Diane Larsen-Freeman

162 Strategies, Cooperative Learning, and Multiple Intelligences Strategies, Cooperative Learning, am! Multiple Intelligences 163
raises his hand. ' What docs "enda ngered" mean ?' he asks. The teacher
encourages him to rake a guess. ' Is rhere any part of the word "enda n­
gered" that yOll recognize? What do you think it might mean in the context
of passage abo ut whales?' The stude nt pauses, thinks for a minute,
and then says, 'The whales, they are disa ppearing?'
' Yes,' replies the teacher, 'scientists are concerned that whales will
disappear if conditions do not improve. Good. Do you know what
" rescuing" means now?'
The studen ts nod. O ne volunteers 'saving.' 'OK: says the teacher.
'Does anyone want to make a prediction about what the main idea is in
the second paragraph?'
Several students venture that it may talk about the conditions that are
not good for whales.
'That's a good guess,' says the teacher. 'Let's see if your predictions arc
correct. Skim the second paragraph now. This time, however, I am only
going to give you one and a half minutes.'
The lesson proceeds like this until hy the fourth paragraph, the students
are given only a half a minute to skim for the main idea.
'Great. We arc off to a good beginning. We will practice more with this
tomorrow.'
Next the stude nts evaluate how they have done. Some feel distressed
because they still feel that they need to unde rstand every word. However,
others arc feeling better because they realize that their reading assignments
need not take as long as they have been taking. Some students discuss
their implementation of the strategy and how they modified it.
Th e teacher encourages them to share any innovations they made. All of
the students feel that they need a lot more practice with this new strategy.
'Yes,' respond s the teacher, 'and you will begin ton ight. For homework,
I wou ld like you to usc your new strategy on something that you woul d
like to read- a newspaper or magazine article, for example. Don't just
begin by reading the first sentence. See what you can learn from reading
the headline or title. See if there are any pictures with captions, Th en
when you do go to read, read the first paragraph first. When yOll come to
a word you don't know, skir over it and continue. Sec what yOll can learn
about the main idea of the art icle in this way. Then write about this experience
in your learnin g journals, That's all for today.'
Thin king about the experience
Let us exa mine this experience now in our usual man ner- observations
on the left, and the principles that might account for them on the right.
Observations
1 Prior to the lesson the teacher
Iu s been reading the students'
learning journals, where the
students regularly write about
what and how they arc learning.
The teacher has also been
interviewing the students.
2 The teacher decides to have the
stud ents work on the strategy of
advan ce organization.
3 The teacher models the usc of
the strategy using a think-aloud
demonstration.
.. The students practice the new
learning strategy.
5 The students evalua te their own
success in learning the stra tegy.
They modify the strategy to
meet their own learning needs.
They share their innovations
with their classmates.
6 The teacher asks the students to
try out the new stra tegy on a
different reading they choose
for homewor k that night .
Principles
The students' prior knowledge and
learn ing experiences should be
valued and built upon.
Studying certain learning
strateg ies will contr ibute to
academic success.
The teacher's job is nor onlv to
reach language, but to teach
learning.
For many students, strategies have
to he learned. The best way to do
this is with 'ba nds-on' experience.
Students need to become
independent, self-regulated
learners. Self-assessment
contributes to learner autonomy.
An important part of learn ing a
strategy is being able to transfer it,
i.e. usc it in a different situation.
It was pointed out ar the beginning of this chapter that the methodological
trends in this chapter complement the ones presented in the previous chapter.
It is easy to sec how learn ing stmt(.'gy trainin g would fi t content-based
instruction, for exa mple. Indeed, research has shown that to he effective,
strategies should [lot be ta ught in isolation, but rather as part of the
content-a rea or language curriculum (Grabe and Stoller 1997). An added