Dusting Tommy’s and Grace’s Portfolios: ADocument Analysis of L2 English Learners’ Language Learning Strategies

This study intended to depict the process of L2 English learners’ strategy use by utilizing document analysis as a major method.


Introduction
n-depth interviews were conducted to corroborate the document analysis as a means of triangulation.The research question of this study was: What language learning strategies are being used by the participants of the study?Two participants were purposely selected from the ESL learners studying at the undergraduate and at the graduate level in an Eastern US university.The data from the interviews and documents yielded major themes and case examples.
Keywords: language learning strategies, document analysis,triangulation A great deal of the previous studies haveutilized a quantitative approach to examine L2 English learners' strategy use, especially using the Strategy Inventory of Language Learning (SILL) survey (Oxford, R. L., 1990).Chen (2005) criticized that "strategy research only offers a partial picture out of a quantitative perspective" (p. 19).While self-report questionnaires have become the most important part of the LLS research methodology,researchers cannot be certain that learners actually employ the strategies they claim to use (Poole, 2005).As indicated by Chamot (2004), learners might not remember what language learning strategies they actually used, but claim to use them.In addition, they might check a survey item whose written description is not comprehensible to them.Similarly, Lee (2000)pointed out that the method of questionnaires creates an attitude for participants to adopt because theytend to make an impression onresearchers.That causesthem to collect biased data.
Recently, more and more researchers are aware of the need to use qualitative methods for a richer description of the employment of language learning strategies (Griffiths&Oxford, 2014).These qualitative methods might include interviews; think-aloud protocols, diaries, observation, and so on.Nevertheless, few studies usedocument analysis as a method.
At best, it is marginalizedas a supplement to other qualitative methods (Ahmed, 2010).Therefore, documental studies on Language Leaning Strategy (LLS) arescarce and urgently needed in order to include more process-oriented or qualitative studies of this nature.
This study intended to delineate the process of L2 English learners' strategy used by utilizingdocument analysis as a method.In-depth interviewswere conducted to corroborate the document analysis as a means of triangulation.Hodder (1994)indicated that "texts can be used alongside other forms of evidence so that the particular biases of each can be understood and compared." The specific research question designed was: What language learning strategies are being used by the participants of the study?
It is structured as follows.The second section presents a literature review of document analysis as a research method.
The third section offers the means by which the strategies are elicited and analyzed.
The fourth section presents major themes and case examples.Finally, the last section concludes the study.

Participants
Two ESL learners participated in this research under the pseudonyms, Tommy and Grace.They were purposely selected from the ESL learners studying at the undergraduate and at the graduate level in an Eastern US university.Given that international students at the university were required to meet its language requirements beforeadmission, their English competence was considered to be either at the intermediate or at the advanced English proficiency level.In order to select a suitable participant for this study, the researcher interviewed each of the possible candidates in English to check their level of English competence and willingness to participate in the study.
As a result, the participants selected for the study were Tommy and Grace, two Malaysian undergraduates at the university.Tommy's major is Business and Grace's Psychology.
In fact, documentary-based studies enjoyed popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, as shown by the fact that many important studies were based on completely or partially on document analysis.
As indicated by McCulloch (2004), several causes lead tothe marginalization of document analysis.First, there were so many documentary studies around by the 1960s that they became too familiar to be popular.As a result, many researchers turned to other research methods in that they appeared more novel and challenging.Second, documentary studies used to offer the perspectives of social and political elites, rather than the ordinary people.That might cause the researchers who wanted to study common people to lose interests in this method.Third, some researchers found documentary analysis boring for the reason that documents usually were in existence before their studies and might not be related to the issues that concerned them.Owing to these, documentary studies are considered esoteric, dry, and narrow, and its marginalization seems irreversible.
Even if document analysis might be a marginalized method, some researchers still adhere to this method for the following reasons.As noted by Jennifer (2002), researchers choose document analysis as a method because of the ontological position that documents are considered constituents of the society, Through this method, traces of the social world could be found.Oxford, 1994).The emergence of the classification schemes causes a major problem for LIS studies because of "a lack of coherent, well accepted system for describing these strategies" (Oxford, 1994, p.4) Currently, many researchers world-wide regard the SILL as the most comprehensive and widely-used tool to elicit language learning strategies (Nisbet, Tindall, & Arroyo, 2005;Tseng, 2011).Besides, a large number of studies adopted the SILL as an instrument to diagnose language learners' strengths and weaknesses (Nakatani, 2006).
Because the SILL is a widely-recognized and well-tested system for identifying learners' learning strategies, it would be unpractical for me to develop a coding scheme without using any system that already exists.
Therefore, a priori approach was adopted to identify the themes of the study.As pointed out by Ryan and Bernard (2003) I ask for help from English speakers.
of the documents came from the two learners'portfolios preparedfor the same course requirements, they might utilize a similar set of strategies to complete their assignments.
Table 3 The Subscales of the SILL Identified in Tommy and Grace

Direct Strategies
Case Example 1.

