grammar exercises (60%) are of
average popularity. I was quite disappointed that reading all sorts of printed materials (60%)
and reading aloud are not ones of the top activities (36%). Reading is usually set as
homework and it is time consuming activity which some students do not like. Nowadays,
people mainly use computers for reading. However, it is undoubtedly beneficial technique
for building knowledge of language (e.g. vocabulary, fluency, or structure). I expected
working with textbooks (52%) below average, due to the fact that ALC course books
content, and black and white layout does not much appeal to learners. The next question
tries to illustrate what is the most difficult for students while learning English.
Question 2.
This is an open-ended question which seeks the answer on the following: What are the
difficulties you have to face while learning English? As the most common problems
students described:
- the need of dictionary all the time
- understanding and memorising grammar rules;
- too many words to remember per day;
- not enough opportunities to practice the target language. One student
suggested one of the solutions to this problem: if we could speak English
inside and outside the classroom, it would have been better.
Less students described following problems: difficult pronunciation; some native speakers
speak too fast; poor quality book, etc..
I tried to question the students about the most frequent problems they have stated,
and their answers were following: I try to memorise the grammar over and over but it is too
difficult; I think the drills help me the most concerning grammar; I am not memorising the
grammar rules at all, instead I try to learn vocabulary because that is more important;
When I hear a similar grammar issue a number of times, I remember it; grammar is boring
and hard to get under the skin, that is the main problem.
Many students learn grammar by heart, many students are trying to find logic in
grammar rules or find the rules themselves. There is a whole range of ways how grammar
matter can be taught. One appropriate strategy suggested by David Nunan is teaching
49

grammar communicatively. He says: Grammatical patterns are matched to particular
communicative meanings so that learners can see the connection between form and
function (1999, p. 78). In learning practice it means that grammar is taught through tasks,
which enables learners to achieve creativity.
One of the other frequent problems is memorising vocabulary. The learners
described this issue as follows: it is hard to learn the meaning plus extra spelling and
pronunciation; sometimes the words seem similar to tongue twisters, the biggest problem is
to actually memorize the words; my biggest problem is that I do not understand the words I
am studying; some words are impossible to explicate logically, etc...
It is obvious that words in foreign language are hard to memorize. For many students
studying vocabulary is rather demanding and not very easy. Some answers relate to difficult
pronunciation or spelling, some to bad memory, and some students see the problem in
absolute unfamiliarity with Czech equivalent. It is important to know what strategies work
best with each individual, in order to help with better storing and retrieving required
vocabulary.

Question 3.
This question deals with class organization which is currently used in STANAG
classes. Students were asked to choose from four ways: (1) teacher-front tutoring; (2) pair
work; (3) group work; (4) individually.
Which way of class organization is mostly used in your STANAG class? (1) frontal teaching;
(2)working in pairs; (3)working in groups; (4) working individually; and which of the above
strategies is the most beneficial to you?
Students were supposed to evaluate the organization of the class in 10 mark scale for each
item.




50

Graph No.3)


Resulting from the graph No 3, it can be seen that the most common way the learners
are taught in STANAG courses is the teacher-fronted organization which pre-determinates
the traditional mode of a classroom. Students in such classes do not learn how to
communicate in small groups or how to express their ideas. They rather spend most of their
time repeating models provided by the teacher or the textbook. Frontal teaching was
assessed by 180 points which is 62%, working in pairs by 50 points (15%), individual work
got similar score of 44 points (13%), and working in groups was awarded mere 29 points
(10%). The interactive way of teaching is used very little, although there are many resources
that can inspire teachers to include interactive activities into learning.


51

Question 4.
The next important findings for my research were the students opinions on the preferred
class organization, especially those which students marked as the most useful.
Graph No. 4)

It was very surprising for me that the answer of teacher-front tutoring scored such a
high percentage (48%) on the above chart. Comparing the results of this chart to the results
of class organization which is currently used in STANAG classes, one can notice great
similarity. I assume that learners praised most what they know best.
As I write these comments, I am confronting the teacher-front organization to the
classroom activities, which students marked as the most popular in STANAG courses.
Although many students prefer group and pair activities, such as conversational practice,
games, songs or projects, they nominated the teacher-front organization as the most popular.
There is a mismatch which proves that students have done some of the interactive learning
and they liked it, but they are still very conservative about the teaching-learning process. It
shows that this age group is more familiar with the old methods of teaching and influenced
by their previous schooling. Again, I tried to find out the reason why front-teaching is the
most preferred. Students consider front-teaching as the most beneficial and safe because
they often sit back, listen to the teacher, take notes, and try to memorize and understand the
topic matter later at home. They believe that a teacher explanation gives them the most
information and they feel that they gain the most knowledge by this way. Some learners
admit that the interactive techniques can positively influence the language learning, but
some students assume that the interactive learning has no or just minimum influence over
the language study.
52


Question 5.
Within the class you cover the four skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. Mark
the skills according to the usage in your class (maximum 10 points all together). Are there
any skills which you feel need more practice, any suggestion that would improve lessons?
Graph No. 5)

As the table shows, the skills trained in STANAG courses are in this sequence:
speaking with 129 points; reading with 98 points; listening with 60 points; and writing with
51 points. When comparing these answers to the activities preferred by students, (graph no.
2) - where listening, speaking and projects were top-rated, I came to the conclusion, that
more students see higher potential in listening activities which could improve the quality of
learning. Generally, the ability of mastering foreign language is characterized in terms of
being able to understand and speak the target language.
Although speaking is represented the most of all four skills in the above table, a few
students wrote a negative note: 60% of the skills we do in class is listening to the teacher! I
feel we need more speaking practice. Another student reported his experience: Some lessons
are quite boring because we just sit, follow the book and listen to what the teacher tells us,
and Im afraid that we do not practice the language enough, I have to find other ways... Yet
another student pointed out: In lessons we often do exercise by exercise to meet the book
requirements -I know it is necessary but I need more speaking practice.
Some learners mentioned combination of skills:
53

-For me, listening is the hardest because it is difficult to remember all information being
pronounced and post-process them.
- I have problems with listening because of the accent, English speakers are swallowing the
words, plus Im not familiar with the words they use.
- If I will not understand, I will not be able to speak. Therefore, the better listening skills we
have, the better speaking skills we would have.
- I have to think plainly while speaking English in order to be able to express myself
somehow. Whenever I speak, I am afraid that the one on the other side considers me silly.
- I have problem when I speak with my schoolmates who speak very well. I do not
want to look funny so I do not speak at all, or just a little.
Many learners do not feel very confident to speak, they wish for more active role in the
class where they would have more opportunities to participate and contribute to the learning
process. Other comments and suggestions were following:
- Work with more interesting topics;
- I like to prepare presentations on various interesting issues, I would welcome
more of these activities;
- More lessons with native speakers;
- More computing in lessons;
- More practice of covered vocabulary, etc...
Some of the suggestions are very good and I am actually trying to use them in my
lessons as much as possible, such as working with computers, using the internet, power
point presentations prepared by students, various other presentations on novels, magazine
and newspaper articles, military topics, etc. I always revise previous days vocabulary the
first thing in the morning through games, drills, or reading exercise. The suggestion
concerning the work with more interesting topics is possible to influence only partly. Topics
and vocabulary are given by the course book, therefore only the choice of additional topic
material can be done.
Learners definitely need maximum simulation of the authentic environment (native
speakers or the internet usage), vast range of authentic materials and language practice to
boost their target language and confidence. Our students can exploit the possibility to be
taught by native speakers. Moreover, our department has two computer rooms called Self
Access Centre (SAC) which are equipped with computers available for students every
54

afternoon and evening. These classrooms are supervised by teachers who advise and help
students while they do their homework, prepare presentations, or projects.
Nevertheless, with six-year experience in this system and long-term observation of students
results of STANAG test, I noticed that students are least successful in speaking and listening
skills.

