“Now Maybe I Feel Like Trying”: Engaging Learners Using a Visual Tool

Abstract

For every learning advisor and language teacher, a fundamental goal is to foster learners’ motivation and self-regulation for successful L2 learning. This paper presents a visual tool that can be used in advising and teaching to realize this purpose. With the tool, learners can review their own L2 learning and ability, and create an inventory of their learning strategies, which helps them find their weaknesses, goals and develop their approach. The tool, the Strategy Tree for Language Learners, consists of the image of a tree, water and the sun. The trunk and leaves of the tree represent learners’ linguistic knowledge and skills, the roots learners’ affective strategies, water cognitive strategies, and the sun sociocultural-interactive strategies. The notions of these three types of strategies are based on the concepts presented by Oxford (2011). By drawing their own L2 Strategy Tree, learners can perceive their learning situations objectively and notice which step they should take next. In practice at a Japanese university, it was observed that learners developed learning strategies and their motivation increased. The Strategy Tree is a useful tool to encourage learners to feel confident and responsible and help them to self-regulate.