REFELECTION ON STRATEGIES (DIAGRAM)

We use the language to communicate something to someone and when we are learning a language, the final goal is to be able to keep a conversation in this L2 or L3.

During that language learning we use strategies that help us to make it easier; they can be divided in two groups: the INPUT in which there are included the learning styles and the learning strategies, and the OUTPUT, where the communication strategies are.

When we are language learners and we want to communicate something, the communication strategies take place. There are the social and psychological strategies, and both help us to express ourselves in the L2 or L3 for example, paraphrasing (air ball instead of balloon) or avoiding a word that we don’t know.

We, the English teachers, always are English learners, and we know how to make use of the communication strategies. In our classrooms, we have students and each one is different and to help them to communicate in a foreign language and use the communication strategies, first, we have to know these differences. Every one of them has a learning style: some will learn better by visual support, by activities with the class mates and some with individual ones.

Knowing the diversity in the classroom and that every student will learn in a different way, the more learning strategies we know the better. It’s a compulsory need to us know them to enhance our help towards them and let the pupils know them too .There are a lot of strategies. They (and we) can learn by function strategies, by purpose, by culture, by language, by skill area etc. Focusing in this last one, we can learn and teach by listening, speaking, reading, writing, learning vocabulary or by translation strategies. It’s important to differentiate the translation from other terms like translanguaging, code-switching, co-languaging and diglossia.

With the translation, there is a language separation, scaffolding and the L1 is mainly used; in the code-switching, the students and the teacher use the two languages and with the co-languaging, the content is worked by different language groups. At last but not least, there are two opposite terms: diglossia with which there is a hierarchy and separation between languages and the translanguaging, where the languages co-exist at the same time and the hierarchy is out.

In conclusion, we, the teachers (and learners) have to know learning strategies, adapting them to each student, who has a different learning style, and we have to help them to discover which strategy they are best in. With this help, they will learn better and the will want to communicate things in their L2 or L3, and here is when the communication strategies appear to enhance their expression. Doing it well, there will be more multilingual classrooms in which the diglossia will disappear and the translanguaging will be welcome.