Strategies for Language Learning

and for Language Use: Revising

the Theoretical Framework
ERNESTO MACARO
Department of Educational Studies
University of Oxford
Oxford OX2 6PY
United Kingdom
Email: ernesto.macaro@edstud.ox.ac.uk

Since the late 1970s, there has been widespread research interest in the strategies that learners
use in learning and using second languages. This interest has generated a parallel research
effort in language learner strategy instruction. The body of work to date suggests a possible
relationship between strategy use and second language learning success. It also provides some
evidence that learners can be helped to use strategies more effectively. Several criticisms,
however, have been made of this field of research, particularly pertaining to a lack of theoretical
rigour. This article reviews the problems related to strategy research and proposes a revised
theoretical framework in which strategies are differentiated from skills, processes, and styles.
Rather than offering an all-encompassing definition of a strategy, the article proposes a series
of features essential to describing a strategy. The framework aims to enhance current theory.

THE LAST 25 YEARS OR SO HAVE WITNESSED
considerable growth in research activity in learner
strategies. This research has attempted to explore
the strategies that learners of a second language
(L2) deploy either when learning a language or
when using a language or both (Cohen, 1998).
A great deal of this research effort owes much to
four often-cited books (Naiman, Frohlich, Stern,
& Todesco, 1978/1996; O’Malley & Chamot,
1990; Oxford, 1990; Wenden & Rubin, 1987)
which, taken together, attempted to provide the
theoretical underpinnings for future research and
demonstrated the direct applicability and appeal
of learner strategies to classroom practitioners.
This article is divided into five sections. In the
first section, I provide a summary of the claims
made by researchers operating in the field of
learner strategies. In the second section, I bring
together a range of criticisms of learner strategy
research. In the third section, I explore previous
theoretical frameworks in order to ascertain the
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C 2006 The Modern Language Journal
extent to which these criticisms are justified, fo-
cusing particularly on construct validity. In the
fourth section, I offer a theoretical framework that
seeks to overcome the problems identified in pre-
vious sections. In the fifth section, the discussion,
I summarise the advances the theoretical frame-
work seeks to promote while proposing ways of
testing the framework empirically.
CLAIMS MADE IN LEARNER STRATEGY
RESEARCH
The theorising and the practical applications
offered by the four previously mentioned books,
together with the empirical studies that have fol-
lowed them, have yielded a body of evidence lead-
ing scholars to make the following claims:1
1. Strategy use appears to correlate with vari-
ous aspects of language learning success. Some
studies show correlations between generally high
strategy use and learning success (see Oxford &
Burry-Stock, 1995, for a review) or between gen-
erally high strategy use and motivation (Nunan,
1997; Oxford & Nyikos, 1989). Some studies show
a link between success and a preference for
Ernesto Macaro
certain kinds of strategies that mark good lan-
guage learners (Naiman et al., 1978/1996). For
example, Beaton, Gruneberg, and Ellis (1995)
found that vocabulary was very effectively retained
by the use of the keyword strategy. Gu and Johnson
(1996) found that visual repetition (writing words
down repeatedly) negatively correlated with vo-
cabulary size, whereas selective attention and self-
initiation correlated positively. N. J. Anderson
(1991), Block (1986), Carrell (1989), and Devine
(1984) all found that successful readers deployed
a group of strategies that integrated meaning in
preference to surface text-based strategies. Some
studies have shown a link between success and
combinations of strategies; these in turn being
allied to metacognition and to flexibility of de-
ployment (Chamot & El-Dinary, 1999; Graham,
1997; Macaro, 2001; O’Malley, Chamot, & Küpper,
1989; Sanaoui, 1995; Vandergrift, 1998; Vann &
Abraham, 1990). A later section of this article will
return to this apparent lack of consensus among
researchers in the field as to whether it is the range
and frequency of strategy use, the nature of strate-
gies, or the combinations of strategies that is the
key to successful language learning.
2. There are group differences and individual
differences in learner strategy use. Females seem
to use more strategies than males (Ehrman &
Oxford, 1989; Macaro, 2000; Oxford & Niykos,
1989; Sheorey, 1999), or they use strategies differ-
ently (Bacon, 1992; Bügel & Buunk, 1996; Gu,
2002). Cultural groups may vary in their strat-
egy use (Kim, 1999; Koda, 1990; Levine, Reves,
& Leaver, 1996; LoCastro, 1994). Experienced L2
learners may use sets of strategies different from
those of inexperienced L2 learners (De Larios,
Murphy, & Manchon, 1999; van Hell & Mahn,
1997). Individuals may restrict themselves to an
ineffective subset of strategies (Kember & Gow,
1994; Porte, 1997) or may be unable to deploy a
number of strategies (Block, 1986; Knight, 1994;
Lee & Schallert, 1997) or may use strategies inap-
propriately without knowing that they are doing
so (Christianson, 1997; Porte, 1995).
3. The methodology for eliciting learner strat-
egy use, although imperfect, is at an acceptable
level of validity and reliability. Questionnaires
and inventories provide the broad picture; ver-
bal reports (think-aloud techniques and task-
based retrospectives) effectively yield insights into
skill-specific or task-specific strategy use. With re-
gard to verbal reports, these claims of effective-
ness are made both by L2 strategy researchers
(N. J. Anderson, 1991; N. J. Anderson & Vander-
grift, 1996; Cohen & Hosenfeld, 1981; Oxford &
Burry-Stock, 1995; Phakiti, 2003; Sarig, 1987) and
321
by researchers operating in other fields related
to cognitive processing (Bialystok, 1981; Bowles
& Leow, 2005; Ericsson & Simon, 1987; Leow
& Morgan-Short, 2004; Nayak, Hansen, Krueger,
& McLaughlin, 1990; Schraw & Moshman,
1995).
4. Despite some setbacks (O’Malley, 1987;
Wenden, 1987b), and some reservations
(Dörnyei, 1995; Lam & Wong, 2000), learner
strategy instruction (or “training”) appears to be
effective in promoting successful learning if it is
carried out over lengthy periods of time and if it
includes a focus on metacognition. For example,
a number of studies have described how learners
were trained to be more effective writers (Aziz,
1995; Conti, 2004; Macaro, 2001); how learners
instructed in communication strategies improved
their oral interaction (Cohen, Weaver, & Li,
1995; Holunga, 1994; Nakatani, 2005); and how
interventions appeared successful in enhancing
vocabulary acquisition (Avila & Sadoski, 1996;
Burgos-Kohler, 1991; Cohen & Aphek, 1980;
Lawson & Hogben, 1998), in enhancing listening
skills (McGruddy, 1999; Ozeki, 2000; Seo, 2000;
Thompson & Rubin, 1996), and in enhancing
reading skills (Carrell, Pharis, & Liberto, 1989;
Fraser, 1999; Raymond, 1993). Other strategy in-
struction studies have claimed to improve general
approaches and attitudes to language learning
(Flaitz & Feyten, 1996; Kohler, 2002; Nunan,
1997; Sengupta, 2000; Victori & Lockhart, 1995).
