SLA RESEARCH ON SELF-DIRECTION: THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL ISSUES

Learning strategies have been defined in several ways. For O'Malley and Chamot,
who have carried out a series of investigations in this field, learning strategies are "special
thoughts or behaviours that individuals use to help them comprehend, learn, or retain new
information" (my italics)( 1990,1). For Wenden (1987a,6), however, learning strategies are
not thoughts or behaviours but techniques "actually used to manipulate the incoming
information and, later, to retrieve what has been stored" (ibid). She completes her definition
with 6 characteristics of learning strategies:

1) specific actions or techniques

2) observable

3) problem-oriented

4) contribute directly or indirectly to learning

5) consciously deployed (although some can become automatized)

6) amenable to change...they are part of our mental software (ibid,7)

In the same book, Rubin (1987) lists several assumptions on learning strategies.
Three of them are relevant to the definition of the concept: "the learning process includes
both explicit and implicit knowledge...consciousness raising is not incidental in learning
...(and) teachers can promote strategy use" (15). Calling them "study tactics", Cotterall also
believes that learning strategies are "amenable to change"

Approach to studying is likely to vary between individuals. It will be influenced by a
range of cognitive and affective variables and is less likely to be amenable to
change than study tactics employed with specific learning tasks (1995,203)

To make things more complex, elsewhere Narcy differentiates between techniques and
strategies, stating that strategies are unconscious factors the learners use in order to leam,
while techniques are conscious ways to process and Ieam information (Narcy; 1990,90). On
the opposite side, Little (in Huttunen 1996,87) calls strategies "tools of intentional planning"
and Little and Singleton (1990), in the same line, attribute a conscious element in strategies,
which they generically identify as "(the) approach to the learning task":

It is essential to distinguish between the language learner's cognitive style, of which
he may be largely unconscious and his approach to the learning task, which is at
least internally conscious and may well be in conflict with the cognitive
requirements of the learning task (11).

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