“Four sets of cognitive strategies – applied to listening, speaking, writing, and reading – enable second language learners to understand and produce new language. These are: practicing, receiving and sending messages, analyzing and reasoning, and creating structures for input and output.” (Rebecca Oxford, 1990)
Students also employ the cognitive strategy receiving and sending messages by using the Question Cue Card, which they use as a questioning resource to quickly get the idea that has just been presented.
In all English Now! levels, students employ analyzing and reasoning strategies. For example, in phonemic awareness, they analyze minimal pairs of sounds contrastively according to how and where they are made in the mouth. While listening to an audio story, they use deductive reasoning to place picture cards in sequence. In writing, they analyze three writing samples that vary in sentence complexity, then transfer what they learned to their own writing.
Finally, students create structures for input and output. In English Now! C they learn how to take notes of an oral interview (input), summarize their notes (output), share their notes with the teacher and partners (output-input), and finally, write an expository essay using their notes, incorporating their partner’s and teacher’s input into their own writing. In English Now! D, they highlight important information (input), explain what they highlighted to partners (output), transfer this highlighted information to an outline (output), and write a five-paragraph persuasive essay (output).
Thus, the input-output-input-output process is strategic in nature, because the communicative goal is achieved through a structured process of assessment, planning, and execution, which, according to linguists like Bachman, comprise the elements of strategic competence (Bachman, 1990).
The examples listed above are just a few of several cognitive strategies used in English Now! Clearly, these strategies bring tremendous benefits to students, enabling them to self-direct their learning quickly, effectively, and enjoyably.