CRITICISMS OF LEARNER STRATEGY
RESEARCH
Despite the apparent enthusiasm in the learner
strategy domain and the impression perhaps given
thus far of a coherent research agenda, a number
of criticisms have been leveled at learner strategy
research. Some of these criticisms concern the
methodology used to elicit, measure, and classify
strategies; some target the methodology used to
carry out intervention studies; some focus on as-
sumptions about the impact of strategy use; and
some examine the lack of theoretical rigour of
learner strategy research generally.
With regard to qualitative methods for elic-
iting learner strategies, Seliger (1983) doubted
whether “the verbalizations of learners represent
some form of internal reality” (p. 180). In terms
of strategy measurement, LoCastro (1994, 1995)
argued that large and general learner strategy in-
ventories (perhaps the best known is the Strategy
Inventory for Language Learning [SILL], Oxford,
1990) are not transferable across sociocultural
domains and that their results and conclusions
322
might therefore be invalid. Furthermore, Dörnyei
(2005) has attempted to demonstrate that the
SILL is psychometrically flawed because the scales
in the SILL cannot be considered cumulative.
Phakiti (2003) argued that frequency counts and
simple analysis of variance (on which a great deal
of reliance has been placed) do not capture the
interaction of several variables when comparing
learner strategies with learning outcomes. With
regard to the categorization of strategies, Skehan
(1991) concluded that, although there is some
consensus on the classification of learner strate-
gies being elicited, there is a need to go beyond
“convenient classifications” (p. 287), even though
these might be useful for strategy instruction, and
make links between classification schemes and un-
derlying theory.
In relation to interventions into the strategic
behaviour of learners, Hassan et al. (2005), in a
systematic review of learner strategy instruction,
claimed that there has been little standardisation
of either the intervention packages or the out-
comes that have been measured. This lack of stan-
dardisation presented major difficulties to Hassan
and her associates in their attempts to synthesize
studies and to indicate the weight of evidence
about their effectiveness. Kellerman (1991) dis-
missed learner strategy instruction as irrelevant
on the basis that learners have already developed
strategic competence in their first language (L1)
and can therefore simply transfer it to their L2.
Some authors have critiqued the strong claims
made about the link between learner strategy
use and language learning success. For example,
Gillette’s (1994) study of three effective and three
ineffective learners led her to question the belief
that “positive learning strategies” (p. 211) consti-
tute a full explanation for L2 achievement and
that this belief ignores motivation and personal
histories. Rees-Miller (1993) referred to a num-
ber of unsuccessful interventions and argued that
there was, as yet, no demonstrated causal relation-
ship between strategy awareness and L2 learning
success, that few strategies were transferable be-
yond a specific task, and that not all strategy users
appeared to be, or to become, good learners of
the L2. However, her strongest attack on strategy
research, and the one that most concerns this ar-
ticle, is the lack of clarity in the definition of what
a strategy actually is. She claimed that:
Even the cognitive learning strategies, such as seek-
ing meaning, using deduction, inferencing, or mon-
itoring, are defined so broadly that it is questionable
whether they can be specified in terms of observable,
specific, universal behaviours that could be taught to
or assessed in students. (p. 681)
The Modern Language Journal 90 (2006)
Other researchers had already alluded to Rees-
Miller’s concerns about strategy definition. Bia-
lystok (1983), more than 2 decades ago, argued
that there was “little consensus in the literature
concerning either the definition or the identifi-
cation of language learning strategies” (p. 100).
Stevick (1990), in an examination of previous def-
initions, alluded to two major problems. First,
there was the problem of what he classified as
the “Size-Abstractness Dilemma” (p. 144), which
demonstrates that some strategies refer to phe-
nomena that are larger than others and that some
strategies refer to phenomena that are more ab-
stract than others, variations that lead to impre-
cision and confusion. Second, for Stevick, there
was the “Outside-Inside Problem,” which demon-
strates that “no clear relationship exists between
external acts and the mental constructs to which
they are attributed” (p. 144).
Although concluding that learner strategy re-
search was at an “embryonic stage” and that we
were “dealing with a clear example of a research-
then-theory perspective” (Skehan, 1989, p. 98),
Skehan still remained optimistic as to its useful-
ness. His conclusions 14 years later were more
pessimistic; Dörnyei and Skehan (2003), review-
ing definitions of strategies, argued that a strategy
cannot be either cognitive or emotional or be-
havioural. They asked whether a strategy was a
neurological process, a cognitive operation, or a
behavioural act involving motor skills. They ques-
tioned, moreover, whether a strategy could con-
tribute to both knowledge and language skills and
posited that there was no theoretical explanation
for how strategies might be related to skills. They
concluded that a theoretical basis for the concept
of learner strategies was still sadly lacking and that
to provide a scientifically rigorous definition re-
searchers would have to provide a coherent neu-
rological and biological account of behaviours,
something that Dörnyei and Skehan considered
an enormous undertaking. In his most recent
attack on learner strategies, Dörnyei (2005) cat-
alogued the inability of researchers to explain
the difference between “engaging in an ordinary
learning activity and a strategic learning activity”
(p. 164), a problem that has led him to question
the very existence of learner strategies.
PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS AT A THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORK OF LEARNER STRATEGIES
We will now examine the extent to which re-
searchers in the field have attempted to address
the issue of theoretical rigour in general and strat-
egy definition in particular.
Ernesto Macaro
There have been repeated attempts to define
strategies by situating them in psychology, within
theories of cognition. Wenden (1987a) viewed
strategy research as “part of the general area of
research on mental processes and structures that
constitute the field of cognitive science” (p. 6).
From this perspective, one would expect strate-
gies to be located in the brain. However, Wenden
defined strategies in terms of language learning
behaviours that learners engage in, the knowledge
they have of their behaviours, and the knowledge
they have of themselves as learners and the lan-
guage they are learning. We should note the lack
of clarification as to whether we are still dealing
here with mental behaviour, or whether overt ac-
tion is also envisaged.
O’Malley and Chamot (1990) also situated
learner strategies within cognitive theory, laying
their framework over J. R. Anderson’s (1980/
2000) ACT∗ model and Stages of Skill Acquisi-
tion model. Again, the expectation would be that
strategies are located in the brain. Ten years later,
Chamot and El-Dinary (2000) proposed that not
only are strategies mental procedures that assist
learning but they also include overt activities. This
being the case, a search for a definition has to en-
compass a spectrum of human activity ranging,
for example, from visual imaging, as when memo-
rizing vocabulary, to purposeful socializing, as when
seeking out the opportunity to speak to someone
in the L2. These broader definitions add to the
problems regarding the location of strategies.
The size-abstractness dilemma appears to be, in
part, related to the action component in learner
strategies. O’Malley and Chamot (1990) provided
a definition grounded in cognitive theory when
they proposed that strategy applications “resem-
ble production systems” (p. 52) with if and then
clauses, for example:
IF the goal is to comprehend an oral or written text,
and I am unable to identify a word’s meaning, THEN
I will try to infer the meaning from context.
