1.3 Developing Learner Strategies

Developing Learner Strategies

In English Language Teaching (ELT) for young learners, learner strategies are the cognitive and organizational tools that children use to process, structure, store, and retrieve new language. Developing these strategies does not happen automatically; teachers must explicitly train children to use them. By helping young learners develop cognitive strategies like matching, categorizing, sequencing, and ranking, teachers are not only teaching English but also developing the children's general thinking skills and learning competence (often referred to as "learning how to learn" or metacognition). In the TKT: Young Learners syllabus, these strategies are key areas of focus.

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Matching: Creating Associations

Matching is a fundamental cognitive strategy where learners identify relationships between two or more items and link them together.

• Concept and Cognitive Value: Matching helps children form mental pathways between language and physical concepts. By connecting a visual stimulus (a picture of a cat) with a linguistic stimulus (the printed word cat or the spoken word), the brain constructs a strong vocabulary link.
• Classroom Applications: Matching is highly versatile. Children can match:
  • Words to pictures (vocabulary building).
  • Prompts to responses (e.g., matching "How are you?" with "I'm fine, thank you").
  • Collocations (e.g., matching verbs like make or do with nouns like a cake or homework).
  • Synonyms or antonyms (e.g., matching hot with cold).
• Activity Example: In a "Memory Match" game, card pairs are placed face down. Students turn over two cards, trying to find a matching pair (such as the word elephant and a picture of an elephant). When they find a match, they must say the word aloud.

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Categorizing (Sorting): Organizing Information

Categorizing involves grouping items together based on shared characteristics or criteria.

• Concept and Cognitive Value: The brain naturally seeks patterns. Categorizing helps young learners organize new vocabulary in their long-term memory, converting a random list of words into a structured mental lexicon. This structured organization makes retrieving words during communication much faster.
• Classroom Applications: Sorting can be done based on various criteria:
  • Semantic (meaning-based): Sorting word cards into "wild animals" vs. "farm animals."
  • Grammatical: Sorting words into "nouns," "verbs," and "adjectives."
  • Phonetic: Sorting words by their initial sound (e.g., words starting with /b/ vs. /p/).
• Activity Example: In an "Odd One Out" game, the teacher displays four words: apple, banana, carrot, grape. Children must identify the odd one out (carrot) and explain that the others are fruits, while carrot is a vegetable.

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Sequencing: Establishing Logical Order

Sequencing is the organizational strategy of placing items, events, or words in a logical, chronological, or alphabetical order.

• Concept and Cognitive Value: Sequencing develops logical thinking and chronological awareness. In language learning, it helps children understand story structures, narrative flow, cause-and-effect relationships, and sentence-level word order.
• Classroom Applications: Common sequencing activities include:
  • Ordering pictures to tell a story (narrative sequencing).
  • Arranging scrambled words to form a grammatically correct sentence.
  • Putting steps of a recipe or craft activity in order.
  • Chronological ordering of events (e.g., days of the week, daily routines).
• Activity Example: The teacher gives groups of students four jumbled picture cards illustrating a story (e.g., a boy buying seeds, planting them, watering them, and a flower blooming). The students must sequence the cards, then tell the story using sequencing words like first, then, next, and finally.

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Ranking: Evaluating and Prioritizing

Ranking is a higher-order cognitive strategy where learners evaluate a set of items and arrange them in an order of priority, preference, importance, or physical property.

• Concept and Cognitive Value: Unlike matching or categorizing, which have objective correct answers, ranking is often subjective. It forces children to express their opinions, make value judgments, and justify their choices. Languagewise, it naturally elicits comparative structures (better than, bigger than) and superlatives (the best, the most important).
• Classroom Applications: Ranking tasks can include:
  • Ranking a list of foods from "favorite" to "least favorite."
  • Ranking objects to bring to a deserted island based on usefulness.
  • Arranging animals from "fastest" to "slowest."
• Activity Example: Students are given a list of five school subjects. They must rank them individually from 1 (their favorite) to 5 (their least favorite). They then work in pairs to compare their lists, saying: "I think Art is better than Math because it is fun," practicing comparative adjectives in a meaningful context.

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How to Train Learner Strategies Explicitly

To ensure young learners internalize these strategies, teachers should follow a clear instructional sequence:

1. Modeling (Think-Aloud): The teacher demonstrates the strategy explicitly. For example, when introducing sorting, the teacher holds up a picture of a car and says: "Hmm, is a car an animal? No. Is it transport? Yes, it moves. I will put it in the transport box."
2. Guided Practice (Scaffolding): The teacher invites the class to help. "Here is a picture of a bus. Where does it go? Does it go with the dog or the car?"
3. Independent Collaborative Practice: Children work in pairs or small groups to complete the matching, sorting, or sequencing task using hands-on materials (card sorting). Working together forces them to verbalize their strategy.
4. Metacognitive Reflection: The teacher asks students to explain how they did it. "How did you know these words go together?" or "What clues did you use to sequence this story?" This helps children become conscious of their own learning processes.