Persian Learners Mastering <i>Kanji</i>: Strategies, Use, and Efficiency

Bases on cognitive strategy and metacognitive strategy theory and Strategy-based Instruction (SBI), the study has adopted a descriptive design with quantitative data gathering and analyzing methods to investigate the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies and to study and illustrate the importance of listening strategies in improving listening and show how effective metacognitive and cognitive strategies-based instruction in improving college English listening. The major contribution of the study is its demonstration of the effectiveness of SBI for college students’ English listening proficiency and strategy use. Introduction According to second language acquisition (SLA) theory, language input is the basic necessity in language acquisition and listening has taken a great part in the language input. Meanwhile, according to previous scholars’ researches, strategies play an important role in the learning process. [1] O' Malley and Chamot (2001) hold the view that cognitive strategies may be restricted to be applied to specific type of task during the learning process such as listening and reading comprehension, but metacognitive strategies can be applied to more kinds of learning tasks. [2] Skehan (1998) and Zheng Ming (2000) stress the importance of metacognitive strategies for example, O' Malley and Chamot (2001:8) indicate that if learners lack of appropriate metacognitive approaches, they will be essentially losing directions or chances to make their learning plans, monitor their progress, or recheck their outcomes and results and further learning directions. [3] Skehan (1998:265) holds the opinion that metacognitive strategies apply in a broader area than cognitive strategies and possibly indeed subsume and surpass them. According to previous scholars’ researches, strategies play an important role in the learning process. Therefore, this thesis aims to study and illustrate the importance of listening strategies in improving listening and show how effective metacognitive and cognitive strategies-based instruction in improving college English listening. In addition, this thesis also copes with the study on ways to apply strategies instruction to college students’ listening classroom. Methodolody Research questions This study aims to answer the following four research questions: 1. What are the effects of metacognitive and cognitive strategies-based instruction on learners’ English listening proficiency? 2. What are the impacts of metacognitive and cognitive strategies-based instruction on learners’ strategy employment situation? International Conference on Management Science, Education Technology, Arts, Social Science and Economics (MSETASSE 2015) © 2015. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 1082 Research Subject The subjects participating in the present study are 80 second-year undergraduate students at Wuhan Textile University. One class of 40 students comprised Experiment Group (EG) which received the combing training of cognitive and metacognitive strategies in listening classroom teaching. Another class of 40 comprised Comparison Group (CG), receiving only cognitive strategies training. As they have been very familiar with the college English and have high desire to pass the CET-4, they have great interest in learning the strategies. Research Instruments The instruments employed include a questionnaire and two English proficiency tests: pre-test and post-test. The questionnaire was used for collecting information on learners’ listening awareness, listening metacognitive and cognitive strategies use. [4] The questionnaire was given to the two groups at the beginning of the new semester on August 29, 2013 at the same time. Data Collection These data were from the process of analyzing the students’ scores by computer software SPSS17.0. Paired Sample T-Test was used to make analysis of the intra-group difference and we use descriptive statistics to make the description of the inter-group difference respectively. Results and Discussion Research Question 1: The effects of metacognitive and cognitive strategies-based instruction on learners’ English listening proficiency. In order to establish the homogeneity of the two groups of listening, an independent-sample t-test was to examine the difference among the performance of the two groups on the listening proficiency test before the training. TABLE 1 LISTENING PROFICIENCY PRE-TEST BETWEEN EG AND CG BY INDEPENDENT SAMPLES TEST According to table 1, the first sig. is 0.066(>0.05) that means the statistics is log-normally distributed and can be analyzed by independent sample test. The second Sig. (2-tailed)=0.833 ( >0.05) means there is not any significant difference between the two groups and they can be seen as parallel in the listening proficiency. TABLE 2 MEANS OF PRE-TEST AND POST-TEST OF EG FOR LISTENING PROFICIENCY As it is stated in Table 2 the mean of post-test in EG(36.7000) is about 12 points higher than that of the pre-test (24.0667) which means the combing training of cognitive and metacognitive strategies is very effective in terms of listening proficiency. TABLE 3 MEANS OF PRE-TEST AND POST-TEST OF CG FOR LISTENING PROFICIENCY

