Assignment Resit 1– FP014 LS

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT RESIT 1:

LEARNING STRATEGIES

GENERAL INFORMATION:

Name and surname(s): CARMEN CRISTINA RAMOS BUSTILLO

Login: HNFPMTFL2857711
Group: LS 2018_02
Date: June 28TH 2020

“Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him how to fish and he eats for a
lifetime”.

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Teaching someone to fish

Bearing in mind the readings and materials seen in this subject, consider the following
task that has been adapted from R.Oxford (“Language Learning Strategies: What every
teacher should know”. 1990:211).

An ancient proverb says, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him how to
fish and he eats for a lifetime”.

According to Hoskins and Fredikson (2008) “Learning strategies are behaviors and
thoughts in which a learner engages to influence and which are intended the learner’s
encoding process”. If we study from this definition in this subject there are many way to
teach and to learn something. A learner can be a mechanic, a janitor or a student in the
classroom or out of there. We as teachers need to know many rules, strategies,
methodologies, processes, and so on, because we teach to our students to learn
English in this case.

If we start from this Chinese Proverb “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach
him how to fish and he eats for a lifetime”. It is all about teaching and learning process
means give to the students the answer, he knows the answer, no the procedure, give
the students just the meaning of a word instead of explain it uses or it context. In many
times students want to know results but no procedures, no how they can make
something. They ask about the answer. Every day students get a new word, they do
not like to use a dictionary for example, and they ask to the teacher what does that
word mean. That happened many times to me in the English class. I teach in a rural
area, poverty is in general, students do not use any technological device, they do not
use internet at school, it is not permitted, so they bring a pocket English - Spanish
dictionary to the English class. Students from seventh, eighth, nine grade find new
words in it. They learn English using different kind of activities.

Another example is my students from eleventh grade work in writing business letter, I
teach them how to write a business letter. They learn how to write each part. I teach
them also how to use the computer to write the letter in the computer and send them to
my electronic mail. My school has a computer lab where eleventh grade students can
go there and receive some classes. English is not a part of those classes, however, I
get permission to bring my students to work the letter in the computer. They learn a
process, content, apply punctuation, capitalization, in only one document also they use
Word as program.

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In my opinion, it is better to teach how to fish, how to learn than just give them the fish.

In my country there are many people living in the United States of America, they only
receive the money from their family living there, working there, they are only receiving
the fat fish, people who moved to other country to work, learn how to work how to make
money, but they do not teach how to do it, they just give the fish. That happen because
it is not easy to teach. It is not easy to give the strategies how to fish, even some
people receive the tools but they cannot use them.

This is the other part of the proverb “Teach him how to fish” is about procedures,
strategies, methods, technics, because there are many factors imply in teaching and
learning how to do something. Learning strategies is about these “teach to our students
how to learn English. This is how to fish (Learning English). It is not the same give a
fish than give the tool to learn, give them (to our students) the opportunity to discover
their learning styles for example, as we studied in the past subject.

As Ellis said (1994: 388) “Learning a language, like any other type of skill learning (for
example, driving car or playing tennis), involves the development of procedures that
transform declarative knowledge into a form that makes for easy and efficient
performance

Valcarcel et al. (1996) have argued, for learning to take place the learner must actively
participate in the process, the learner is involved in fishing is not only listening or just
observing he is part of the process with motivation, and also interaction. I disagree in
give a fish, I totally concern about teach him how to fish, as teachers need to collect
strategies, technics, etcetera. The fisher can find his own way to fish if we teach him in
different ways, if we give him tools, and strategies. Let him be a part of the process as
participant no just as a spectator.

Finally, if we think about in how to learn to a man brings self-confidence and self-
esteem in him. It helps him to improve as human being. It makes a more responsible
person in the society. The man understands the value to get involved in the community
in which they reside. Be part of a group to push the economic in his area.

Now considering Tyacke and Mendelsohn’s (1986:178) response to this proverb:

“But just as there are many different kinds of rods, different kinds of bait and different
fishing locations, all of which offer a variety of choices and experiences, there are

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different ways of learning language.” It is talk about three aspects: rods as methods,
and strategies, fishing locations as contexts, baits as technics.