Conclusion
It can be seen that there are some contrasts between students preferences and the
learning process being used in STANAG classes. The issues debate the diverse view of class
organization, skill teaching, as well as memorizing grammar and vocabulary, or
opportunities to practice the language practice. In this part of the questionnaire, I have taken
a look at techniques, activities, and learning strategies that presently influence learning
process in STANAG English language classes. When I compared the students preferences
of learning techniques, tasks and activities to those being currently used, I noticed some
mismatches. Students highlighted that they like interactive activities in groups or pairs, such
as: conversations, debates with native speakers, games, songs, working on computers, or
projects; however the class organization being used in courses is predominantly teacher-
front tutoring which restricts the use of such activities. More attention needs to be paid to
the change of class organization which should be shifted from teacher centred to learner
centred, interactive, and communicative. It turned out that students prefer activities that
would enable them take away the bashfulness during conversation and reinforce their
confidence. It is important to use various principles and different strategies which can be
applied to the ALC materials. Learners should be given opportunities to progressively build
up their skills by increasing challenging tasks, also text books should be based on a wide
range of authentic materials.
Concerning the negatives, I found out that the course participants described
memorizing grammar and vocabulary, and not enough opportunities to practice the target
language as the most common difficulties while learning English. Again, I have to stress the
importance of strategy learning so that students can make choices of strategies while
learning foreign language.

55

The Second Part of the Questionnaire
(Strategy Inventory for Language Learning)
This chapter introduces the other part of the questionnaire used in the research
concerned with the learning strategies which students apply while acquiring English
language. One of the factors why I decided to carry out this research had to do with limited
time that STANAG students are given to develop their English language. I think that
incorporating the learning strategies into the course materials could help to enhance
motivation, help students develop independence and control over their future learning, and
also make the learning process more appreciated.
I based this questionnaire on Vlckova and Prikrylovas Foreign Language Learning
Strategy Questionnaire for Comprehensive School (2002) published on the National
Institution of Technical and Vocational Education (NUOV) website.
The questionnaire comprises of 138 brief statements. I modified the questionnaire in
several aspects. The main difference was the number of statements. Not all the statements
were employed in my questionnaire. I tried to select those questions that were suitable for
adult learners. Therefore, from the original 138 questions I have chosen 80 items. The other
aspect includes the marking system where instead of using the five-level scale students
could choose from three-item answers: A)Yes, B) Partly/ Sometimes, C) No.
The results of the questionnaire can be seen in the following chapter and the
questionnaire can be found in the Appendix 3. The questionnaire is divided into six sections:
- Strategies used for: - acquiring listening skills;
- learning vocabulary;
- acquiring speaking skills;
- acquiring reading skills;
- acquiring writing skills;
- learning translation skills;


The following table shows the average proportion of language learning strategies
(LLS) used in STANAG courses:


56

Graph No. 7)

The table shows the overall number of responses according to particular answers
A,B,C. The answers were added up and put into an average proportion graph. Answer A
was selected in quite high percentage (67%) which proves that most adult learners are able
to choose and apply language learning strategies quite well, however there are still reserves
which students can reach in area of disused strategies (17%) and partly used strategies
(16%).
Graph No. 8)
The proportion of LLS according to a particular skill

By comparing the frequency of the answers to the learning strategies that are applied
in particular skills, it is possible to come to the conclusion that students apply learning
strategies mostly when acquiring listening, speaking, and translation skills. On the contrary,
based on the graph no. 8 results, in writing, reading and vocabulary field, the learning
57

process shows as more difficult for students and should be enriched with more strategy
ideas. The result does not represent the knowledge students have in particular areas, it only
points out whether the students are using certain learning strategies that facilitate particular
skill.
Based on the questionnaire items, the following table represents learning strategies
the students use when learning English. The questionnaire items were matched with
Rebecca Oxfords taxonomy of language learning strategies (1990, p.18-21) and added up to
get the overall average score of the strategy use. The detailed classification can be seen in
Appendix No 4.

Graph No. 9)
The average use of language learning strategies
Direct strategies / Indirect strategies

Even if the results presented in graph 9 are very close, it helped me to get the
information on the students strategies. Of the five strategies under investigation
(considering the average score of all 47 students was 100%), the most developed strategies
are direct strategies concerning Compensation for missing knowledge (77%), followed by
58

strategies dealing with using mental processes, thus Cognitive strategies (70%). Next,
metacognitive strategies are used by 66% of students.
The least developed strategies, which are social (62%) and memory ones (61%), indicate
that teachers should offer students wider repertory of learning techniques in order to let
students choose and apply those strategies that would help learners to concentrate and cope
with a given language material.

Implementing strategy training into a STANAG course

The overall average score of all learners particular strategies were taken into
consideration and taken as the critical aspect for selecting strategies which were included
into the course teaching. Based on both parts of the questionnaire results, the strategies
presented in STANAG courses were the memory, cognitive and social ones. Memory and
social strategies scored the lowest percentage of all strategies, and even though cognitive
strategies scored well (70%), I have included them into strategy training because they are
essential for learning English. The strategy training has been done through activities, tasks,
games and projects, and tries to develop vocabulary skills and cooperating, due to the fact
that these appeared the least mastered by students and should be enriched with more strategy
ideas.
All activities were carried out in a STANAG level two class which comprised of 10
students. Out of these ten students, there was one woman. The strategy training was carried
out in a week from 8
th
till 12
th
November when ALC book 13 was taught. It was woven into
the regular teaching of book 13. The strategies described below in the following section,
were implemented into the given lesson material. In this work, I organized them according
to the strategies sets.

Activity 1) Quiz What sort of language learner are you?
Prior strategy training students completed a quiz. It was the starting point for
learners to begin to think about different strategies they can use for their learning.
INTERACTION 1. Individually
59

2. In groups of 4-5 students
LEVEL Intermediate
AIMS To help students become aware of different learning styles
TEACHING AIDS A copy of quiz for each learner
ESTIMATED TIME 10-15 min.
ORIGINAL
SOURCE
Adapted from Learning to learn English (Ellis and Sinclair, 1989b, p.6-9)
See Appendix no.5
TEACHERS
NOTES

(The quiz is written in English language, a teacher is there to help with
unknown words and to supervise)
- Ss make sure they understand all the questions in the quiz
- Ss complete the quiz and find out their results and suggestions about
strategies which might be neglected by them
-Group discussion about students results and suggestions

