USING LEARNING STRATEGIES TO FOSTER AUTONOMY

Strategies are specific methods of approaching a problem or a task, modes of operation for achieving a particular end, planned designs for controlling and manipulating certain information. They are contextualized “battle plans” that might vary from moment to moment, or from one situation to another, or even from one culture to another. Strategies vary within an individual (Brown, 2000,p.119). Taking “learner” as the key to real success, learning strategies are indispensable within the learning process. Rubin (1987,p.15), emphasises the importance of learning strategies in the language learning process as: “all other things being equal, some students will be more successful than others in learning a second or foreign language. The learning strategy literature assumes that some of this success can be attributed to particular sets of cognitive and metacognitive behaviours which learners engage in. As learners are actively engaged in their process of learning using the strategies, they develop self-awareness and are led to the direct way towards autonomy. Now that these skills being effective in enhancing autonomy and selfawareness of the students in learning, then why not find more ways to develop these skills? Having this in mind, this study provides a step by step lesson plan and procedure covering these strategies.