IF the goal is to comprehend and remember an oral
passage, and I have heard a complete passage or
thought expressed, THEN I will summarize the pas-
sage to ensure I understand it. (p. 52)
In these production systems, it is not clear which
actions, mental or behavioural, and how many ac-
tions are involved in inferring meaning from con-
text or in summarizing the passage. The nature of
action in a strategy remains problematic because
what strategies are purported to do is not trans-
parently related to what strategies are.
323
Whereas some authors have tried to be all-
encompassing in their strategy definition, others
have attempted to overcome the problem of size
by claiming that although strategies are mental
operations, they can move across categories. For
example, Phakiti (2003) proposed that research
should not differentiate between cognitive and
metacognitive strategies; rather, it should identify
the underlying goals or motivations for using a
strategy and thereby define a strategy as either
cognitive or metacognitive. This procedure may
be useful for reducing the total number of possi-
ble strategies, but it invites the abstractness crit-
icism by creating two problems. First, how can
the same mental operation be directly involved
with language processing and also be responsible
for monitoring that activity? Second, as I hope
to show, goals and motivations are so integral to
strategies that to change them changes the actual
nature of the strategy itself.
Cohen (1998) attempted to resolve the size-
abstractness problem by proposing a hierarchy of
strategies. He proposed that “improving reading
comprehension” be regarded as an overarching
strategy and that “use ongoing summaries writ-
ten in the margin in telegraphic form” be consid-
ered a substrategy (p. 10). Although this hierarchy
helps to solve the problem of strategy size, it does
not resolve the problem of abstractness. For ex-
ample, does changing substrategies that are lower
down in the hierarchy qualitatively change the
nature of a strategy farther up? Additionally, this
attempt at a solution in fact enlarges the meaning
of a strategy even further by including intention
to act as well as action itself. Improving reading
comprehension to my mind, is not a recognisable
distinct action but an abstracted determination to
improve a skill. Use ongoing summaries written in
the margin is a series of motor actions that can be
observed as they are applied to a specific task but
may relate to a whole series of mental actions. For
example, the latter strategy, applied to preparing
for an exam, could have as its goal not comprehen-
sion but memorization of material, which would
link it to a completely different general determi-
nation of doing well on the exam. Thus to view
strategies within hierarchical systems does not, in
the end, provide us with a clearer construct. More-
over, it raises another issue: whether strategies are
specific to a task or generalizable to all kinds of
learning situations.
Other authors have turned to stricter dictio-
nary definitions of what a strategy is. The New
Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) proposed that
a strategy is a “plan of action or policy designed
to achieve a major or overall aim” (p. 1837),
324
whereas action is “the fact or process of doing
something” (p. 17). McDonough (1995) there-
fore defined strategies as “articulated plans for
meeting particular types of problems not a piece
of problem-solving itself ” (p. 3). Similarly, Phakiti
(2003) defined strategies as “not actually strate-
gies in the strictest sense of the term. Rather,
they should be seen as learners’ stable long-term
knowledge of their strategy use” (p. 681). These
definitions would rule out action as an integral
component of a strategy, invalidating the pro-
duction systems referred to previously. Accord-
ing to these definitions sounding out an unfamiliar
(written) word in order to see if anything comes to mind
would not be a strategy. In which case, what could
it possibly be?
The literature reveals a further problem with
strategy definition: the interchangeability of many
of the terms used. For example, Oxford (1990)
noted that strategy like tactic implies “planning,
competition, conscious manipulation, and move-
ment toward a goal” (p. 8). She proposes that
strategies are “a plan, step, or conscious action to-
wards achievement of an objective” (p. 8). Rubin
(1987) also described strategies as “any set of op-
erations, plans, or routines used by learners to
facilitate the obtaining, retrieval, storage and use
of information” (p. 19). Alexander, Graham, and
Harris (1998), reviewing strategy research in the
general educational literature, showed a concern
for this interchangeable nature of terms used
but were only able to propose a distinction be-
tween skills and other human action (mental or
behavioural), not a distinction between strategies
and other terms used: “skills are procedures [italics
added] that have been routinized. That is, stu-
dents hone these techniques [italics added] to a
level of automaticity, enabling them to perform a
given task fluidly and effectively” (p. 135). Thus,
a further unresolved problem is the semantic-
equivalence dilemma, with words like strategy,
operation, routine, process, procedure, action, tactic,
technique, plan, and step, being interchangeable
in the literature.
Few authors have tackled the problem of avoid-
ing semantic equivalence and, when they have
done so, the solution provided is not a complete
one. McDonough (1995), for example, linked se-
mantic equivalence to an appraisal of the differ-
ences among strategies, processes, and skills. He
defined skills as performance-related, application-
specific, subject to different levels of achievement,
and, usually, leading to success. In other words,
skills are operating at the level of overt behaviour
even though they may reflect all kinds of mental
activity occurring below the surface. Processes are
defined by McDonough as mechanisms through
The Modern Language Journal 90 (2006)
which “a set of information is transformed” (p. 3).
Providing these distinctions (between skills and
processes), as I hope to demonstrate, is a useful
line of reasoning to pursue. However, as noted
earlier, McDonough did not recognise the action
component of a strategy and it is therefore left un-
resolved how strategies might relate to processes
and skills.
Other researchers have tried to resolve the am-
biguity with regard to what learner strategies are
for or what they do. Mayer (1988) referred to
strategies as “behaviours of a learner that are
intended to influence how the learner processes
information” (p. 11). Strategies in his sense, there-
fore, appear to be additional to the processing of
information. A number of authors also described
the effects of strategy use in terms of facilitating
learning or making learning more effective (e.g.,
Oxford, 1990; Vandergrift, 1998) rather than as
part of the process itself. However, the link be-
tween the deployment of strategies in a task
and eventual learning is not clear. For example,
Vandergrift described strategies in listening com-
prehension as the strategies used “by L2 listeners
to facilitate their comprehension of oral texts”
(1998, p. 370). This description raises two ques-
tions. First, what is the relationship between some-
thing that facilitates listening comprehension and
the development in the skill of listening? Certainly
the way a strategy (or combination of strategies)
leads to better understanding of an oral text in a
specific task has been well documented (Chien,
1998; Harley, 2000; Laviosa, 2000; O’Malley et al.,
1989; Vandergrift, 1998). However, documenting
how a strategy’s deployment leads to successful
listening generally is more contentious, as Tsui
and Fullilove (1998) discovered. Second, if strate-
gies are the actions that facilitate comprehension,
what are all the other actions that L2 listeners de-
ploy that do not facilitate comprehension? Are all
the former always effective? Are the latter all inef-
fective or redundant? There are few examples in
the literature of individual ineffective strategies
(rather than inappropriate combinations, viz.,
Vann & Abraham, 1990), and when they are pro-
posed (e.g., Mitchell, 1992), they are described in
such negative terms that they seem merely to be
the opposite of any action with intention to learn:
“skimming over a communication,” “overlooking
parts of a communication,” “ceasing work on a
task in the belief that it is finished,” “blind ap-
plication of memorized procedure,” “lack of any
strategy to cope with getting stuck” (p. 63). So,
to return to our listening example, is it the case
that all actions are strategies but that some actions
facilitate listening comprehension and some do
not? Or is it the case that in some situations
Ernesto Macaro
strategies facilitate comprehension, and in some
situations they do not? One answer to these ques-
tions would find itself tracing a line of argument
back to the notion of the good language learner
(Naiman et al., 1978/1996). However, we are still
not clear whether the good language learner only
deploys effective strategies, or whether the good
language learner deploys strategies effectively. In
other words, does the good language learner se-
lect only those strategies that he or she has come
to realize are effective, or does the good language
learner orchestrate combinations of strategies ef-
fectively, regardless of their status as effective or
otherwise?