Feedback
The quiz was a good way of introducing language strategies. Students discussed the
quiz results in the follow-up class discussion. Majority of students belonged into a mixture
category, one student was a relaxed type, and three other students were analytic types.
Students actually went quite deep into the discussion and showed interest to find out more
about different ways of improving their study techniques. They debated topics of (1) the
best ways to learn vocabulary, and (2) worrying too much about mistakes. They mentioned
strategies they were using, such as listening to words while driving a car, or word cards with
Czech equivalents. Otherwise they mentioned the word-translation method as the fastest and
most effective technique. They all have a vocabulary notebook (a list of words and
translations) for keeping the bank of new vocabulary items. The conversation then slipped
into a whole group discussion about the kind of dictionaries that are best to use. Students
prefer Czech-English dictionary as it is faster to find a correct meaning of a word and it is
not so broad. They explained the EnglishEnglish reference dictionary is too time
consuming and difficult to understand the meanings at their level. I offered them a CD-
ROM dictionary which can help them to search words in a more enjoyable way,
accompanied with pictures, examples of sentences, synonyms, word families, etc. Also, the
discussion gave me the idea to include some training activities to encourage my students to
use an English-English reference dictionary into some of the next lessons because I consider
using the English dictionaries necessary at their level. We also debated the use of the
60

internet while learning English, they swopped ideas for language games, activities, and
video clips they found interesting.
Activity 2) How do you organize your material?
This experiment helped students become more conscious of their own strategies for
learning new words, as well as it showed them various ways how they can organize their
material in order to make learning easier. Students were supposed to remember as many
words from the list as possible during a certain time (5 minutes), and as a follow up activity
they discussed various ways how students notes can be organized.
Strategies trained:


TOPIC ALC BOOK 13, Vocabulary list Lesson 2
INTERACTION 1. Individually
2. In pairs
3. Class discussion
LEVEL Intermediate
AIMS -To help students become aware of their own strategies they use for
learning new vocabulary
-To help students organize their material
TEACHING AIDS A copy of a list of words explained in different ways (pictures, Czech
definitions, English definitions, words used in context, etc.)
(see Appendix 6)
ESTIMATED TIME 15-20 min.
ORIGINAL SOURCE Adapted from Learning to learn English
(Ellis and Sinclair, 1989b), p.68-69)
TEACHERS
NOTES

-Ss are given 5 minutes to learn the unknown words (individually).
- In pairs they try to recall the words which they remember (2min.)
- Then, I ask Ss to write down as many of the words as they can
61

remember (2min.)
- In groups, we discuss the strategies used for learning, find out who
remembered the most words (5min.)
Follow-up activity: Discussion about various ways how learning
records can be arranged, finding out about students suggestions for
keeping their material organized. (5 min.)
HW: write down the different techniques that can be used to
remember new words or phrases as it can be written in Ss vocabulary
notebook. (each student writes three words)

Feedback
When I announced to the students they were going to be guinea pigs in this
experiment, they were positively surprised. They really enjoyed this activity, hoping they
will find a way how to learn vocabulary in an effortless way. First, we read and pronounced
all the words, the students didnt have problem with them.
During the memorizing phase, they were mumbling, repeating, and I could see they
were fully concentrated on memorizing the new vocabulary task. The follow-up vocabulary
test revealed that the words accompanied by pictures were best remembered. Also, the
words used in example sentences were quite well remembered. Students tried to imagine the
situations (the boys throwing stones, etc.), and also they had to figure out the meaning of the
word from the sentence context.
Then, we got into the same topic discussion as in the previous lesson, talking about
dictionaries. According to a few students, the English definitions used in the worksheet to
explain a word were too hard to grasp. They said that they had to concentrate on too many
unfamiliar words trying to figure out the actual word explanation, and consequently it drove
their attention away from the target word and they lost the focus. Of course, it depends on
the level of each individual student. For real beginners, the Czech-English explanation is
more explicit, clearer, and faster way of finding out the meaning, but being intermediate
level students, they should try to rack their brains hard and use as many opportunities to
encounter English language as possible. I suggested that they actively search for
possibilities to improve their knowledge and take more responsibility for their learning.
We also discussed other possible ways to memorize the words, such as with the use
of some kind of pattern (as the same initial consonant, semantic group, etc.), associating the
62

words to something familiar students know (connecting words), or visualizing an unknown
word in their minds. As a help to students new ways of keeping their vocabulary word
books were suggested. For example, using connecting words, semantic maps, synonyms,
antonyms, highlighting, underlying, or words in context were suggested.
New words / Connecting words / Sentences
Chair Sit, table
Cheap Expensive
Although Pestoe, I kdy Although it is late, I dont want to go to bed.
For words with easy to find connecting words, it is not necessary to write example
sentences. Students suggested using different colours and underlying the words.
As homework, each student was supposed to organize vocabulary words and phrases
ALC 13, lesson 2 in a more helpful and memorable way, using some of the techniques
mentioned in the class. The most creative students were highly regarded (see Appendix 7).

Activity 3) Sorting game
This activity illustrates how students can organize words which they are supposed to
memorize. Their task is to remember words by making groups and matching words together.
As an extension students are trying to find the word that does not fit into the groups. This
provides more complex grouping practice, and help students in remembering new words
through creating groups and discrimination skills. In the last phase, students try to write
down as many of the words as they can remember.

Strategies trained:


TOPIC Vocabulary on SPORTS, ALC 13, L 1 (32 new words)
63

INTERACTION 1. in pairs, 2. Groups of 3-4 students
LEVEL Intermediate
AIMS To fix the meaning of the words
To practice vocabulary
TEACHING AIDS

A set of SPORT CARDS (list A) per pair of student also a set of PLACES
(list B) , a sheet of paper per a group
ESTIMATED TIME Approximately 30-40 min.
ORIGINAL SOURCE Adapted from J. Hadfield, 1999, p. 7
TEACHERS
NOTES

1. Pairwork sorting game (5 min.)
- Ss in pairs sort the SPORTS cards out into four piles: individual sports,
collective sports, sport equipment that you hold in hand, other sport
equipment. Ss see how quickly they can do this.
2. Small group matching game (15 min.)
- Ss in groups of four deal out their set of sports cards.
-Each group gets a set of PLACES cards, put them in another pile facing
down.
-The object of the game is to match place, sport, and equipment.
-Ss take it in turns to turn up a card from the pile of place cards. The player
who turns up the place card should not show it to the others but instead ask
questions, e.g. What sport can you do/play in an ice rink? or What
equipment do you need in an ice ring?
- The player who gives the right answer first (hockey, skating) can lay
down the card.
- At the end the player with fewest cards in hand is the winner.
3. Find the odd word ( groups of 4-5), (10-15 min)
Ss create groups from given words (sport, sport equipment cards) according
to various criteria (semantic meaning- using a ball, need a referee,
indoor/outdoor, or initial consonant, etc.)
-write the words down, adding one word that would not fit into the groups.
Then, students read aloud their created groups of words, and the other
group is trying to figure out the odd word.
4. Writing down the words they remembered.

Feedback
First of all, we checked the students HW (see Appendix 7). I was positively
surprised because the vocabulary record differed quite a lot from the one they are using now
64

where the word-translation method is dominant. Students drew pictures, used grouping and
labelling, moreover they used example sentences, phrases, one student brought a language
box with words written on little pieces of paper, and yet another student wrote the
homework in the old way.
We then began with the new activity: the sorting game. When I introduced the first
part of this activity, students paid attention and sorted the sport and equipment cards very
quickly. Even if they did not know the words, there were pictures to help them.
After that, I explained the matching game and gave each group another set of cards
(places). Students were grouped and were supposed to match place and sport, or the sport
equipment, playing the card game. It was quite confusing for students to follow the
instructions and in the end I had to tell them the rules of the game in Czech. They managed
to play the game twice since the game went quite fast, and enjoyed competing who would
match the word with the place first. The atmosphere in class was nice, quite noisy though.
During the final part, students stayed in the groups they had created and were
supposed to create groups of words, organizing them according various criteria, and adding
one word that would not fit into the created group. Student wrote down groups mostly
dealing with semantic meaning (such as winter/summer sports, popular/less popular sports,
etc.) This showed an easy task for the students, they usually found the odd word very
quickly; moreover, they got an impulse to discuss the word groups.
Then, students were supposed to write down all words they could remember from
todays vocabulary lesson. They remembered some words partly, in average they
remembered 25 out of 32, which is a very good result. At the end of the lesson, I discussed
the whole activity with the class with a very positive feedback.