This study aimed to reveal the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies by university students in maharah qiraah and to compare such strategies with the success of their learning. Hence, The results can describe the differences in learning outcomes among students using cognitive and metacognitive strategies. This study also sought to get an overview of the cognitive and metacognitive practices in maharah qiraah. As time went by, such practices of learning strategies certainly got some modifications and needed to be reviewed. This research was descriptive-quantitative. The instruments used were 1) a questionnaire adapted from Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning; and 2) follow-up interviews to explore the cognitive and metacognitive practices. Conclusion to be drawn was that 62.9% of the students used metacognitive strategies; 17.74% of the students used cognitive strategies; and 19.36% of the students used both cognitive and metacognitive strategies. The questionnaire data were continuously processed by reviewing students’ average scores in maharah qiraah. The students using metacognitive strategies obtained a score of 86.15, while those using cognitive strategies obtained a score of 87.73. Subsequently, thos using both strategies received a score of 85.58. It was concluded that there was no difference in learning outcomes between students who used cognitive, metacognitive, or both strategies. From interview findings, there were several variations in the use of cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies used by students. Cognitive strategies consisted of identifying words and marking them, speed reading to get an outline or main idea, translating, reading repeatedly, using dictionaries and several other sources, analyzing, and reasoning. In the meantime, metacognitive strategies were carried out consciously by focusing attention, organizing alongside planning learning processes, monitoring, and evaluating learning processes. This study has implications to provide an overview of the development of practical forms of cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies so such strategies can be adapted by other language learners.

This research aims at Investigating the Language Learning Strategy Used by English Department Students at Madako University. The type of this research is qualitative research. The samples were 15 students at B class which were selected purposively. Its data were collected through questionnaire. The result showed that students used all the strategies including memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective and social strategy. The most strategy used by the students were metacognitive strategy. And it showed, students used metacognitive strategy (20%), followed by the social strategy (18%), compensation strategy (16%), affective strategy (16%), cognitive strategy (15%), and memory strategy (15%). The result also showed the students were categorized as high language learning strategy users.

Introduction. The topic of self-regulated learning has provided very important information about students’ acquisition of knowledge and competences. Traditional research has described the importance of several cognitive, metacognitive, resource control and motivational strategies. Nevertheless, motivational strategies have received less attention in empirical studies. The purpose of this study was to propose a model of how motivational strategies related to the expectative component affect cognitive and metacognitive strategies.Method. 1,080 Spanish-speaking secondary students from different locations throughout Spain provided self-reports on their use of cognitive, metacognitive and motivational strategies. It was assumed that the effect of motivational strategies on cognitive strategies could be mediated by metacognitive strategies. To examine these strategies and their relationships, descriptive statistics were calculated and a path diagram was created.Results. Information about motivational, metacognitive and cognitive strategies was offered. Results showed significant paths from some motivational strategies, but not all, to metacognitive self-regulation and from metacognitive self-regulation to all of the cognitive strategies. Motivational strategies showed direct and indirect effects on cognitive strategies.Conclusion. Students should adopt not only cognitive and metacognitive strategies but also other kinds of strategies that allow them to manage their motivation. For example, the generation of a positive expectations strategy can be an important way to improve their learning. This aspect is characteristic of self-regulated learning, which is defined not only by cognitive and behavioural regulation but also by motivational regulation.

The impetus behind the design of this current research is to check the influence of cartoons on vocabulary learning strategies of students who have been exposed to three classics from English literature, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare. To that end, a vocabulary learning strategy test has been adopted in this quasi-experimental research which completely covers similar word units as in cartoons and hence aims to reveal favoured strategies of students besides clarifying the differences between the male and the female as well as three age groups, 10-19, 20-29 or 30 and elder. 20 randomly assigned participants working on extracts in plain texts without any comic strips were in control group, whereas 47 Turkish EFL students were in the experiment group reading cartoons in colour or black and white format. It was found out that the common vocabulary learning strategies that were used by the experimental group were determination and metacognitive strategies, whereas control group mainly adopted memory, social and metacognitive strategies. In terms of gender, the females practised determination and memory strategies, while the male students opted for social, metacognitive and cognitive strategies. Finally, 10-19 and 30 or elder subjects mostly utilized metacognitive and social strategies; however, the success of 20-29 year-old students centred around determination and memory strategies.

