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Learning styles

Learning strategies

Motivation

Learner autonomy

Beliefs and attitudes

Technology

Portfolios

Grammar learning

Study skills

Plurilingual education

Investigating learning styles

(Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL-Italy - Vol. XXI, No. 2/Vol. XXII, No. 1, Spring 1996)

Identifying learning styles, and relating them to teaching styles, can help improve the quality of communication in the classroom. This paper aims to discuss four main issues:
1. what are learning styles?
2. how can we get information about our students' styles?
3. how can this information be used by teachers and students?
4. should we accommodate personal styles or try to change them?

Learning styles across cultures

Powerpoint presentation with full text or text only

(Perspectives, a journal of TESOL-Italy, vol. XXXIV, n. 2., Fall 2007)

Learning styles are as much affected by cultural factors as all other areas of individual differences.  Such factors, while shaping individual identity, should not lead to undue generalizations or even stereotypes. Within multi-cultural educational institutions, possible clashes between learning and teaching styles can only be dealt with through processes of awareness raising, mediation and negotiation.

Learning styles: an approach to individual differences

(Milan '95: English language teaching - Papers from the British Council 1995 Milan Conference)

The purposes of this paper are to introduce the concept of "learning style" and to show its value in understanding the role of individual differences in the (language) classroom.

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Developing strategic competence: towards autonomy in oral interaction

(Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL-Italy - Vol. XX, No. 1 June 1994)

Strategic competence - solving communication problems despite inadequate command of the linguistic/sociocultural code - is an important feature of both L1 and L2 interaction. Teaching approaches will have to ensure that students consider authentic situations where strategies play a significant role; become aware of strategies through observation and discussion; and face problem-oriented, open-ended interactive tasks which require strategy use to negotiate meanings and intentions.

Teaching communication strategies for oral interaction

("Changing contexts in ELT" - Papers from the 1993 British Council Sorrento Conference)

The aim of this paper is to discuss how communication strategies, through which strategic competence can be developed, can inform language teaching and learning. The focus is on oral interaction at the intermediate level.

Learning strategies, teaching strategies and new curricular demands: a critical view

Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL-Italy, Vol. XXIX, No. 2, Fall 2002

New curricular demands, with their emphasis on competence and performance, prompt us to investigate the role that learning strategies can realistically play in the learning/teaching process, both from a cognitive and from an affective-motivational point of view. Learners should not just be "trained" to use strategies - rather, students and teachers should engage in a mutual effort to negetiate their own specific contribution to learning tasks.

Learning strategies: bridging the gap between competence and process

A Powerpoint presentation with notes for reflection and discussion

Learning strategies have long been recognised as a key tool to empower students and promote learner autonomy. Recent debates on school reform, however, invite us to clarify the place that strategy instruction may have in a new curriculum, with special regard to the concept of “competence” and to the interaction between “process” and “product”. Thus it is important to investigate the role that strategies can play in the learning process, both from a cognitive and from an affective-motivational point of view. Teachers also need to become conversant with the ways and means to implement strategy instruction in the classroom.

An Italian version is available.

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Teacher Support and Teacher Challenge in Promoting Learner Autonomy

(Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL-Italy - Vol. XXIII, No. 2 Fall 1997)

Promoting autonomy means helping students find their own personal balance between dependence (on such factors as the teacher and the textbook) and self-regulation. If we become more aware of the degree to which we support and challenge learners in our  management of tasks and interaction, we can then better evaluate our teaching style, the activities we use, and our students' motivational profiles.

Language awareness - learning awareness in a communicative approach: A key to learner independence

(Perspectives, a Joumal of TESOL-Italy - Volume XVIII, Number 2, December 1992)

Learner awareness refers to both the content of learning (i.e. the linguistic and cultural input) and to the process of learning (i.e. the cognitive and metacognitive strategies used by learners and their beliefs and attitudes towards language and learning). Raising students' awareness and integrating it into the EFL syllabus will be a necessary step towards learner (and teacher) independence.

Towards learner autonomy: from study skills to learning strategies

(Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL-Italy - Vol. XVII, No. 1, July 1991)

Revisiting study skills as learning strategies can be the first step in educating students to become more autonomous (language) learners.

Learner training: integrating language and learning strategies

(The state of the art - The British Council 1991 Bologna Conference)

We can try to integrate the learning of a language with the awareness of what a language is, how it works and how it can be learnt. We do this because we believe that a good language learner is not just the one who can perform well, but also, and more importantly, the one who knows how to go about the task of learning.

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Language learning motivation: A multi-dimensional competence

(Paper given at Tesol-Italy's 2011 Convention in Rome)

If we accept the idea that motivation is neither a natural gift nor the result of fortuitous circumstances, then we need to consider its multiple dimensions: the influence of interpersonal and sociocultural relationships, the impact of the learning tasks which are set in the classroom, and the dynamic interplay of personal values, beliefs and perceptions which shape the language learner’s identity.