There remain, therefore, a number of unre-
solved issues and questions that undermine the
theoretical basis of learner strategy research. As
Rees-Miller (1993) argued, until researchers have
resolved these problems, it is unlikely that many
teachers will risk giving up valuable classroom
time in order to train students to use strategies.
These problems all relate to the lack of theory un-
derlying the construct labelled a learner strategy, or
to the lack of consensus as to the unit of analysis
for learner strategy research. The problems can
be summarised as follows:
1. There is no apparent consensus about where
learner strategies occur, inside the brain or out-
side it.
2. There is no consensus about what learner
strategies are. Do they consist of knowledge, in-
tention, action, or all three?
3. It is unclear how general or abstract learner
strategies are and whether there exist substrate-
gies as well as strategies and, as a consequence, if
they can be classified in a framework or a hierar-
chy.
4. A lack of clarity also exists about whether
their integrity survives across learning situations,
tasks, and contexts.
5. There is no consensus about what they do,
especially whether they are always facilitative and
effective.
6. It is unclear whether they are integral to lan-
guage processing or if they are some kind of extra
facility that speeds up learning.
7. Strategy definition in the literature is arrived
at through the use of equally undefined terms.
8. There is a lack of consensus on a strategy’s
relationship to skills and processes.
9. A lack of consensus remains on how strate-
gies lead to both language learning and skill de-
velopment over the long term.
325
There is clearly a need to revise the theoretical
underpinnings of learner strategy research. How-
ever, the conclusions from the previous two sec-
tions should be viewed within a historical context.
The work carried out by researchers in the field of
learner strategy was motivated by a genuine desire
to alter the emphasis of research endeavour by ex-
amining language acquisition from the learner’s
perspective, by looking at the process of learning
rather than at the product of instruction, and by
bridging the gap between theory and practice. It
is particularly this last motivation that, in my view,
led authors to posit strategies in broad terms that
language teachers could more easily implement
with their students. It is not, therefore, the pur-
pose of this article to deride previous work on
learner strategies but to attenuate some of the
problems posed by these dilemmas.
In order to achieve this purpose, I will propose
a framework within cognitive psychology and in-
formation processing, one that includes learner
strategies in a clear relationship with other do-
mains of language learning and language use.
Within this framework (see Figure 1), strate-
gies are described as having a series of essential
features rather than defined, in order to avoid
semantic interchangeability and circularity of ar-
gument. There are three underlying propositions
to the learner strategy features. It may help the
reader if these are stated at the outset.
1. Researchers should describe strategies in
terms of a goal, a situation, and a mental action.
2. Strategies are the raw material of conscious
cognitive processing, and their effectiveness or
noneffectiveness derives from the way they are
used and combined in tasks and processes.
3. Strategies need to be distinguished from sub-
conscious activity, language learning processes,
skills, learning plans, and learning styles.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SUBCONSCIOUS
ACTIVITY AND LEARNER STRATEGIES
First, the framework argues for a distinction
between learner strategies and subconscious ac-
tivity in the brain (Figure 1). The basis for this
proposition is as follows. Subconscious activity in-
teracts with neurological processes and results in
changes over which the language learner or user
exerts virtually no conscious control. Examples of
these activations, processes, and changes are acti-
vation of nodes in the brain, activation of propo-
sitional networks, abstraction of linguistic infor-
mation (Norman & Rumelhart, 1975), inhibition
326 The Modern Language Journal 90 (2006)

L2 Skills Strategic
Plans
Measurable and
h observable
L2 Processes

Interaction of strategy clusters

as applied to language tasks Learning
f
Cognitive Styles Styles e

Learner Strategies g
In working memory d
c Motivation

b
Cluster 1 Cluster 2

Subconscious Activity
• From proceduralization of declarative knowledge
• From implicit learning

FIGURE 1
A Cognitive Framework for Learner Strategies

of neural pathways (Baddeley, 1997), creation
of logogens through multiple modalities (e.g.,
representational units of the verbal system and
pools of strong connections in long-term mem-
ory; Eysenck, 1994), lexical storage (Baddeley,
1986), language-specific tagging of lexical items
(Libben, 2000), and restructuring of mental mod-
els of the rule system at a biological or represen-
tational level (McLaughlin, 1990).
These processes may at one time have been af-
fected by conscious strategy deployment in work-
ing memory (and indeed may be once again),
but in long-term memory they are largely not un-
der the control of the individual (Cowan, 1999).2
Berry and Dienes (1993) proposed a notion of
a threshold of cognition below which learning
can be considered implicit. Although there is no
precise distinction between explicit and implicit
learning, and although it is as yet unclear how
working memory deals with subconscious activity
and its role in activating proceduralized knowl-
edge, there is a growing consensus that working
memory, focal awareness, attention, control, and
consciousness are, at least, complementary con-
cepts if not essentially the same (N. Ellis, 2001;
Schmidt, 1990).
Implicit learning, on the other hand, is charac-
teriszed by a relative inaccessibility of knowledge
via free recall, a sense of intuition, and limited
transfer to related tasks (Berry & Dienes, 1993).
Whereas subconscious activity is not under the
direct control of the individual, access to long-
term memory is, in part, through the gateway of
working memory (see arrow a in Figure 1). Proce-
duralization of declarative knowledge takes place
through this gateway. Although total consensus
does not exist as to the distinction between ex-
plicit and implicit learning (Hulstijn, 2005), by
controlling (inter alia) for degree of awareness,
task time available, and systematicity, we are be-
ginning to create the circumstances where in the
future that distinction will be possible (R. Ellis,
2005), and we are already observing certain phe-
nomena that can only be attributed to implicit
learning (Tokowicz & MacWhinney, 2005). This
kind of learning would have to bypass working
memory, at least in part, and be the result of some
kind of direct contact with a language process, in
our case an L2 process (see arrow b in Figure 1).
I will return to L2 processes in the section en-
titled “Relationship Between Learner Strategies
and Second Language Processes.”