This research identifies the vocabulary learning strategies used by junior high school students. The participants were 103 students from the ninth grade of SMP Negeri 2 Semparuk in the academic year 2020/2021. The data were derived from an open-ended questionnaire which consisted of 5 questions using qualitative analysis, and a close-ended questionnaire consisting of 20 items using descriptive statistics. There were four strategies covered in the questionnaire: metacognitive, cognitive, memory, and activation strategies. Based on the data collected, some students shared their experiences of learning vocabulary daily. They only focused on finding the strategies that will support their learning of English vocabulary by translating, memorizing, taking notes, and highlighting the words that they are going to learn for the next day. They also practiced making sentences using the words they have found. The result also showed that the most frequently used strategies by the ninth-grade students of SMP Negeri 2 Semparuk are activation strategies (M=2.52), then respectively followed by cognitive strategies (M=2.16), memory strategies (M=2.14), and metacognitive strategies (M=2.05).

This study is aimed to describe writing strategies applied by the fourth semester students of English language education program of PGRI Ronggolawe University Tuban in their argumentative writing. It includes 1) kinds of writing strategies applied by the students in their argumentative writing 2) the application of those kinds of strategies. This research used descriptive qualitative method. The subject of this research was five students who got the highest score in their previous writing subject. The researcher modified SILL questionnaires based on (Oxford, 1996) to observe their writing strategy, which covers six categorizes of strategies namely cognitive, metacognitive, memory, compensation, affective, and social strategy. The data from the questionnaire and the interview were analyzed descriptively. The result of this study indicated that all students applied all kinds of writing strategies. Compensation strategy became the most dominant strategy used by the students, followed by metacognitive strategy, memory strategy, cognitive strategy, affective strategy and social strategy. The students had different way to apply writing strategies. It depended on their condition and their needs while writing a text.

The present study investigates the use of vocabulary learning strategies used by 124 Moroccan university students of English as a foreign language, 60 males and 64 females with a consideration of gender and proficiency. Strategy use is assessed through the SILL*(Oxford, 1990), and proficiency is determined by the subjects' study level. The findings are that the reported frequency of strategy use is moderate overall, with the students reporting most frequent use of compensation strategies and least of affective strategies. Female students show more frequent use of all six categories than male students, and fourth year university students employ compensation and memory strategies more often, whereas first year students employ metacognitive, cognitive, affective and social strategies more often. Cognitive strategies show the highest correlation with metacognitive and memory strategies. It is revealed that the students' gender and proficiency have a significant relationship with their use of learning strategies. Some implications of the findings are discussed along with suggestions for further research.

This study aims to provide research data for effective strategy learning by finding out the frequency of vocabulary learning strategy use and variable-based strategy use aspects in Vietnamese Korean language learners. The study results displayed that Vietnamese Korean language learners employed ‘Discovery Strategies’ more than ‘Consolidation strategies’. Among six sub-strat egies, ‘Cognitive Strategy’, which is a sub-strategy of ‘Discovery Strategies’ was used a lot. When analyzing strategy use aspects depending on learner variables, such as gender, experience with vocabulary learning strategy learning and experience with other foreign language learning, male students showed a higher frequency of strat egy use than female students, but ‘Consolidation strategies’ that is a sub-strategy of ‘Memory Strengthening strategy’ was more used among female students. In relation to experience with vocabulary strategy learning, the use of strategies was bigger when students learned strategies. In relation to experience with other foreign language learning, ‘Decision Strategies’ of ‘Discovery Strategies’ was more used among learners with experience in learning other foreign languages. It is anticipated that this study would provide the direction of Korean vocabulary learning strategy education and implications for rapidly increasing Vietnamese Korean language learners.

