Griffiths (2020) proposes four general characteristics of LLS: strategies are "active"; learners choose their strategies; strategies are goal-oriented; strategies are used for the purpose of learning language (p. 608). The definition of LLS grounding this paper aligns with the first three of these tenets, but it moves beyond the view that strategies must be "for the purpose of learning language." By emphasizing how the research participant in this study engaged in behaviors aimed at achieving writing success within her academic discourse community-which is not always the same as learning how to write better in English-I conceptualize strategic behaviors as situated responses to institutional exigencies (see Schneider, 2022). To that end, some of the student's writing behaviors to be highlighted here include how she developed ideas for independent writing projects; how she sought help from peers and others; how she approached revising and editing papers; and how she worked to appease instructors' expectations.
Beyond identifying such strategies, however, the presentation will emphasize the extent to which the student's evolving behaviors over four years of college reflected developments in her life beyond the classroom-as described by her during multiple research interviews. Generally, her personal narrative follows this arc: During her first years of college, she experienced feelings of indirection and frustration, particularly in relation to a belief that she had limited future opportunities; then, in the latter part of her studies, she developed a strong sense of professional identity and was able to imagine a clear career path for herself. As she went through these changes, her strategic approaches to writing evolved accordingly. While she started college employing strategies aimed at completing writing assignments with minimal effort, displaying little concern for skill development, by the second half of college she was engaging more deeply with writing and applying strategies aimed at learning and growth.
This an overly simplistic rendering of the student's experience-more details will be included-but the larger point is to illuminate the value of a "wide-angle view." While this way of thinking has not been central to work on LLS, it is certainly not unique within applied linguistics, and it is directly informed by research on identity (Norton, 2013), a person-in-context relational view (Ushioda, 2009), and, more generally, student motivation (Dörnyei, 2020).
References
Dörnyei, Z. (2020). Innovations and challenges in language learning motivation. New York,
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Griffiths, C. (2020). Language learner strategies. Applied Linguistics, 41(4), 607–611.
Norton, B. (2013). Identity and language learning: Extending the conversation (2nd ed.). Bristol:
Multilingual Matters.
Schneider, J. (2022). Writing strategies as acts of identity. TESOL Quarterly, 56(1), 230-253.
Thomas, N., Rose, H., Cohen, A., Gao, X., Sasaki, A., & Hernandez-Gonzalez, T. (2022). The
third wind of language learning strategies research. Language Teaching, 55(3), 417-421.
Ushioda, E. (2009). A person-in-context relational view of emergent motivation, self and
identity. In Z. Dörnyei & E. Ushioda (Eds.), Motivation, language, identity and the L2 self (pp. 215-228), Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