Activity 4) Memorising words, Recalling words
This strategy is based on relating new language information to more information
stored already in memory. These associations must be meaningful to students.


65

Strategy trained:

TOPIC ALC BOOK 13, Lesson 1, an article SPORTS NEWS, p. 14: Introducing
new words from an article , verbs: imagine, doubt, suppose, think, race +
time prepositions: at, on, in, next, nouns: coach, match, string, field.
INTERACTION 1.Whole class discussion
2. Pair work
LEVEL Intermediate
AIMS To show the learners another way of remembering vocabulary, by using
association
TEACHING AIDS Whiteboard, markers, pen and paper
ESTIMATED TIME Approximately 30 min.
ORIGINAL SOURCE Adapted from: P. Ur and A. Wright, 1992, p. 50
TEACHERS
NOTES

- The board is divided into two halves. Write in one half vocabulary which
the students have only just encountered and which they are supposed to
remember.
- Ask the class to pick one of the new words and to suggest a word they
know which associates to the original word in some way.
- Write reminding word on the other side of the board. Having written
reminding word, the new word is erased.
- Do this with each word until they have been all replaced by reminding
words.
- Now ask the students to work in pairs and try to remember what each
reminding word was linked to.
- Then, students write in the new words again and erase the reminding
words.
- Recalling words- The words from the board are erased.
- Ss in pairs try to recall as many words as they can and write them down.
The winner is the pair who remembered the most and spelt the words
correctly.


66

Feedback
During the phase when students were supposed to suggest reminding words,
students came with different ideas. The prepositions were first to associate, students offered:
In the NEXT shop, I bought MATONI (mAT,On,In). They explained: At hours, On- days,
because they are longer than hours, In- longer than days are months, years,or centuries.
After prepossitions, the class chose from various association and agreed on one which
seemed best to them, such as: Imagine: Iva ma gin. (I as for Iva), Doubt:music group No
Doubt, Match: students chose the word according to sound association,mec in Czech,
(sword). Although students gave quite lot suggestions, they were more passive and bored
than I expected them to be.
Nevertheless, for some students, this activity was appreciated. They pointed out it was a
good way to remember confusing words. Some students, on the other hand, found this
activity useless and time consuming. In my opinion, this activity is more suitable for
children because they have rich fantasy unlike adults who prefer concrete notions.

Activity 5) Let me tell you about the time...
(Writing a story about a funny, dangerous, or pleasant experience from your life
This strategy is useful predominantly for developing reading skill. It involves placing
new words or expressions that have been heard or read into a meaningful context, as a way
of remembering the word.
Strategy trained:

TOPIC Practicing adjectives and As...as comparisons (15 new words)
INTERACTION 1. Individual
2. Class discussion
LEVEL Intermediate
AIMS To provide extension of vocabulary
TEACHING AIDS Pictures of the adjectives
67

ESTIMATED TIME 25 min.
ORIGINAL SOURCE Based on: P. Ur and A. Wright, 1992, p. 57 (see Appendix 8)
TEACHERS NOTES

- Teaching the class a few new adjectives, writing them on the board: proud,
white, dangerous, mad, shocking, embarrassing, funny, heavy, quick, lazy,
innocent, awful, happy, clever, ridiculous
- Telling Ss a few similes commonly used, for example, as proud as a peacock or
as good as gold.
-Ss are asked to invent their own brief stories (a few sentences) using as many
adjectives or similes as possible.
-Collect the papers, mix them between students and read them aloud.
-Students then guess, who wrote which example.

Feedback
This activity provided good practice for students to remember new words by placing
them into the context and confronting the new words to their personal experience. First, I
wrote new adjectives on the board, asking students for its meaning. They were allowed to
use their dictionaries to find the meaning of the new ones. Students, then, were supposed to
write a brief story that illustrated some situation from their own life. They enjoyed
especially the part when the stories were read. We mixed the stories up, and each student
read aloud somebody elses story. The rest of class were trying to guess the author. It was
very nice, personal atmosphere, and students wrote very interesting and funny stories that
the whole class enjoyed (see Appendix 8). They gave a positive feedback to this activity and
said it is a very good way of remembering new words.

Activity 5) Drawing competition (Ways of Looking at Things)
Another good way of remembering new words is using visual products, thus creating mental
image of a word either in situation where the word is used or visualizing the word in mind,
which contributes to retaining new vocabulary in memory. Oxford (1990) points out that the
imagery used to remember expressions does not have to be purely mental, it can be more
concrete such as drawings, real objects in a house, or even abstract words turned into
symbols.

68

Strategies trained:



TOPIC ALC BOOK 13, revision of nouns from lessons 1-3: 25 words: race, rope,
string, bracelet, chain, rubber, stone, wool, dressing room, fabric, hip, item,
waist, belt, plug, handle, lid, pin, comb, brush, fingers, toes, metal, plastic,
gold.
Follow up activity: Lost belongings (What is it like? It is made of....)
INTERACTION In groups of 4-5
LEVEL Intermediate
AIMS To provide extension of vocabulary by visualizing the word in mind.
To develop students cooperation.
To be able to speak about material, use descriptive adjectives.
TEACHING AIDS A pen and paper per group, a list of words (teacher)
Follow up activity: a copy of pictures for each student
ESTIMATED TIME Approximately 50 min.
ORIGINAL
SOURCE
Based on: 1. Redman, Ellis, Mark (1997), A Way with Words, U 9.
2. Jill Hadfield: Elementary communication games, U13.
TEACHERS
NOTES

- Ss are divided into two groups. Each group needs a pen and paper.
- The teacher has a list of words. A student from each group comes one at a
time to read one word from the list, a student then comes back to his/her
group, draws the word without speaking or explaining.
- The other students are supposed to identify the word.
- The winner is the group which finishes the list of words first and with no
mistakes.
Follow up activity: There are five piles in front of the class, divided
according to the belongings ( large pictures, hats, umbrellas, glasses and
69


Feedback
When I announced the students were going to play a two-group game where drawing
pictures will be incorporated, they were positively surprised and started to gather into two
groups. I explained the rules of the game where students from each group, one at a time, had
to come to the board where he or she will read the (secret) target word. Then, the student is
supposed to draw the word without speaking and the groups task is to identify the word.
Students were really involved in this activity because some of the drawings and guesses
were funny. The class was quite noisy but students were absorbed in the game. It proved
that even these kinds of activities are suitable for young children as well as for adults. After
the game, students admired their drawings and tried to recall what word a particular drawing
stood for.
The follow up activity was a good fun. Students were laughing, practicing describing things
and talking about the lost objects. It was good practice for students to cooperate and try to
sort things out.