The factors influencing student learning is a shared concern internationally. The role of student demographics, the nature of their schools, and the wealth and inequality of their countries are established factors in academic achievement (Marchant & Finch, 2016). Identifying factors that impede learning is not a difficult task. Factors such as poverty, discrimination, and inequality all undermine efforts to educate children; however, it is more difficult to identify feasible and efficient solutions to improve learning outcomes or overcome disadvantages. Short of one-to-one instruction, the strategies students employ when approaching learning tasks may be one factor that could offset some of the other universal negatives.A large body of research has examined the use of academic strategies, which entail a variety of tactics that may facilitate achievement (Boss & Vaughn, 2002; Ward & Traweek, 1993; Zimmerman, 2002). Although, multiple perspectives are discussed within the literature, and the terminology may differ slightly across these perspectives, some of the most common types of strategies include cognitive and metacognitive strategies (Cantrell et al., 2010; Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1993). It should be noted that there are differences in the terminology and classification of academic strategies. Many have also classified various academic strategies into two broad categories of learning strategies and metacognitive strategies (PISA, 2009; Woolfolk, 2014). In particular, this perspective is consistent with the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA, 2009) which served as the primary data source for this study. From this perspective, learning strategies may entail both cognitive strategies and control strategies that are used to optimize students' learning of content. Cognitive strategies include a variety of actions but some popular strategies include memorization, elaboration, or summarization (PISA, 2009; Pintrich et al., 1993; Woolfolk, 2014). A common theme among these strategies is that they enhance learning by compensating for limitations on one's cognitive abilities. For example, one may choose to use a memorization strategy, such as rote repetition or creating an acronym, because without the support of such a strategy, the number of pieces of information to be remembered would exceed or strain the learner's memory capacity. Relatedly, another cognitive strategy, elaboration, entails creating connections between prior learning and new information, which supports learning by capitalizing on cognitive predispositions to remember content that is connected to prior knowledge.On the other hand, control strategies have been defined in multiple ways within the literature; however, PISA (2009) describes control strategies as the actions that students take to identify the key purpose of a task or identify the main concepts. From this perspective, control strategies are considered to be within the larger category of learning strategies because the identification of key information should enhance learning (Gardner, Brown, Sanders, & Menke, 1992).In contrast to learning strategies, another class of strategies within the PISA, 2009 measures include metacognitive strategies, which help a learner think about his or her thinking (Bruning, Schraw, & Norby, 2011). For example, a metacognitive strategy to check one's understanding of a paragraph immediately after reading the paragraph might increase the reader's awareness that he or she did not understand the text. Similarly, one may summarize a paragraph into their own words to monitor how well they understood the text. A primary benefit of metacognitive strategies is that increased awareness, especially when a learner is struggling, provides an opportunity for the learner to take actions, such as utilizing learning strategies, to improve learning.Learning Strategies, Metacognitive Strategies, and AchievementResearch has been relatively consistent in showing that metacognitive strategies are related to achievement and learning across many content areas, but especially reading, mathematics, and science. …

Although studies show relations between implicit theories about ability (ITs) and cognitive as well as metacognitive learning strategy use, existing studies suffer from an overreliance on broad-brush self-report measures of strategy use and limited ecological validity. Moreover, studies rarely examine younger students, and research on ITs and how much students benefit from interventions on learning strategies is lacking. Therefore, we investigated in ecologically valid settings (regular classroom instruction) whether primary school students’ ITs are related to their use of cognitive strategies (text reduction strategies based on identifying a text’s main ideas) and metacognitive strategies, assessed with (a) typical self-report scales and (b) more behavior-proximal measures. We also investigated whether students’ ITs predict how much they benefit from a previously evaluated 4-week intervention on cognitive and metacognitive strategies during regular classroom instruction (i.e., how much self-report scales and behavior-proximal measures for strategy use increase over the course of the intervention). Participants were 436 German primary school students (third and fourth graders). The data were analyzed using mixed linear regression analyses. Strength of students’ incremental theory was positively related to metacognitive strategy use, but not cognitive strategy use, when measured with self-report scales. For behavior-proximal measures, strength of incremental theory was positively related to the effectiveness of students’ cognitive strategy use and their extent of strategy monitoring (one of the two metacognitive strategies examined), but not to the quality of their goal setting (the second metacognitive strategy). Unexpectedly, students with a stronger incremental theory did not benefit more from the intervention.