LEARNER STRATEGIES: FEATURES
AND COMBINATIONS
If we accept that working memory interacts
with subconscious activity in long-term memory,
then strategic action, I propose, must have, at the
very least, its origins in working memory.3 The
issue in the past has been whether learner strate-
gies can span other components elsewhere in the
Ernesto Macaro
framework and still be considered strategies. In
order to resolve this issue, the framework pro-
poses that learner strategies occur only in working
memory and that they become other constructs
elsewhere. For this proposition to hold true, a
number of features are required in order to iden-
tify, describe, or constitute a learner strategy.
Location of Strategies
The location of strategies is the first feature.
Given that the framework proposes that learner
strategies are located in working memory, they
are subject to that component’s finite number of
processing resources. In order to manage these
resources, the central executive (Baddeley, 1997)
has to exert control over their deployment. Con-
versely, without learner strategies, working mem-
ory could not carry out the perceiving, holding,
processing, and encoding functions that it is re-
quired to do. Note that so far I have not made a
distinction between general learner strategies and
language-specific learner strategies.
Strategies, then, are to be classified as conscious
mental activity (Kail & Bisanz, 1982). Rabinowitz
and Chi (1987) argued that mental processes that
are deployed without awareness cannot be consid-
ered strategic. This assertion is supported by the
proposition that strategies must contain not only
an action but also a goal and a learning situation.
Flavell, Miller, and Miller (1993) contrasted hu-
man memory with equine memory to argue this
point. Although no psychologist would doubt that
horses retain some memories, humans have the
memory capacity not only for intentional and
planful strategies, but also for evaluating knowl-
edge about strategies. Thus, whereas a mental ac-
tion might be subconscious, an action undertaken
with a goal and evaluated against a learning situa-
tion can only be conscious (but see the “Strategies
and Tasks” section on the issue of automaticity).
Size, Abstractness, and Relationship
to Other Strategies
The size of a strategy is its second feature, as is
the potential for it to be described, and its rela-
tionship to other strategies within a given task.
In order to avoid the dilemma of size and
abstractness, a strategy’s description should be
effected at the lowest relevant level of articula-
tion within the boundaries of conscious cogni-
tion. In other words, it should not be possible
to describe a strategy by referring to a number
of relevant subordinate strategies. Given that the
327
framework situates strategies in the domain of
cognitive behaviour, not overt motor behaviour, a
strategy is more appropriately described in terms
of thinking rather than doing. By describing the
mental action component of a strategy, we can
begin to understand what the strategy actually
purports to do. If we do this, we soon discover
that strategies such as rehearsing and memorizing or
rereading texts 4 are in fact combinations of strate-
gies. For example, the act of rereading a text one
has just written with the intention of improving it
may involve strategies such as does it sound right?
does it look right? what are the mistakes I usually
make? and so on. Note that does it sound right? and
does it look right? involve the phonological and vi-
sual components of working memory. Recalling
mistakes usually made involves the interaction of
working memory and long-term memory.
Developmental psychologists have discovered
that older children do not necessarily possess
more cognitive strategies than do younger chil-
dren but “they become more flexible and effi-
cient in how they invest their resources” (Flavell
et al., 1993, p. 254). Thus, for a strategy to be
effective in promoting learning or improved per-
formance, it must be combined with other strate-
gies either simultaneously or in sequence, thus
forming strategy clusters. Effective learners de-
ploy strategies in clusters appropriate to contexts
and tasks (Macaro, 2001, 2003). Many strategy
elicitation studies now recognise the clustering
effects of strategies, for example, in L2 to L1 dic-
tionary tasks (Neubach & Cohen, 1988), in lis-
tening tasks (Laviosa, 2000), and in reading tasks
(Graham, 1997). An example of a strategy cluster
can be found in how learners look up a new L2
word in an L1–L2 dictionary when writing. Here
such strategies as the following may be deployed:
remember prior problems with dictionary use; predict
what problems I might encounter this time; think about
what part of speech I am looking for ; compare all def-
initions given; compare collocations in L2 and L1;
evaluate predictions; remember to copy word correctly;
check that it makes sense in the sentence generated.
This cluster might, in turn, be combined with an-
other cluster of strategies (see cluster represen-
tation in Figure 1) pertaining to memorising the
new word for future use. Tasks impose differential
demands on memory resources, and psychology
research “has tried to uncover the nature of pro-
cessing resources and the principles that map task
profiles on to resource demands” (Eysenck, 1994,
p. 114).
Strategy clusters may be ineffective if individ-
ual strategies within them are inappropriately
328
orchestrated. For example, Porte (1995) found
that a subvocalizing strategy was counterproduc-
tive in a sentence copying task for some subjects.
As the subjects moved from looking at text on
a computer screen (which then disappeared) to
writing the text down on paper, they subvocal-
ized the text thereby losing the accuracy of the
graphic form through (among other things) L1
interference. Macaro (2001) found that, among
some young learners, applying personal schemata
(prior knowledge of a topic) was ineffective in a
reading task, because they did not combine and
evaluate this prior knowledge with evidence avail-
able later in the text. There is some evidence,
therefore, that orchestration of clusters of strate-
gies, that is, choosing and evaluating from a range
of strategies, is more effective than linear deploy-
ment of several strategies.
Orchestration therefore suggests higher lev-
els of metacognition. Effective strategy clus-
ters, therefore, include and are evaluated via a
metacognitive strategy or series of metacognitive
strategies. Metacognitive strategies are contained
in strategy clusters in order to regulate conscious
cognitive activity (Schraw & Moshman, 1995).
In the dictionary cluster previously described,
metacognition would monitor and evaluate the
cognitive strategies being deployed. Thus a clas-
sification of strategies that retains its explicatory
power is cognitive as opposed to metacognitive
(O’Malley & Chamot, 1990), and it is retained
in this framework. Strategies are either directly
involved in working memory processing (per-
ception, decoding, processing, storage, and re-
trieval) or they oversee cognitive strategies via
planning, monitoring, and evaluating for effec-
tiveness. Working memory resources are either
occupied directly with language by operational-
izing cognition or less directly by standing back
and evaluating via metacognition. I want to pro-
pose that metacognitive strategies subsume affec-
tive strategies (recognised as a different category
by O’Malley & Chamot, 1990) because the latter
require knowledge of oneself as a learner through
recurrent monitoring of one’s learning. Affective
strategies, therefore, are part of the recursive use
of metacognition to evaluate past cognitive strate-
gies in culturally situated learning situations. I also
propose that social strategies are clusters of cog-
nitive and metacognitive strategies that lead to
Strategic Plans (see arrow d in Figure 1). If a stu-
dent of an L2 seeks out interaction with native
speakers of that language in order to improve his
or her learning, perhaps overcoming fear and shy-
ness, he or she is not, in effect, doing anything
other than deciding on a plan of action based on
The Modern Language Journal 90 (2006)
a cluster of strategies previously evaluated. I will
return to strategic plans in the “Strategic Plans
and Motivation” section of the article.