Activity 6) Military equipment- brainstorming by using semantic maps
The students are already familiar with the vocabulary concerning basic military
terminology. Their task is to make a diagram related to the topic Military equipment. The
diagram (semantic map) can be anything according to their choice and interest, which
associates with the topic of military equipment, such as main battle tanks, aircrafts, infantry
weapons, vehicles, etc. A combination of more strategies is involved in this activity. First
part of the activity involves memory strategy which helps the learners to create visual view
of the new target words and thus make it easier to remember. The follow-up latter activity
centers around using language for actual communication, which belongs to the set of
cognitive strategies.
bags). Each Ss is supposed to take one card from each pile.
-Tell Ss: All Ss went to a party last night and. When they arrived they
possessed the objects shown in the large picture. Unfortunately, they ended
up taking wrong things at home. It is now morning, and they must mingle
around and try to reclaim their lost possessions. They have to
telephone all their friend, describe the objects missing and try to get them
back. (see Apendix)
70

Strategies trained:


TOPIC Military Equipment
INTERACTION 1. Whole class
2. Individually
3.Whole class
LEVEL Intermediate
AIMS To reinforce the students vocabulary concerning military equipment.
To help students remember vocabulary by using association, imagery,
grouping, elaborating and creativity, (See Appendix 9).
TEACHING AIDS It can be done as computer presentation, or a semantic map supplemented
by pictures, drawings, illustrations, etc.
ESTIMATED TIME 30 minutes + individual time spent doing students map
ORIGINAL
SOURCE
Based on R. Oxford s activity, 1990, p. 62.
TEACHERS
NOTES

- Brainstorming on military equipment topic, and write the words on a board
(5min.)
- Shape the words into a semantic map (example only, it does not have to be
too detailed), (2 min.)
- Setting HW: Students are supposed to create a semantic map related to the
topic of military equipment (5 min.)
- It is up to their imagination and creation what materials and sources they
will be used. The semantic map will serve as a support material for their
brief presentation on military equipment next lesson.
- Ss individual presentations using their semantic maps (20 min.)


71

Feedback
First, I was trying to elicit all words connected to military equipment. The
students were really interested in this topic and knew many things which they had to explain
to me, such as what equipment it was and what it was used for. Then, I showed students an
example of semantic map, which they had known from using Vocabulary in Use books.
After that, I set the HW, and explained they will need this diagram to present a brief speech
where they will introduce their map the next day.
Students presenting their work was the most interesting part of this activity.
In order to keep the attention of the rest of the class, the students who were listening to the
presentation had to prepare a question or two for the student giving the presentation. All
students were also interested to write down new words of their colleagues that were
unfamiliar for them. Students were really creative and made semantic maps detailing
various kind of a military equipment (see Appendix 9).





Activity7) Running Dictation with Irregular Verbs (using groups that rhyme)
This activity focuses on remembering words by making auditory representations of sounds.
Strategies trained:


TOPIC ALC 13, L 3, Revision of irregular verbs
LEVEL Intermediate
72

INTERACTION Pair work
AIMS To present a way how to remember words by using rhymes.
To develop students cooperation.
TEACHING AIDS A list of irregular verbs for each student
ESTIMATED TIME 20 min.
ORIGINAL
SOURCE
Based on Straightforward e-bag resource,
www.macmillanenglish.com/straightforward
TEACHERS
NOTES

-Ss are divided into pairs.
-There are cards with four rhyming irregular verbs grouped together spread
around the classroom, such as: 1. Bring-brought -brought, buy-bought-
bought, fight-fought-fought, think-thought-thought.
2. Break-broke-broken, choose-chose-chosen, speak-spoke-spoken, wake-
woke-woken.(there are nine sets of rhymed irregular verbs spread around the
classroom)
-In each pair one student has to run and remember the rhymed irregular
verbs and then dictate it to his/her colleague. If the runner forgets part of the
sentence, he/she is allowed to go back to the paper and re-read it. Then they
change their roles. The first pair with all written rhymes without any
mistake is the winner.

Feedback
First, I introduced the strategy that we were going to do: practicing and reviewing
groups of words which rhyme. This activity was a great way to enliven the class again. First,
the instructions were too complicated for students, so eventually I did an open class
demonstration and it helped students to understand the instructions. I had never done this
activity before but I am glad I discovered this great game. It combines reading, writing,
speaking and listening skills, moreover students practiced their short term memory, and it
was energetic, competitive atmosphere, and last but not least it did not require much
preparation. Students were familiar with all the irregular verbs used in the running dictation,
and this was a good way to review and practice the verbs. Also the fact that the words in
groups rhymed showed the students a very useful strategy to remember words in a better
way.
Activity 8) Reviewing in circles (Revision of Memory Strategies)
This activity can be used throughout any lesson several times, according to the
students needs. It helps to emphasize the importance of structured reviewing, which is
73

essential for remembering new material in the target language. The new language items
need to be viewed many times before that piece of material is known and in the students
personal bank. This activity entails revision of the material in different time intervals. This
activity also retrieves and considers those strategies being recently introduced in the class.

Strategies trained:


TOPIC Vocabulary review book 13
LEVEL Intermediate
INTERACTION 1. Individual
2. Students are in two circles (5 students are in the inner circle, 5 students
are in the outer circle, students from each circles are facing each other.
AIMS To review and practice words by using definitions.
To develop students cooperation.
TEACHING AIDS 10-word cards, a large sheet of paper, marker
ESTIMATED TIME 12-15 min./
ORIGINAL
SOURCE
Based on my colleagues idea
TEACHERS
NOTES

-Each student is given a card with a word, and he/she is supposed to write a
definition (and example sentence) on the back of that card (with the help of
dictionary), (2 min.)
-Ss then create two circles, inner and outer, and face each other.
- A S on the outside says the definition to the student on the inside circle, Ss
answers (1 min. max. to answer), the outer circle, then, rotates in one
direction to another inner student and the process repeats until the whole
circle goes round. (10 min), (in case a student have problem with the word,
he can view the word card)
-Ss then exchange, those from inner circle go to outer circle, and vice versa.
- Follow-up discussion about the importance of reviewing target language
materials, emphasising the concrete time intervals for revising materials and
74

- brainstorming different strategies that students have encountered (5 min.).
-Teacher writes them on a large sheet of paper, evaluating each particular
strategy.


Feedback
The circle activity for reviewing vocabulary was engaging and students loved it. In
the follow-up discussion, we debated the concrete times (an hour later, 3 hours later, the
next day, two days later, the following week, two weeks later) and so on until the material
becomes automatic. Students suggested a few computer programs based on drills which
could also be used. Then, students were supposed to brainstorm the ways that memory
strategies and vocabulary might be used. They spoke highly about techniques, such as using
context for learning new words, grouping, using drawings (visualizing), using semantic
mapping, or rhymes (running dictation). Matching English word to some familiar
association was not very highly evaluated by students. Students explained that this
technique is too time consuming to think of an association expression. To conclude, students
evaluated the introduction to memory strategies well and found the techniques useful and
refreshing in comparison with the typical word/translation method.
Activity 9) Health and fitness (listening activity)
This activity combine quite lot of strategies: listening for the main idea, listening for
details, visual images, guessing a main idea from given words, and writing new vocabulary.
Students are supposed to organize cut pictures according to what they hear. As follow up
activity, Ss have to think about a health problem they once had, note down 10 words and in
pairs guessing what the problem concerned.

