92-pages-GUIDELINES-FOR-SECONDARY-SCHOOLS-All-Streams-and-Sections

• Recycle these strategies in practice and encourage learners to use them in connection with the other
known or familiar ones;
• Evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the new strategies either in isolation, or in connection with
other already known ones, provide constructive feedback, and create opportunities to start the process
again so as to reinforce strengths and compensate for weaknesses.
The steps above should cater for the cyclical and recursive nature of strategy training. The learners are exposed
to various types of strategies they know and use while learning. Then, they are led by the teacher (or peers) to
discover new strategy alternatives. This step might be followed by the observation and evaluation of outcomes.
These outcomes lead to newer awareness or discovery of new strategies; this entails resuming a new cycle 42 .
Once again, opening channels of communication between learners to share ideas and experiences and to
experiment with their different strategies is a prerequisite for this endeavor to succeed.
Accommodating different learning styles
A learner style is a biologically and developmentally inborn set of characteristics that make the same teaching
method wonderful for some and terrible for others. Learner styles might be the product of the learner’s
personality, experience, socio-economic and/or cultural background. Four learning styles are generally outlined:
1. Communicative learners: learn by listening, talking to friends, using any opportunity available to use
the language, etc
2. Concrete learners: learn by getting involved in games, learn through the use of visual aids, use video
films or audio cassettes to learn, etc
3. Authority learners: learn through teaching explanations, taking notes, reading, studying grammar to
learn the language, etc.
4. Analytical learners: learn by studying grammar, studying alone, finding out mistakes, etc.
There are fuzzy boundaries between these style types. They may overlap or vary depending on the context, task,
or the learner’s mood. Within the framework of learner training, successful teachers are those who are willing to
forsake their own views of what is best for teaching or learning, and consider learners’ approaches and
preferences as how to learn best or more effectively. They should initiate interaction between learners of
different styles (via interviews or discussion), raising learners’ consciousness of the fact that all styles may be
successful, but may at the same time show potential problems. An entirely reading-based syllabus, for instance,
might not be suitable for communicative learners. So teachers are invited to vary their own materials, techniques
and tasks, because variety provides learners with the opportunity not only to learn the way they like, but also to
expand their style repertoire by discovering new and perhaps more productive ones.
42 Mariani, L.1994. Developing Strategic Competence : Towards Autonomy in Oral Interaction. In Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL in
Italy. Volume 10/1/June1994. Online; URL: www. the learning paths. (October 26 th ,2006).
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التوجيهات التربوية وبرامج تدريس مادة اللغة الإنجليزية س ت ث ت 2007