Strategies and Goals
A mental action, I have argued, is a necessary
component of a strategy, although not a sufficient
one. The third feature of a strategy is its incor-
poration of a goal, and a strategy’s description is
enhanced through the specification of a goal or
goals. This proposition has substantial theoretical
and empirical evidence in the literature of the
psychology of motivation (see Dörnyei, 2001, or
Weiner, 1992, for a review). Human action is nor-
mally considered to be directed by purpose and
dependent on the pursuance of goals. According
to Locke (1996), for goals to be effective moti-
vators for action, they (a) have to be established
through the free choice and commitment of the
individual, (b) must be specific and explicit, and
(c) have to appear attainable. Strategies (within
clusters of strategies) can be deployed in order
to satisfy a teacher’s requirements, or they can
be deployed in order to satisfy the learner’s own
learning goals (Entwhistle, 1988). The two obli-
gations are not mutually exclusive, but they can
conflict in certain learning environments. Erler
(2003) found that young learners of French were
deploying a number of strategies related to read-
ing merely to satisfy the task requirements set by
the teacher rather than to get the most out of a
text. Learners themselves may not have clear ul-
timate goals. It is not for the learner to specify
his or her goal (although it helps) but for the re-
searcher or theoretician to infer or articulate it.
Therefore, a key feature of a strategy should be
the explicitness of its goal orientation. This ex-
plicitness is all the more needed given that strate-
gies are often spoken about in the same context
as self-determination and self-regulated learning
(Dickinson, 1988; Dörnyei, 2005; Pintrich, 1995;
Wenden, 1995).
Strategies and Tasks
The fourth feature of learner strategies is that
they are both situation-specific and transferable
to other situations or tasks.5 Their transferability
needs to be articulated by researchers, or at least
this articulation should be one goal of learner
strategy research. Without this transferability, the
potential of learner strategies for learning is di-
minished. On the one hand, a learner needs to be
able to apply a strategy consciously to an L2 pro-
cess such as memorization (Oxford, 1990; Nunan,
Ernesto Macaro
1997), thereby strengthening the metacognitive
link between the strategy and the achievement of
recall. In this respect, the “power” of a strategy
is its suitability to a particular task (Rabinowitz &
Chi, 1987, p. 84). On the other hand, the strat-
egy attains greater robustness if it contributes to a
parsimonious framework that can be applied to a
number of learning situations (the economy prin-
ciple; see R. Ellis, 1985; Kellerman & Bialystok,
1997). As J. R. Anderson (1980/2000) proposed,
it is likely that strategies are transferred to similar
tasks by a procedure involving pattern matching
through which the learner perceives similarities
between the new task and former tasks where
strategies were applied. However, I would argue
on the basis of additional considerations to be
described, that a pattern-matching procedure is
not sufficient. Evaluation of strategy effectiveness,
by learners, is likely to be undertaken against a
background of the relative effectiveness of strat-
egy clusters. Thus (taking into account the four
features described), a strategy must conform to
the algorithm: if in a learning situation/task X,
and when the learning goal is Y, then try mental
action Z.
These then, are the main features of learner
strategies. I will now discuss other considerations
involved in the description of learner strategies.
A strategy’s clarity is enhanced if its potential for
leading to learning is articulated by researchers,
even if only at the level of hypothesis. Putting a
word into a sentence so as to remember it is one strat-
egy cited by several authors when they discussed
vocabulary-related strategy instruction (Grenfell
& Harris, 1999; Nation, 2001; Oxford, 1990). But
how does putting the word in a sentence help the
learner remember it? Some strategies lend them-
selves to clear opportunities for hypothesis-testing
in their interaction with subconscious activity. For
example, the theoretical justification underlying
the keyword strategy (Avila & Sadoski, 1996; Beaton
et al., 1995; Lawson & Hogben, 1998) is provided
by a rational account of how a link is produced
between a new L2 word and an L1 word via the
generation of a keyword that is a combination
of sound and image. Given that retrieval of the
L2 word operates in reverse order, the interface
between an explicit strategy and an implicit pro-
cess is explained logically. Thus, researchers are
at least in a position to predict the strategy’s effect
on long-term memory. Similarly, in a language-use
situation, we are given insights into how strategies
can be deployed in order to lighten the process-
ing load on working memory. An example is the
strategy of using the L1 for inner-speech when read-
ing an L2 text in order to maintain concentration
(Kern, 1994).
329
In different learners, a strategy will be at differ-
ent levels of automaticity (see McLaughlin, 1987,
and DeKeyser, 2001, for a review) or procedural-
ization ( J. R. Anderson, 1980/2000). Automatiza-
tion must occur in order to speed up language
learning and language use and to free up work-
ing memory space. Strategies have the potential,
however, to be brought back to controlled atten-
tion for purposes of modification and adaptation
(Kail & Bisanz, 1982), especially by adults who
have the cognitive maturity to do so (Flavell et al.,
1993).
Control and automaticity relate to a strategy’s
transferability. It may be that, through repeated
practice and confirmation of effectiveness, a par-
ticular action Z becomes automatic in learning
situation X. In this situation, three factors may
require the strategy to be brought back into se-
lective attention. First, the learning goal may
change. For example, a student may embark on
a course of academic writing, having previously
learned the L2 in a speaking- and listening-based
course. Clearly, for this student, a strategy such as
avoid thinking in L1 will need to be reevaluated
against the new learning goals. The student will
have to evaluate whether academic writing is best
achieved by avoidance of L1 mental resources.
Second, the learning outcomes may appear un-
satisfactory to the learner or to the teacher, and
the learner will therefore need to bring back the
strategy into selective attention each time situa-
tion X and learning goal Y are applicable in or-
der for it to be reevaluated. Third, a strategy will
need to be brought back into selective attention
when a different learning situation presents itself,
even if the goal has not changed, and the learner
will need to evaluate the transferability of the
strategy.
A strategy may be difficult for some learners to
deploy. An L1 speaker of English, for example,
cannot easily deploy the keyword strategy when
trying to memorise a Chinese word because of lack
of phonemic correspondence. During some lan-
guage processes, being below a certain linguistic
threshold short-circuits the deployment of a strat-
egy (Clarke, 1979; Lee & Schallert, 1997; Taille-
fer, 1996), as in the case of the transferability of
L1 reading strategies to the comprehension of L2
written texts. There is other evidence of strategic
deficiencies (Rabinowitz & Chi, 1987). If, as has
been suggested by a number of L1 studies, there
is an association between variability in working-
memory limitations and nonword-repetition skills
(Adams & Gathercole, 2000; Montgomery, 1995),
and between working-memory limitations and L2
vocabulary acquisition (Gathercole & Baddeley,
1993; Service, 1992), then it is possible that
330
clusters of strategies are difficult for some learners
to deploy in particular tasks.
