Cultural Differences in

Learning: Revisited

Mariana Lazzaro

“Language learning strategies are specific actions, behaviours, steps,

or techniques that the students employ-often consciously-to

improve their own progress in internalizing, storing, retrieving and

using L2”. (Oxford 1990)

Learning strategies

Self-regulation

Metacognitive

a) planning

b) monitoring

c) evaluating

Cognitive

Social-affective

Some findings:

Indonesian: memory, metacognitive, affective strategiesAustralian: cognitive, compensation, socialSpanish: “highly traditional strategies”Chinese, Hungarian and Turkish: memorization, recitation, repetition, note-taking, grammar translation.

Bibliography:

Beebe, Leslie M; Takahashi, Tomoko. “do you have a bag: Social status and patterned variation in second language acquisition”. Variation in Second Language Acquisition: Discourse and Pragmatics. Multilingual Matters Ltd. 1989.Sri Lengkanawati, Nenden. “How learners from different cultural backgrounds learn a foreign language”. Asian EFL Journal. 2004.“Nationality and language learning strategies of ELT-Major university students”. Asian EFL Journal. 2004.“Communicating effectively with Chinese students in EFL/ESL classrooms”, “Language learning and awareness of personality type in Chinese settings”, “A native approach to ELT: Universal or Asian?”. English Language Learning in the Asian Context. 2004Qingyang, Gui. “Beware of blind Westernisation of TEFL in Asia: a Chinese case study”. The Journal of Asia TEFL, Vol.2, No 2, pp.23-33. Summer 2005.Stone Hanley, Mary. “The scope of multicultural education”.

Banks, James A.. “Diversity within unity: essential principles for teaching and learning in a multicultural society”. http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/multicultural