Powerpoint presentation with full text

Reshaping the curriculum: the role of motivation

(Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL-Italy - Vol. XXV, No. 1-2, Spring-Fall 1999)

Reforming a curriculum can be a good opportunity to reconsider some "hidden" factors like learners' beliefs, values, attitudes - and motivation. This paper discusses the various subtle ways in which teachers and institutions can influence a student's willingness to learn, through the role of the feedback they give, the features of the tasks they set and the impact of individual beliefs.

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Probing the hidden curriculum: Teachers´ and students´ beliefs and attitudes

Paper given at the British Council 18th National Conference for Teachers of English - Palermo, 18-20 March 1999

The “hidden curriculum”, made up of beliefs and attitudes about language and learning, ultimately affects the success of any educational reform. This paper tries to describe the nature of these beliefs, explain their role in teaching and learning, and suggest ways in which they can be investigated and monitored.

An Italian version is available.

Beliefs and attitudes: A key to learner and teacher progression

(Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL-Italy - Vol. XXXVII, No. 1, Spring 2010)

Learners’ and teachers’ beliefs and attitudes towards languages and cultures, language learning and teaching, and themselves as learners and teachers have proved to affect intentions, decisions and behaviour in the classroom. This paper reports on the preliminary results of a survey carried out in Italian upper secondary schools, with the aim of monitoring and hopefully fostering learner (and teacher) progression.

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Cloned by the computer? New technologies, learner profiles, old and new strategies

(Paper given at the 19th British Council Italy Annual National Conference for Teachers of English, Bologna, 23-25 March 2000)

New technologies and individual differences: what impact can man-machine interaction have on cognitive styles and learning strategies?

An Italian version is available.

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Documenting the curriculum: Process and competence in a learning portfolio

Paper given at the British Council 20th National Conference for Teachers of English - Venice, 15-17 March 2001

Recent debates on curriculum change have tended to emphasize the end-product (competence) rather than the process which makes that product achievable. The idea of a language portfolio, put forward by the Council of Europe, is a good opportunity to develop a self-standing learning portfolio, evidence of  both students´ competence-in-progress and of their emerging personal profile as language learners.

Implementing language and cross-curricular portfolio projects:  Some pedagogical implications

(Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL-Italy - Vol. XXVII, No. 2, Spring 2001)

Implementing a portfolio project can be an example of promising innovation in learning, teaching and assessment if it prompts us and our students to set clear targets, set up, carry out and assess meaningful learning experiences, and build up and regularly update learner profiles.

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Communicative language learning: where does grammar fit in?

(Problems and experiences in the teaching of English - Vol. II, No. 4, December 1985)

What roles can grammar be expected to play in "communicative" language learning? What changes in the traditional notion of "grammar" may be necessary, and how can language be described in a "communicative" approach?

Communicative language teaching and learning: the role of reference grammars

(Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL-Italy - Vol. XII, No. 1, January 1987)

One of the main pedagogical issues raised by communicative language teaching is how to relate form, meaning and function within a coherent methodology, and how to help students see these relationships and make the most of them during their learning process.

Form, meaning and function: a new look at reference grammars

("English in school: An overview" - The British Council 1986 Sorrento Conference)

How can the grammar of a language be described when that language is seen primarily as a means of communication?

Developing materials and techniques for "reflection on language" in the classroom

(Problems and experiences in the teaching of English - Vol. IV, No. 2, 1988)

Along with a concern for communication, i.e. prompting students to use a language, we can also be concerned with reflection, i.e. prompting students to think and talk about that same language.

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Study skills though English

("Language and literature" - The British Council 1987 Sorrento Conference)

If we link the teaching of study skills with the teaching of English as a foreign language, then the two sets of objectives can integrate and support each other within the framework of the school curriculum.

Study skills and the EFL syllabus: a cross-curricular approach

(Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL-Italy - Vol. XIV, No. 1, May 1988)

If we are ready to admit that students must learn how to learn, then it follows that study skills should be part of a specific and systematic teaching curriculum.

Note-making as process: a cross-curricular learning strategy

(Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL-Italy - Vol. XV, No. 2, May 1989)

By focussing on processes rather than on products, on skills rather than simply on subject-matter content, we will be able to consider note-making as a powerful tool to be used across the full range of school subjects.

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The challenge of plurilingual education: Promoting transfer across the language curriculum

(Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL-Italy - Vol. XXXV, No. 1, Spring 2008, pp. 7-21)

Powerpoint presentation with full text or text-only with bibliography and webliography

A plurilingual curriculum is responsible for promoting the transfer of knowledge, beliefs/attitudes and skills across languages, so that learners can both profit from their previous L1 and L2 experiences in learning an L3, and, conversely, feedback their new L3 competence into their L1 and L2. This means (re)discovering the potential of cross-curricular language education, and, for teachers of English in particular, highlight transferable elements in the areas of language awareness and learning awareness.

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Teaching the modular way?

A few notes on modularity in language teaching.

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