Clusters of strategies interact with L2 processes
(see arrow c in Figure 1). The psychology litera-
ture demonstrates that strategies are not unique
to L2 learning. Memorising a sequence of seven
digits is not intrinsically different from memoris-
ing the names of seven food items in the L2. How-
ever, it is in the application of strategies to L2
tasks that (explicit) L2 processes take place. It is
to these that we now turn.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEARNER
STRATEGIES AND SECOND LANGUAGE
PROCESSES
Language processes, and in our case L2 proc-
esses, consist of clusters of cognitive and metacog-
nitive strategies in interaction with one another
(see Figure 1). Language processes are there-
fore conscious although, like the learner strate-
gies they comprise, they may operate so quickly
as to appear subconscious. Processes bring about
development involving a number of changes and
involve a “dynamic sequence of different stages”
(Faerch & Kasper, 1983, p. 30). They therefore in-
volve transformation of language from one state
to another or from one stage to another or both.
The difference between state-like and stage-like
processes is that, in the former, intermediate states
of language transformation are usable by the L2
learner, whereas all the stages in a transforma-
tion need to be achieved for certain tasks to be
completed.
I will take two examples of language pro-
cesses in order to try to illustrate these points.
Reading in the L2 involves two interactive state-
like processes: top-down and bottom-up pro-
cesses (Grabe & Stoller, 2002; Kember & Gow,
1994; Stanovich, 1980). Each of these processes
is made up of a cluster of strategies in a dy-
namic. Some strategies within this dynamic are
applied in sequence. For example, Doctor and
Klein (1992) detected an obligatory grapheme-
phoneme check, followed by an optional spelling
check in bottom-up processes in reading. Other
strategies are applied more randomly according
to task demands. Strategies interacting in these
processes would include application of prior knowl-
edge (Carrell, 1989), the application of common
sense or logic, segmenting strings of linguistic units
(Harrington, 2001), word-level and below word-level
decoding, and use of adjacent text. These processes
are used to attempt to transform L2 text from a
state in which it is not understood into different
states or levels of understanding, elaboration, and
The Modern Language Journal 90 (2006)
integration into existing schemata. Each state pro-
vides the L2 user with some operational power.
Written formulation (Bereiter & Scardamalia,
1987; De Larios et al., 1999; Flower & Hayes, 1981;
Macaro, 2003) is a stage-type process in that each
stage has no operational power on its own. It in-
volves passing from an ideational stage to a stage
where ideas begin to have linguistic form before
moving on to further necessary stages (e.g., mon-
itoring and evaluating). Strategies involved in the
process of formulation are likely to include at-
tempts to retrieve language chunks, evaluations of
these chunks, attempts to restructure these chunks
(change function words within them), word-for-
word translations at the phrasal level, and decisions
to avoid using certain phrases.
The framework proposes that repeated activa-
tion of language processes in working memory
results in structural changes taking place in long-
term memory both in vocabulary and morphosyn-
tax (arrows c to a in Figure 1). These changes,
together with repeated activation and automatisa-
tion of processes, lead to skill development. I will
return to language skills in the section entitled
“Language Skills.”
STRATEGIC PLANS AND MOTIVATION
Learner strategies also interact, via motivation,
with strategic plans (arrows d and e in Figure 1).
This notion of plans, mentioned previously, needs
further exploration. Strategic plans have much
broader learning objectives than do strategies.
Plans, I want to argue, are constructed through
an individual learner’s metacognitive theories.
According to Schraw and Moshman (1995),
metacognitive theories integrate metacognitive
knowledge and experiences, and permit the learn-
er’s own explanation and prediction of cognitive
behaviour. However, according to the sources of
the metacognitive theory (cultural, individual, or
peer-constructed) and the theory types (tacit, ex-
plicit but informal, explicit and formal), metacog-
nitive theories will vary in their effectiveness when
implemented.
Metacognitive theories, then, have a strong
affinity with motivation, as defined by recent and
more complex models (Dörnyei, 2001; Weiner,
1992). I have already alluded to goal theory in
arguing that the presence of a goal is a nec-
essary condition for the construct of a strategy.
Goals are, of course, also recognised components
of motivation. Another important component of
motivation is attribution, that to which learners
attribute past success or failure (Williams & Bur-
den, 1997). Whereas metacognitive theories pre-
dict future cognitive behaviour, attribution of
Ernesto Macaro
past success or failures will predict the way fu-
ture strategic plans are actually formulated. The
strength and endurance of the motivation, lead-
ing to the successful carrying out of a strategic
plan, may well depend on another component
of motivation, self-efficacy (Bandura, 1993). Self-
efficacy is the relative measure of what learners
think they can do in a given task—the how good
am I at this? factor. Successful deployment of strat-
egy clusters in relation to a task builds higher
levels of self-efficacy, leading to enhanced moti-
vation. It has, after all, been one of the funda-
mental claims of learner strategy research that
effective strategy deployment leads to increased
motivation.
A strategic plan, then, may arise from clusters of
strategies that have formed some kind of metacog-
nitive theory. The plan will be driven and shaped
by motivational components such as attribution
and self-efficacy. As an example, a learner’s deci-
sion to develop greater confidence when speak-
ing the L2 in large groups would trigger a strate-
gic plan. This decision may have arisen from the
metacognitive evaluation of previous experiences
in similar situations where the learner may have
deemed his or her linguistic behaviour inade-
quate. A cluster of communication strategies (e.g.,
deciding to use fillers to buy processing time, chunking
together longer speech runs between pauses, deciding
to trigger comprehension responses from interlocutors)
would be deployed when future social situations
occurred and the strategies would be evaluated
for their effectiveness.
LEARNING STYLES AND COGNITIVE STYLES
Schmeck (1988) observed that if an individ-
ual has an inclination to use the same strategy
in various situations, “we can suspect the pres-
ence of a style” (p. 8). It is unclear, from his
description, what the causal factors of that style
are or at what level (neurological, subconscious,
conscious–cognitive, behavioural) that style is
operationalised. The framework in this article
proposes that, if a cluster of strategies repeat-
edly interacts within an L2 process, that process
may have an effect on cognitive styles (arrow f
in Figure 1). Cognitive styles are the result of
a habitual way of processing information (Das,
1988; Skehan, 1991) or, put another way, a ha-
bitual clustering of a selection of strategies in a
given learning situation or task. Entwhistle (1988)
described learning styles in terms of broad ap-
proaches or orientations to learning that are
linked to motivational impulses. I interpret these
approaches or orientations as clusters of cognitive
331
and metacognitive strategies that, having gone
through a process of proceduralisation, have be-
come stable and fixed, and that a learner has a
predisposition to use. They do not reflect a deeper
reality, a cognitive structure that is immutable
as Hoffman (1997) suggested, let alone an even
deeper neurological reality that governs cognition
and therefore cognitive style. In the framework,
therefore, cognitive styles combine with motiva-
tion (arrow g in Figure 1) to arrive at general
learning styles that go beyond the cognitive level
as in, for example, surface approaches to learning
(Entwhistle, 1988).
LANGUAGE SKILLS
Language skills are the ability to carry out a
language task with relative expertise to a relatively
successful degree. These skills are summative-level
manifestations (products) of L2 processes (arrow
h in Figure 1) and are measurable. Skills can be
measured either singly (listening, reading, speak-
ing, writing) or in combinations as mixed skills
(translations into the L2, summaries, reports).