Strategy trained:


TOPIC Health and fitness, supplementary material for ALC Book13, L1
75


Feedback
Firstly, a discussion about healthy and unhealthy habits revealed that there were three
smokers in a class. Afterwards students in pairs got their sets of pictures and I played the
story several times: first, students were supposed to put the story in correct order (I was
monitoring students and I could see how the students manipulated with pictures). Listening
was repeated several times. Then, students were supposed to note down some unfamiliar
words which they would teach the rest of the class. I replayed the story several times,
pausing whenever these unknown words appeared (students searched in dictionaries the
meanings of these words and wrote them on the board). In the end, we checked the correct
order of the pictures, and students in pairs tried to retell the story.
INTERACTION Class discussion, in pairs
LEVEL Intermediate
AIMS Listening to the story and ordering pictures according to what is said
Presenting new vocabulary in context
ESTIMATED TIME Approximately 45-50 min.
ORIGINAL SOURCE Based on: Listening Extra, U 11, (Craven, 2004, p. 72)
TEACHERS
NOTES

-Ss brainstorm the topic Healthy/unhealthy habits (2 min.)
-Ss in pairs have to tell each other about their healthy/unhealthy habits (5
min.)
-Ss in pairs get a set of picture cards, they can try to put the pictures in
order and try to predict the story. (5 min.)
-Ss are going to hear a woman telling a story, and they have to put the
pictures in correct order. (Ss listen several times), (10 min).
-Ss are going to hear the story again and their task is to note down 3
unfamiliar words and find the meanings in dictionary. (10 min.)
-Ss with their partner try to retell the story, using the pictures (5 minutes)
-Follow up: Ss try to think about a story that happened to them. It could be
about a health or fitness problem they had. Ss are supposed to note down 10
words from the story. Ss then exchange papers and their partner tries to
guess what their problem had been. When they finish debating, they should
reveal the story to their partners. (10 min.)
-Point out the strategies that have been used for this listening activity,
students can brainstorm about more ways how listening could be practiced.
76

In the follow up activity, students were using their personal experience and noted 10
words that would characterize their event, their colleague was supposed to guess what the
event was about. Then, we listened to the stories and discussed this activity. The whole
lesson took 60 minutes instead of planned 50 minutes. However, students didnt even
reminded me that it was the end of the lesson. I had a very good feeling from the lesson, the
students were engaged the whole time, learned new words, practiced speaking, listening,
and writing. We summarized strategies which students have used when doing the above task
and discussed other strategies which help to develop listening skills.

Activity 10) Imitating (paraphrasing) authentic language,
(presenting a short text to the class)
This activity was set as homework since it requires the use of the internet. In the
follow up lesson, students had to perform the trained activity in front of the class. The
imitation of native speakers is based on copying the speech or writing of a native speaker. A
student is supposed to imitate the intonation, rhythm, or pronunciation of a native speaker.
Another very good and useful alternative which improves speaking, reading and listening
skills, is the paraphrasing of either heard or read authentic material where students use their
own words to reproduce the authentic material.
Strategies trained:
Cognitive strategies- Practicing- Repeating+ Practicing naturalistically
TOPIC Teach your colleagues a song/ a short poem/ or a text.
INTERACTION 1. Individually at home, 2. Whole class
LEVEL Intermediate
AIMS To find out students imitation abilities
To reinforce responsibility of students learning process
ESTIMATED TIME Individual
ORIGINAL SOURCE Based on: Rebecca Oxford, (1990, p. 70)
TEACHERS This activity is set as HW, students will be videotaped in the next class.
77


Feedback
I was afraid of the students reaction to this activity, since it seemed to me quite hard for
intermediate level but I was nicely surprised and I did not expect students to be so creative.
Students mostly chose lyrics of a song they liked (such as Madonna- Frozen, Jack Johnson-
Lullaby), made gap-fill exercises, brought a CD with them to the class, and also brought
magazine articles about the artist. A few traditional songs were chosen and presented, and
also a short story that the student practiced on her children. Although students more
concentrated on the tasks preparation for the rest of the class, they still practiced listening
and speaking skills.

Students interviews on strategy training
Students were interviewed in turns, the last lesson on Friday November 12
th
, as they
had completed their weekly book quiz. They were asked to express their opinions how
effective the whole strategy training has been and what skills they have gained concerning
learning English. Students gave predominantly positive feedback, however, there were some
voices neutral about the implementation of learning strategies.
Majority of students mentioned that the whole week of strategy training has been
inspiring and it has been enjoyable work with the textbook that week. According to
students feedback, most strategies were taught effectively. Some strategies were not new
for learners but they have not been used. Students emphasized that it has increased their
awareness of the use of different learning techniques which have definitely promoted their
approach to self directed learning and motivation. Using different strategies through variety
of activities contributed positively to their involvement in the learning process.
NOTES

-Before students are recorded, they have to search the internet, their CD
bank ,and find an appropriate short recording (such as a song they like, a
short poem, a fairy tale, a short speech , a book extract, etc. on YouTube,
British council, or optional web pages),
- Then, Ss present the extract to the colleagues, using supplementary
vocabulary or other exercises, trying to teach some new vocabulary.

78

Based on the students interviews, the hypothesis was proved: the implementation
of language learning strategies into STANAG course and their training positively
influenced the learning process and contributed to students development of
communicative competence.
As for the strategies used in the research, students named the following ones as the
most useful and effective: organizing their notes in more logical and creative way; grouping
words by topics or semantic clues, using semantic mapping, imitating and paraphrasing
authentic speech or text, sequenced reviewing and also learning words in a context.
A few learners recommended using connecting words while learning new vocabulary
items. Students added some more strategy tips, such as connecting the new information to
their own experience or image in their minds. Majority of learners presented songs, stories,
games, drawing competitions, or running dictation as a useful and enjoyable way to learn. I
noticed, there was only one activity that has not been mentioned by any of the student, and
that was using associations. Adult learners tend to be rather concrete and sometimes find
this activity quite boring, therefore using associations might be more appreciated by young
pupils.
Not all students were hundred percent happy with the strategy training. Two students
expressed neutral attitude to the whole process. One student mentioned: knowing these
techniques does not make me want to learn more vocabulary. He added that it had not
been necessary for him to learn new ways of learning. The other student expressed that he
uses his own strategies and they work well for him.
Another important element which has been questioned during the interviews was the
comparison of the memory and cognitive sets of strategies. There was an attempt to find out,
whether any of the above mentioned techniques were of any special significance for the
course participants. It was presumed that military learners would consider the cognitive set
of strategies as more beneficial since the emphasis in their profession is put on
understanding and communication in order to avoid misunderstanding in potentially
dangerous situations. Based on the students answers the hypothesis has not been proved:
training of cognitive strategies were not considered more beneficial to military
students. Students considered both, memory and cognitive strategies, equally
important.
79

