Helping Learners Help Themselves: Strategies for Self-Directed Language Study

By: Dr. Bobby E. Hobgood

Often, the most intentional and impactful pedagogical decisions are the result of instructional challenges we face as higher education instructors.

For example, we remind students with great intention to “study for the upcoming quiz,” yet sadly, the results may disappoint us as well as the students. But where does the blame lie when assessment scores are underwhelming? Do students understand what it means to “study” a language? While we can commiserate over such scenarios, the reality is that students are often uncertain about what “studying” looks like.

Address the problem, not just the symptoms

Having taught French at all levels, from middle school through university, I have consistently experienced these challenges across levels. I don’t recall when it happened, but my awakening occurred one day after class when a student asked me what they could do to improve their reading and writing skills. That exchange brought to light my own failure to provide students with strategies they could use on their own to improve all four skills—in other words, to intentionally “study” French.

I realized that the low scores I was seeing on assessments might not be due to a lack of preparation, but rather to a mismatch or lack of understanding of what constitutes “language study.” I discovered this by talking to students and asking them this simple question: “How DO you study for a quiz or a test?” While the students understood what they read in the text and in their notes, they were incapable of reproducing language on their own.

Study strategy instruction

I addressed this challenge over time by gradually introducing study strategies during class. My university colleague, Dr. Adrian Medina, Professor of Reading and Elementary Education, and I collaborated on regular workshops for any student who wanted to know more about studying and study strategies for world languages at the university level.

We even wrote a guidebook, Studying a World Language: An Interactive Guidebook for students and instructors. The experiences of teaching workshops and writing the book opened our eyes to the current landscape—or lack thereof—of study strategies in language education and learning. As with any skill we teach, it is essential to model the strategy first before students are expected to try it out on their own. As it turned out, this approach made it clear that, while the majority of the responsibility for studying belongs to my students, as their “primary accountability partner,” I bear some of the responsibility as well, most notably for the introduction of such strategies. This includes demonstrating various strategies, guiding students through their implementation, and then reminding them on occasion that they are responsible for regularly using them to develop proficiency across the skills. Some warm-up activities, as well as exit ticket strategies, actually reflect these same kinds of strategies that students can use on their own.

If we consistently employ warm-up activities or exit ticket strategies, then we are demonstrating an important condition for maximum strategy implementation: distributed practice. Far too often, students fail to operationalize consistent, distributed study strategies or practice, and instead rely on massed practice—what we commonly refer to as “cramming.” Unfortunately, a single session devoted to study does not offer the opportunity to practice the phenomenon of “almost forgetting;” that is, of allowing some time to pass before attempting to retrieve previously learned information. If we help students to retrieve information through distributed practice using warm-ups or exit tickets, however, we are modeling what they can in turn replicate on their own, at home.

Study strategies: During and outside of class

Here are a few examples of retrieval activities (aka study strategies) that you might already use as warm-ups or exit tickets:

• Picture talk: Students discuss with a partner or write individually about a picture prompt, recalling expressions and vocabulary from a previous class.
• Sentence completion: Students complete a sentence starter, recalling expressions and vocabulary from a previous class.
• Broken sentence: Students are given elements of a sentence and then must write or speak a complete sentence, recalling expressions and vocabulary from a previous class.

In all three of the above examples, note that the activities are asking the learner to recall expressions or vocabulary, just like the distributed practice retrieval described at the beginning of this section.

Two of my favorite study strategies are actually metacognitive strategies I use with students to develop their ability to decode and comprehend both written and spoken language. When we happen upon a particularly sophisticated sentence or utterance containing new vocabulary, expressions, or sentence structure, I will occasionally ask them to follow these steps for each:

Reading comprehension: I talk through these steps as we encounter a sentence that I know will be challenging.

Model sentence: Hier, Marie est allée au marché parce qu’elle voulait acheter des pommes.
(Yesterday, Marie went to the market because she wanted to buy some apples.)

1. First look: Review the entire sentence to identify what is familiar (e.g., cognates).
2. Chunk the sentence: Look for commas, clauses, lists, etc.
3. Identify verb and verb tense.
4. Call upon existing knowledge to deconstruct.
5. Use time words (markers).
6. Fill in the gaps based on context: What word, concept, idea makes most sense

I constantly remind students while we are using these strategies in class that they can call on them outside of class, or at any time they need to understand written or oral input.

Study strategies: Outside of class

I also demonstrate the site naturalreaders.com as a tool for hearing more than one voice speaking the same word or expression. In this case, students choose the target language and then use the search feature to locate single words or expressions that appear in YouTube videos. The results play automatically, starting from a few seconds before the appearance of the search term(s), and a transcript appears underneath each example. The search term(s) is/are highlighted in the transcript.

An additional advantage of this tool is realized as students can hear and see language in context. And if that were not enough to convince you of the power of this strategy, students can leverage the listening and reading strategies from the previous section of this article to experience new language contextually as well.

Artificial intelligence strategies

On their own, students can also independently call upon an increasing number of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support their language learning. I must issue a great caution here, however, and insist that, as with any study strategy, you as their instructor must both demonstrate any AI tool your students will use while also providing guidance into responsible use within the guidelines of your institution.

The major large language model AI platforms vary in terms of the type, quality, quantity, and depth of functionality they offer for the same query or prompt, so it is wise to try the same prompt on multiple platforms to more thoroughly vet the results. Here are a few scenarios where AI prompts can support students on their own:

Quiz builder: Students can use the following prompt to generate quizzes with multiple question types: I’m a [beginner/intermediate/advanced] learner of [language]. Quiz me on [a topic, e.g., food vocabulary, the past tense, travel phrases]. Ask me one question at a time and wait for my answer before continuing. Mix question types: multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, and translation (both directions).

After each answer, tell me if I was right, explain any mistake briefly, and then move on. After 10 questions, give me a score and list the items I should review.

Leveled reading: Some students are eager to read authentic texts. While I firmly believe in the value of the struggle involved in doing so, I also know the benefit of using leveled texts as a scaffold toward reading comprehension of authentic texts. This prompt allows students to create a leveled reading of authentic text they copy/paste from the web at a different level:

Rewrite the following text at ACTFL proficiency level [provide students with the ACTFL proficiency levels relative to their current level of study] using only present-tense verbs: [paste text here]

Conclusion

Students are not born knowing how to interpret the direction “Don’t forget to study for . . .,” and while they may have been taught generic study strategies throughout their K–12 experience, there is no guarantee that they will remember or transfer what they have learned upon arriving at the university or college level. Consequently, consider a gradual approach to integrating study strategies like those described here. Further, remember:

• Modeling is an essential first step toward student implementation.
• Never assume students’ technological proficiency.
• Students should choose strategies that work best for them.
• Strategy implementation should complement a learning pathway.
• Students should evaluate the impact of any chosen strategies.

More about the author