Skills can be measured both in terms of success
at task achievement (as specified by a given set
of criteria) and as rate of skill acquisition over
time (against some kind of standardized norm).
The automatisation of strategies, through the con-
tinual deployment of clusters of strategies during
L2 processes, leads to the development of skill-
ful behaviour. In the field of L2 acquisition, as
in the field of experimental psychology, skills in-
crease their efficiency the more their underly-
ing cognitive processes become proceduralised
(J. R. Anderson, 1980/2000) and as reorganiza-
tion into new and more efficient units takes place
(McLaughlin, 1990). Let us take the case of speak-
ing fluency as an example. Towell, Hawkins, and
Bazergui (1996), basing their research on the Lev-
elt (1989) theoretical model of speaking, found
that an increase in L2 fluency after a year in
the target country could be attributed primarily
to the formulator whereby the Mean Length of
Run between pauses meant that the participants
were speaking faster because they were producing
longer strings without pausing. The ability to say
longer things without pausing is a surface manifes-
tation of the practice effect of language processes
without which chunking could not take place and
whereby working memory limitations could not
be overcome.
DISCUSSION
The framework proposed in this article is a re-
sponse to a lack of theoretical rigour identified
332
in the research literature on learner strategies. It
proposes a number of distinct components that
are nevertheless in strong interaction with one
another. In this way, it seeks to provide a number
of advances in the field.
First, the framework rejects the dual location
of a strategy and proposes that (a) a strategy oc-
curs in the brain, in working memory; and (b) its
description comprises a goal, a situation, and a
mental action. In so doing, the framework attenu-
ates the problems related to strategy size and strat-
egy abstractness. Second, it describes strategies as
integral components of processing theory rather
than as shortcuts to faster processing. Strategies,
with some exceptions, are available to all learn-
ers, operate in clusters, and in relation to lan-
guage tasks become L2 processes. The nature of
an individual strategy remains constant. It is the
problems posed by task demands that vary and
that bring about variation in the selection and
orchestration of strategy clusters. Third, success-
ful learning is no longer linked to the individual
learner’s frequency of strategy use, but to his or
her orchestration of strategies available to him or
her.
This framework will need to be tested empir-
ically in order to see if previous ambiguities are
indeed resolved. The features of strategies pro-
vided in this article offer a clearer construct that
can be tested for its validity. In order to validate
this framework, so that in future it might acquire
the status of a model, future research needs to
provide the following evidence: (a) that conscious
cognitive activity can be described in terms of ac-
tion, goal, and learning situation; (b) that strat-
egy clusters can be systematically mapped against
L2 tasks; (c) that automatised strategies can be
brought back to selective attention and evaluated
by learners; (d) that a reduction of categories,
to cognitive strategies and metacognitive strate-
gies only, is theoretically justifiable and sufficient;
and (e) that language learning and skills devel-
opment result from the repeated successful ac-
tivation of L2 processes, which are the relatively
successful applications of strategy clusters to L2
tasks.
I am currently beginning to explore item (b)
through the following systematic research pro-
cess: Step 1: verbal protocols carried out against a
specific task; Step 2: validation and generalisation
of a cluster in large groups of learners via task-
based self-report; and Step 3: factor analysis in
order to measure change in cluster use in at least
two time points, either through nonmanipulated
development or through intervention (Macaro,
2005).
The Modern Language Journal 90 (2006)
The framework addresses the problem of speci-
ficity and generalisability of strategies. In order
to reduce the total number of possible strategies
that could be attributed to the total number of
learning situations or tasks, strategies must remain
both situation specific and transferable. Future re-
search could usefully establish how transferable a
strategy is between two learning situations—for
example, by examining the application of prior
knowledge to both reading and listening.
The framework addresses the semantic-
equivalence problem by proposing that strategies
are allocated a separate place within a frame-
work, which also includes processes, skills, plans,
and styles. Their interactions with subconscious
processes have been described where that was
possible from the available evidence. Their inter-
action with conscious L2 processes has been de-
scribed in some detail and, although it is clearly an
incomplete account of the possible interactions,
the framework seeks to contribute to a theory of
language acquisition situated in a connectionist
paradigm operating in conjunction with a theory
of human memory. In doing so, the framework
clearly adheres to cognitive psychology’s quest
to demonstrate that human knowledge is organ-
ised and that learning needs to be interpreted in
the light of this organisation (McLaughlin, 1990).
Learning of the L2 is brought about, in long-term
memory, via strategic behaviour in working mem-
ory, through the development of declarative and
procedural knowledge. Performance in the L2 is
enhanced as a result of the way clusters of strate-
gies interact with language processes, and these
in turn contribute to skills through their accelera-
tion and automatisation. It is the way that clusters
of strategies interact with processes and thence
skills that both knowledge of the language and
performance in the language progress. In that
sense, strategies do not make learning more ef-
ficient; they are the raw material without which
L2 learning cannot take place. More research is
needed to illuminate how strategies combine to
lead to both language competence and language
performance.
CONCLUSIONS
The author of this article recognises that an
enormous amount of research effort has gone
into the learner strategy area and that some
progress has been made. Yet criticisms regarding
lack of theoretical underpinnings have persisted
for nearly 2 decades and are, to some extent,
justified. However, the research contribution of
Ernesto Macaro
authors, to whom these criticisms have been
leveled, has been in providing a bridge between
theory and practice and, therefore, this article is
not meant as an attack on their work. Rather, I
have attempted to provide a theoretical frame-
work for that valuable research endeavour, one
that predicts that language is developed through
the interaction of the components in the frame-
work and one that can be tested by empirical
research.
I anticipate that one of the biggest challenges
to the proposed framework will come in the form
of an accusation of strategy proliferation. By opt-
ing for a more irreducible approach to strategy
description, we may well be looking at hundreds
of individual strategies. Part of this challenge can
be met by the notion of transferability and the
economy principle discussed in this article. For
the rest, it is my view that there is no other solu-
tion. It could mean a research agenda that takes
an additional decade. To some, this may seem a
daunting task not worth undertaking. However,
without attempting to explain cognitive behaviour
in all its complexity, as meticulously and scien-
tifically as possible, and then attempting to as-
certain its relationship with overt behaviour on
the one hand and subconscious behaviour on the
other, we will continue to offer only a superfi-
cial glimpse into L2 learning from the learner’s
perspective.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Andrew D. Cohen, Victoria Mur-
phy, Peter Gu, and the two MLJ anonymous reviewers
for their invaluable comments and advice in the devel-
opment of this article.
NOTES
1 These claims, as with the criticisms in the next sec-
tion, are not necessarily claims being made by the cur-
rent author.
2 The precise relationship between working memory
and long-term memory is, however, still a matter for
considerable debate (see Miyake & Shah, 1999).
3 See Miyake and Shah (1999) for an overview of dif-
ferent models of working memory. The one adopted
here, however, is that of Baddeley (1997).
4 Example taken from O’Malley and Chamot (1990).
5 “Task,” here, is meant both in the sense of “target
task” and “pedagogical task” (Wenden, 1995).
333
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