This mean to me in the first part “But just as there are many kinds of rods…”

As Ellis said (1994: 388) “Learning a language, like any other type of skill learning (for
example, driving car or playing tennis), involves the development of procedures that
transform declarative knowledge into a form that makes for easy and efficient
performance.” We can add fishing, also involves procedures to learn to teach and
finally to fish.

We have to take in consideration factors as we mentioned before, one of them is the

context, where the man, in this case our students develop the learning strategy to learn
the new language. The age is important to develop procedures, I agreed with Rubin
(1996:151) when said: “strategy instruction is one way to work towards enhancing your
procedural knowledge. Since many adults are “language phobic” … they need to gain
more procedural knowledge to deflect negative affective influences…” Teenagers or
children are like sponge in learning language, they follow procedures and they are
more dynamic in the learning process, however, when we teach to adults we have to
discover their learning styles also with kids, but talking about adults is my focus
because the proverb has mentioned a man no a child. Base in learning style teacher
can teach in different ways and technics to. “Teacher need to think about the process,
planning for learning, monitoring the learning task and evaluating how well one has
learned” that according to O’Malley and Chamot’s (1990) words. In all this process we
know the learner and we can give him directions to start and end successfully the
learning process.

This aspect is like teaching Math or Science, there are some procedures to find an
answer, and there are different ways to find it. Sometimes students choose the easier
way or the easier procedure. But at the end they get the solution. This includes that
student learns in any time, with different contexts and a variety of contents, also they
learn in a supermarket or in the classroom or even in the kitchen. We are in a new age
where everything has changed, the world has changed, and people have changed. So
we can open our minds and give all the possibilities to learn to our students. Today we
can find people working from their home when they never stay there. We have learned
at this time to fish with different tools “virtually” using computers, programs, nobody
wants to stay in the same place, everyone wants to continue taking advantage, at work
at studies, as professionals. We have been fishers, trainers, helping each other. I had

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the opportunity to explain how to use an “x” App to some co-workers I teach them since
download the App until to use a background screen. They let them teach because the
circumstances they needed to learn how to use as that App as teacher and to develop
classes online. It was easier for me to do everything instead of explain them, be
patience, give them some tips to remember to use in class. And sometimes repeat
them twice or thrice until they got how to do it. As teachers need to be creative but to
be patient

Talking about pros of conducting strategy training is about establish the kind of learners
like auditory, visual, tactile and do many activities to help students to catch the fish “the
knowledge” according to those learning styles students can swim in the ocean of
English as a fish in the water, this make the possibility to the learner to learn in the
space they feel more comfortable. The teacher’s job is not easy but has the
responsibility to push or encourage the students to learn topics, contents that might be
difficult for them. A good written plan can develop a great class. It is possible because
of the teacher and the motivation of the students.

Finally, there are some cons of conducting strategy training as O’Malley and Chamot’s
taxonomy concludes in metacognitive strategies do not necessarily share the qualities
of being stable and statable with metacognitive knowledge, and may be more task-and
age-dependent. An important aspect is the time, if the strategy instruction should be in
short term or long term, how long should it last it is depend of students, context, age as
already mentioned before. In addition, because there are more than one learning style,
teacher must prepare many activities and strategies to develop in each style it is more
time to plan, to prepare material, and do a variety of activities where students will learn
in their own style. That is good but we have to take more time that’s my point. The
motivation is very important, it must be with the character, the students’ personality and
the implication of the environment where they develop daily.

As a conclusion it is important to say that it is much better to teach how to learn, how to
fish instead of give the fish. As a teachers, we are the channel to connect the people
with the knowledge using a set of techniques, methodology, content, spaces, taking
advantages in any circumstances. This proverb is not just to teach English, but it is
adaptable in any area, for example, drive a car, build a house, make shoes, use a
computer program, how to apply any App in our daily routine. If we do as much as we
can our job, our students will be successful.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Madrid, Dr. Daniel & Ball, Mr. Philip (2019). Learning Strategies. FUNIBER.
• O’Malley, J. M. & Chamot A. U. (1990). Learning Strategies in Second
Language Acquisition. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
• Oxford, R. (1990). Language Learning Strategies: What every teacher
should know. Newbury House. New York.