It seems to me that the central kernel of the learner strategies movement
is to (a) promote a perspective which views learners as active agents in
their own learning, and (b) help learners discover better ways to assert
this agency. Looking at it this way, I don't find it in contradiciton with
a sociocultural approach (at least not with my own perspective on
sociocultural approaches).
Perhaps you could teach the class more through a collaborative inquiry
method. Have the students think about and explore their own strategies
they use. Have the students-- through interviews and observations and
talk-aloud protocols--investigate what strategies other learners are using.
Have the learners develop their own report of effective learner strategies
and how to promote them, and post it on the World Wide Web for others to
read and comment on. Anyway, those are my random thoughts on the subject.
Mark
Mark Warschauer, University of Hawai'i, markw who-is-at hawaii.edu
http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/markw
>Hi fellow xmca'ers,
>
>:-) I've at long last finished my dissertation! Well, I'd like to thank
>all those of you who have given me so much help and support, refs..,
>leads, and discussed with me my ideas while I was doing it...! Your
>VIRTUAL support has been very real! :-) Thanks!!
>
>Well, I'm going onto the next stage of my life... to take up a teaching
>position in the City University of Hong Kong... this 22nd of January... and
>they ask me to teach a course on "learner strategies" in L2 learning or
>SLA (second language acquisition)...
>
>Can I teach something I no longer believe in??? Well, that's life, isn't it?
>I've glanced through the "textbook" they told me they've ordered for the
>students... it's Rebecca Oxford's Language Learning Strategies: What
>Every Teacher Should Know (1990). Sigh... I want to look at it from a
>sociocultural and social practice perspective... I don't really think
>these "strategies" contained in this textbook are really helpful...,
>e.g., memory strategies--how to memorize L2 vocabulary...
>
>Please correct me if you think there's a positive side to this line of
>theories and stuff... I'd like to hear your thoughts on how I can turn the
>course into a more interesting one, from a sociocultural perspective...
>
>Thanks in advance!
>
>Angel
Mark Warschauer, University of Hawai'i, markw who-is-at hawaii.edu
http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/markw