All in all, it is possible to say that the memory, cognitive, and social strategies were
successfully trained and that students developed new strategies during the strategy training
which can improve their learning processes. Therefore, the strategy training can be
considered as effective and helpful teaching enrichment in military courses. The continual
feedback that has been given during the whole strategy training proved my hypothesis:
language education enhanced with new strategies and techniques would offer new
possibilities and ideas for learners and advance their language skills on military
courses.
Conclusion
Although both English and French hold official status at NATO, English has become
the operational language, and the teaching of English language has gained importance in the
last few years due to the addition of the Czech Republic to NATO community in 1999.
The core of this work is primarily based on improving language learning strategies
and practical examples of implementation of strategy training into STANAG courses. I have
concentrated on answering the questions whether and how the implementation of language
learning strategies influence learning in those courses.
The purpose of the first part was to explore the important areas that influence the
quality of learning. It firstly looked at the context of communicative learning in language
classroom defining communicative competence, also various definitions and taxonomies of
language learning strategies were presented. In the end, the attention was paid to the
important issues of learning process, such as adult and military learners, characteristics of an
adult learner, methodology, or instructional materials.
The second part of the work encompasses the strategy training. The research was
done in three phases. Firstly, a two-part questionnaire was used to collect data concerning
the strategies, techniques and students preferences being used on STANAG courses.
Secondly, strategy training was presented by incorporating the strategy activities into course
materials. The prominence was placed on training those strategies that appeared to be least
developed. The strategy training was carried out through activities and tasks concentrating
on a particular strategy. In the end, the effectiveness of the strategy training was investigated
by interviewing the course participants.
80

Based on the results of all three parts of the research, the implementation of strategy
training to the military courses was proved effective and helpful for following reasons: (1)
students became aware of various language learning strategies, (2) it helped me to gain more
experience in teaching, and (3) it significantly contributed to successful language learning
and teaching.



















81

References
Literary sources:
Brumfit, Ch, (1992). Communicative methodology in language teaching: The roles of
fluency and accuracy. Cambridge University Press.
Defense Language Institute English Language Center. (1991). American Language Course
Book 5. Texas: Lackland Air Force Base
Defense Language Institute English Language Center. (1991). American Language Course
Book 13. Texas: Lackland Air Force Base
Craven, M., (2004). Listening Extra. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ellis, R. (2008). Second language acquisition. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Ellis, G., & Sinclair, B. (1991a). Learning to learn English :A course in learner training,
(Teachers book). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ellis, G., & Sinclair, B. (1989b). Learning to learn English :A course in learner training,
(Students book). Musselburgh, Scotland: Cambridge University Press.
Grant, N. (1987). Making the most of your textbook. Longman Group Limited.
Hadfield, J. (1999). Intermediate vocabulary games. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
Harmer, J. (2007). The practice of English language teaching. Harlow: Pearson Education
Limited.
Leaver, B., Ehrman, M., Shekhtman, B. (2005). Achieving success in second language
acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. (1990). Harlow: Longman Group UK
Limited
Nunan, D. (1999). Second language teaching & learning. Boston: Heinle & Heinle
Publishers.
OMalley, J. M., Chamot, A. (1995). Learning strategies in second language acquisition,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
82

Redman, S., Ellis, R., Mark, G. (1997). A way with words resource pack 2. Cambridge
University Press.
Rewell, J., (1994). Teaching techniques for communicative English. London and
Basingstoke: Mackmillan Press Ltd.
Scrivener, J. (2005). Learning teaching. Oxford: Macmillan Publishers Limited.
Ur, P., Wright, A. (1992). Five-minute activities. Glasgow: Cambridge University Press.
Veerkov, R. (2010). Diagnostika strategi uen anglitin jako cizmu jazyku u ku 6.
tdy zkladn koly. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, Pedagogicka fakulta.

Internet sources:

Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL) (April 1, 2010). APA Formatting and style
guide.. Retrieved April 17, 2010, from
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/1/
Vlkov, K., Pikrylov, J. (2002). Dotaznk strategi uen cizmu jazyku pro student
stednch skol. Brno: Institut vzkumu kolnho vzdelavani Pedagogick fakulty
Masarykovy university.
http://www.nuov.cz/ae/dotaznik-strategii-uceni-cizimu-jazyku
Bornstein, Arthur.(14 May 2007). Memorizing Vocabulary and Languages. Family &
Education: Languages.
http://www.videojug.com/interview/memorizing-vocabulary-and-languages.
Mackmillan English. Straight forward: Teaching made simple.

http://www.macmillanenglish.com/straightforward/
83


Appendix

1. Foreign Language Examination List
2. Questionnaire Part 1
3. Questionnaire Part 2
4. The classification of questionnaire items in relation to a particular strategy
5. Activity 1-What kind of a learner are you?
6. Memorizing words in a certain time.
7. HW- Different techniques that can be used to remember new words
8. Write a story using adjectives (placing new words into a context)
9. Activity 6: Semantic mapping













84


Appendix 1) Foreign Language Examination List
Level
Examination Examination
1.
KET - Key English Test TOEFL 400 - 479
PET - Preliminary English Test TOEFL CB 97 - 156
BEC 1 - The Business English Certificate 1 MZV Examination, Level 2
STANAG 6001 - level 1 MV Examination, Level 1
School-leaving Examination from English Language JASPEX 200
2.
Certificate in English TOEFL CB 157 - 212
FCE - First Certificate in English MZV Examination, Level -3
IELTS 4,5 - 6 MZV Examination, Level - 4
BEC 2 - The Business English Certificate 2 MV Examination, Level - 2
STANAG 6001 - level 2 JASPEX 400
Language School , Basic State Examination
Certificate in Advanced English
TOEFL 480- 549
3.
IELTS 6,5 - 9 TOEFL 550 - 677
CAE - Certificate in Advanced English TOEFL CB 213 - 300
CPE - Certificate of Proficiency in English JASPEX Final English Exam
BEC 3 - The Business English Certificate 3
Language School , Universal State
Examination
CEIBT - Certificate in English for International
Business and Trade

STANAG 6001 - level 3 University State Examination

85


Appendix 2
DOTAZNK PRO STUDENTY (Part 1)

Prosm o peliv vyplnn dotaznku. Dotaznk je anonymn a slou k vypracovn
vyzkumu. Dkuji.
Rok narozen:___________

Prosm zakroukujte nebo podtrhnte sprvnou odpov:

1) Jste zvykl na prci ve skupin nebo ve dvojicch ze kol, kter jste absolvoval/a
dve?
ANO NE

2) V kurzu STANAG se mi lb nkdy lb nelb tyto aktivity:
lb nkdy lb nelb
- drilov (opakovac) cvien
- poslechov cvien
- poslechov hodiny s rodilmi mluvmi
- sledovn TV, film
- poslech rdia
- prce s uebnicemi
- ten rznorodch materil
- pedtn nahlas
- uen se gramatiky
- gramatick cvien
- konverzace
- vypracovvn projekt a prezentac
- hry a psniky
- prce na potai
86


3) Kter z nsledujcch forem vuky uitel nejvc pouvaj ve STANAG kurzech?
(Oznate procenty, celkov poet 100 %)

frontln vyuovn (uitel stoj ped tdou a vyuuje)_________________________
prce ve dvojicch______________________________________________________
skupinov prce_______________________________________________________
individuln prce (student zpracovv kol samostatn)_______________________

4) Kter z ve jmenovanch forem vuky je pro Vs nejvce pnosn?
_________________________________________________________________________

5) Kter dovednosti procviujete ve td nejvce?
(Oznate procenty, celkov poet 100 %)
MLUVEN__________ TEN____________
PSAN_____________ POSLECH_________











87


Appendix 3
(Part 2) Dotaznk strategi uen anglickho jazyka
pro studenty kurz STANAG
Upravila: Zdeka Bushellov

