Book Review: "Learning Strategy Instruction in the Language Classroom: Issues and Implementation"

Language learning strategies, “the techniques or devices which a learner may use to acquire knowledge” (Rubin, 1975, p. 43) or more pertinently “complex, dynamic thoughts and actions, selected and used by learners with some degree of consciousness in specific contexts” (Oxford, 2017, p. 48), have been widely researched and discussed for more than forty years since the mid-1970s. Shifting the focus to language learner from language teacher, from language teaching methodology to language learning styles, and from transfer of information to construction of knowledge as the fulcra of language learning process are qualities which brought language learning strategies into high vogue. The language learner no longer was viewed as an inert and passive meaning-apprehending receptacle devoid of creative agency; rather, language learner was viewed as an active and meaning-giving individual who is endowed with creative agency for envisioning and generating a course of actions to achieve his/her language using and learning objectives. Thus, language learner’s capacity to perform intentional and goal-oriented actions regarding how to initiate, guide, and sustain language learning process and how to attain high language proficiency received considerable attention in the extant research literature. The great swell of academic interest in language learning strategies reached its sharp crescendo in the 1980s and early 1990s (e.g., O’Malley & Chamot, 1990; Cohen, 1998).