This study explores the language learning strategies (LLSs) used by Year 6 pupils in a suburban primary school in Sarawak to improve their English as a Second Language (ESL) writing. It identifies preferred and underused strategy categories by examining their frequency and variety. Using a quantitative approach, the study adapted Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) to survey 30 selected pupils, focusing on memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective, and social strategies. Findings showed that metacognitive strategies like planning and self-monitoring were most frequent, indicating a strong focus on cognitive regulation in writing. Cognitive strategies, such as using authentic English media, were also common. However, affective strategies, related to emotional regulation, were least used, suggesting a need to address emotional aspects of learning. The study highlights the importance of metacognitive and cognitive strategies in ESL writing development, urging educators to integrate them into teaching. It implies that adding emotional support and reflection could further enhance students’ writing skills and confidence. These findings add to the limited research on LLS use among primary ESL learners in Sarawak by providing evidence of their learning strategy preferences and offer practical ideas to teach writing which suggest an emphasis on thinking and learning strategies alongside emotional support for better writing development.

In recent years, language learning research has been paying more attention to the factors that may affect the choice by language learners of language learning strategies in general and writing strategies in particular to enhance their own learning. Given the socio-cognitive nature of the act of writing, as Roca de Larios et al. (2002) note, both writer-internal and -external factors have been reported to influence the deployment of writing strategies. Personality type, as one of the influential internal factors among others, is the focus of the present study, which intended to investigate English language learners’ writing strategies with reference to their personality types at different universities in Iran. To this end, a writing strategy questionnaire was employed to tap into the memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, social, and affective strategies of 210 participants. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator questionnaire was utilized to identify the self-reported personality types of Iranian EFL learners. The analysis of the participants’ perceptions demonstrated a significant relationship between writing strategies and personality types. Furthermore, it was found that metacognitive and cognitive strategies were the most frequently used strategies and memory strategies the least frequently used ones as reported by the participants.

In learning journals, prompts were shown to increase self-regulated learning processes effectively. As studies on effects of long-term prompting are sparse, this study investigates the effects of prompting cognitive and metacognitive self-regulation strategies short-term and long-term in learning journals on learners’ strategy use, self-efficacy, and learning outcome. Therefore, 74 university students kept a weekly learning journal as follow-up course work over a period of eight weeks. All students’ learning journals included prompts for a short-term period, half of the students were prompted long-term. While self-efficacy was assessed via self-reports, strategy use was measured with self-reports and qualitative data from the learning journals. Learning outcomes were assessed via course exams. Short-term prompting increased self-reported cognitive and metacognitive strategy use, and the quantity of cognitive strategy use. Yet, it did not affect self-efficacy, which predicted the learning outcome. Irrespective whether prompting continued or not, self-reported cognitive and metacognitive strategy use, and self-efficacy decreased. Qualitative data indicate that the quantity of learners’ cognitive strategy use kept stable irrespective of the condition. The results indicate that short-term prompting activates cognitive and metacognitive strategy use. Long-term prompting in learning journals had no effect on strategy use, self-efficacy, and performance. Future research should investigate possible enhancers of long-term prompting like feedback, adaptive prompts or additional support.

This research is aimed at finding the language learning strategy used by successful students that is categorized into six kinds of strategies; memory, cognitive, metacognitive, affective, compensation, and social strategy suggested by Oxford (1990). The population of the research are students of English study program University Bengkulu year 2014 and 2015 that have GPA 3.51 to 4.00. Methodology of this research is descriptive quantitative. Data were collected by using questionnaires as the instruments. The questionnaires consist of 50 items based on Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) version 7.0 about language learning strategy. The data were processed by using Microsoft Excel 2013 to find the most dominant strategy used by the students. The results showed that the successful students use more than one language learning strategy or mixed strategy, including memory, cognitive, metacognitive, affective, compensation, and social strategy. The dominant strategy used by successful students was metacognitive with mean score 3.94 followed by compensation (3.81), cognitive (3.59), social (3.43), memory (3.31), and affective strategy (3.30). Metacognitive strategies have positive and significant influence toward academic achievement on successful students in learning a language. Metacognitive strategies can help the students to develop good thinking management ability. It also create good academic achievement. In the other hand, the choice of lowest strategy seems to be affected by technology advances, curriculum, feelings, mood, and attitude of the students which is unpredictable.