Uveden vty vyjaduj rzn strategie vuky jazyk. Pette si prosm nsledujc vty a zakrtnte
nejvhodnj variantu: A) ano
B) sten / nkdy
C) ne

Pouvn strategi poslechu:
A) B) C)
1. Poslouchm rdio v anglickm jazyce.
2. Poslouchm anglick texty psn.
3. Sleduji televizn poady a filmy v anglitin.
4. Sleduji zpravodajstv v anglitin.
5. Snam se komunikovat s lidmi, se ktermi mluvm anglicky.
6. Po vyuovn poslouchm audio zznamy v anglitin.
7. V kurzu na ns vyuujc hovo pouze anglicky.
8. V kurzu pravideln hovome s rodilm mluvm.
9. Snam se porozumt vslovnosti hlsek a slov v anglitin.
10. Napodobuji zpsob jakm mluv rodil mluv.
11. Ptm se rodilch mluvch na vslovnost hlsek a slov, kter neznm.
12. Snam se pi poslechu zachytit dleit slova pro pochopen sdlen.
13. Zkoum pedvdat, co nkdo ekne.
14. Na poslech nebo rozhovor se pipravuji tak, e si pedtm tma pipravm.
15. Poslouchm, kam klade rodil mluv draz, abych poznal/a, co je pro nj
dleit.
16. Vnuji pozornost intonaci (melodii) ei rodilch mluvch.
88

17. Snam se porozumt tomu, co slym, ani bych pekldal/a slovo od slova.
18. Zamuji se na kontext toho, co lid kaj.
19. Zamuji se na detaily, abych zjistil/a, jestli jim rozumm.
20. Kdy nerozumm pesn, podm mluvho o zopakovn.
21. Kdy mluv mluv moc rychle, podm o zpomalen.
22. Kdy nerozumm, podm o vysvtlen.
23. Sleduji gesta a mimiku mluvho.

Pouvn strategi osvojovn slovn zsoby:
A) B) C)
24. Rozdluji si slovka podle slovnch druh (nap. podstatn jmna,
slovesa).
25. Spojuji si vslovnost novho slova s vslovnost slova, kter u znm.
26. Vytvm si rmy, abych si nov slovo zapamatoval/a.
27. Vytvm si obrazy v mysli, abych si nov slovo zapamatoval/a.
28. Piazuji si nov slovka ke slovm, kter s nimi souvis.
29. Pi si nov slovka do vt.
30. Pouvm kartiky, na kter si slovka pi.
31. V hodinch cizho jazyka se ume rzn zpsoby, jak si osvojit slovka.
32. Nejprve si nov slovka nkolikrt projdu.
33. Pravideln si slovka opakuji, abych je nezapomnl/a.
34. Snam se vybavit si situaci, pi kter jsem slovo poprv slyel/a nebo
vidl/a nebo msto v knize, kde bylo napsno.
35. V mysli si vybavm, jak se slovo pe.
36. Snam se pouvat nov slovka rznmi zpsoby.

Pouvn strategi mluven:
A) B) C)
37. Procviuji vslovnost, dokud to neumm dobe.
38. Kdy se um nov slovka, km si je nahlas.
39. Procviuji si gramatiku v rznch situacch.
40. Napodobuji zpsob, vtnou skladbu, kterm mluv rodil mluv.
41. Snam se co nejvc mluvit v anglitin.
89

42. V kurzu se snam mluvit pouze anglicky.
43. Konverzuji se spoluky v anglitin.
44. Vyhledvm pleitosti k hovoru s rodilmi mluvmi.
45. Zanu konverzaci, kdy potkm anglicky mluvc osobu.
46. Procviuji anglitinu na dovolen.
47. Snam se hovoit anglicky o znmch tmatech.
48. Pedem si plnuji, co eknu.
49. Kladu otzky, jako zpsob zapojen se do konverzace.
50. Zkoum konverzaci i o tmatech, kde nemm dostatenou slovn zsobu.
51. dm ostatn, aby m pi mluven opravovali.
52. Kdy si nemohu vzpomenout na sprvn vraz, podm nkoho o pomoc.
53. Kdy si nemohu vzpomenout na sprvn vraz, zkusm to ct jinak,
nap. synonyma.
54. Kdy si nemohu vzpomenout na sprvn vraz, eknu to esky.
55. Kdy si nemohu vzpomenout na sprvn vraz, pomhm si gesty.
56. Kdy si nemohu vzpomenout na sprvn vraz, zeptm se anglicky.

Pouvn strategi ten:
A) B) C)
57. tu si v anglitin co mon nejvce.
58. tu anglick texty, kter odpovdaj m rovni.
59. Dopedu si plnuji, jak budu text st a kontroluji, jak dobe tomu rozumm.
60. Nejprve peltnu text oima, abych pochopil/a hlavn mylenku, pak ho
petu podrobnji.
61. tu si text nkolikrt, dokud nerozumm.
62. Prbn si na okraj strnky shrnuji, co jsem peetl/a.
63. Pouvm slovnk.
64. Pemlm o tom, co bude v textu nsledovat.
65. Podtrhvm si sti, kter se mi zdaj dleit.
66. Oznauji si text rznmi barvami, abych mu lpe rozuml/a.
67. Vypisuji si z textu slovka, kter neznm.

Pouvn strategi psan:
A) B) C)
90

68. Procviuji si psanou formu slovek.
69. Snam se pst rzn druhy text v anglitin, nap. dopisy, vzkazy,
rozkazy, atd.
70. Dlm si poznmky v anglitin.
71. Kdy nevm sprvn vraz, najdu rzn zpsoby, jak se vyjdit jinak.
72. Najdu si anglick text k danmu tmatu v cestine.
73. Vyhledvm si informace k danmu tmatu pmo v anglitin.
74. Pepracuji text nkolikrt, abych zlepil/a jeho obsah a jazyk.
75. Podm nkoho, aby mi opravil, co jsem napsal/a.

Pouvn strategi pekladu:
A) B) C)
76. Plnuji co eknu, nebo napi v etin, a pak to pelom do anglitiny.
77. Pi ten si pekldm text v hlav, abych se ujistil/a, e tomu rozumm.
78. Pekldm si sti konverzace do etiny, abych si rozhovor zapamatoval/a.
79. etinu pustm z hlavy a co nejvc pemlm v anglitin.
80. Snam se porozumt tomu, co jsem slyel/a nebo etl/a ani bych
pekldal/a slovo od slova do etiny.











91


Appendix no. 4
The classification of questionnaire items in relation to a particular strategy
Strategy : Question number:





92





93


Appendix No. 5: Activity 1-What kind of a learner are you?





94



Appendix No. 6: Memorizing words in a certain time.

Put out (fire) Throw
Rock Wake up
Allow dovolit (nkomu nco)
Appreciate- ocenit, vyslovit se uznale
Fond of She was ford of Jack, she liked him and probably loved him.
Man-made- uml, umle vytvoen
Pay back- to give someone the money that you owe them [= repay]
Stone- The boys were throwing stones into the river.
Jewelry- small things that you wear for decoration
Leather- animal skin that is used for making shoes, bags etc.

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Appendix No 7: HW- Different techniques that can be used to remember new words.


96






97







Appendix No 8: Write a story using adjectives (placing new words into a context).








98

Appendix No 9. Activity 6: Semantic
maps



99