"I watch
English language TV shows spoken in English or go to movies spoken in English "and "I make summaries of information that I hear or read in English" are two cognitive strategies listed in the SILL.In the summary of a Hollywood movie "Last Samurai" written by Tommy, the researcher detected the use of the two language strategies by him.
The following excerpt illustrates that Tommy is capable of writing summaries ofinformation that he read, hear or watch in English: The requirements in class (Oxford, 1989).
In addition, as shown by the above excerpt, Tommy had already utilized this cognitive strategy, watching English language TV shows spoken in English or going to movies spoken in English, in life.As indicated by Hyland (2004) Table 5 The Subscales of the SILL Identified in Tommy and Grace

Case Example 8. Reading
English without looking up every new word is one SILL compensation strategy (Oxford, 1990) Even though Grace did not rule out using the English-English dictionaries, when reading short articles, she tried to read the articles several times in order to understand the meanings of the new words, instead of relying on the dictionaries all the time.

Case Example 9. "I read for
pleasure in English" is one SILL item which belongs to subscale of cognitive strategies (Oxford, 1990).Even though both of the learners reported to use this language learning strategy, Grace admitted that she was not the type of the person who liked to read in the past time.
For this reason, I think that she was not a frequent user of this cognitive strategy.Since Tommy liked to play basketball in his free time, reading basketball magazines was a pleasurable activity which was related to his hobby.
Asked why he liked to read English proverbs, he stated that reading these famous English sayings not only gave him personal guidance and that it provided him some useful information about how to counsel his friends in trouble.
Reading for pleasure in English, or free voluntary reading, is still considered "an effective way of increasing literacy and language development, with a strong impact on reading comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, and writing" (Krashen, 2003, p. 15).Saad, 2016).

Indirect Strategies
Case Example 11.I ask questions in English" is one item on the SILL subscale of social strategies (Oxford, 1990) What Tommy experienced is language learning anxiety rooted in interacting with others.Williams and Andrade (2008)reported that most of the L2 English learners "attributed the cause of anxiety to the teacher or other people" (p.188).However, even though Tommy did not like to socialize with people with whom he was not close to, he did not hesitate to ask his professors questions.
When he had difficulties with his writing, he volunteered to make appointments with his instructors via e-mails to discuss how to revise his course papers.A possible explanation for the seemly contradiction between the low self-esteem he claimed he had and his employment of the social learning strategy was that asking his instructors questions was not considered to be an act of making friends with people.To Tommy, asking his professors questions in and off classes was an academic business with which he had to be engaged in order to be successful in his academic life.

Case Example 12.
On the subscale of the social strategy is one of the items "If I do not understand something in English, I ask the person to slow down or say it again" (Oxford, 1990).As confirmed by Hayati (2010) By listening to English music, Tommy tried to listen to the words sung by the singers and read the lyrics of the songs to comprehend their meanings.
In so doing, he claimed that he not only improved his listening competence, but also his reading.
Likewise, Grace also reported to use this non-SILL learning strategy to facilitate her L2 learning.Task requirements might have impact on their strategy use in the first phase (Oxford, 1989).The researcher could not detect any strategies from the three SILL subscales: memory, compensation and affective strategies.
These types of strategies were not employed because they might not be demanded by the writing tasks.For instance, the affective strategies were probably easier to be elicited in diaries and personal journals which they were not required to write by the writing tasks.
Furthermore, the type of assessment would influence the elicitation of language learning strategies in the first phase of the study and the elicited strategies might not be used by Tommy and Grace currently (Oxford, 1996).Theirportfolios included their recollective narratives such as reflective notes and narrative essays, which might not yield their currently used strategies.
In conclusion, more language strategies were elicited in the interviews than in document analysis.Sixteen themes emerge in the analyses of in-depth reviews.Fourteen of them could be labeled with SILL taxonomies, while two couldn't.Grace used four more language strategy types than Tommy.The rapport between the researcher and the participants in the interviews may make them more willing to talk about their strategy use.The results of the second phase might reveal their current strategies due to the specific type of assessment.Thus, adhering to document analysis as the only method might not be a wise decision in the field of language learning strategies because its elicitation of strategies seems to be compromised by factors such as task requirements and types of assessment.

®Jiun-Iung Lei
Jiun-Iung Lei is an assistant professor of Central Taiwan University of Science and Technology.He has been teaching English in college for more than twenty years.His research interests include second language reading and composition, TESOL, and discourse analysis.
the language strategies used by the two learners were the SILL ones.Nevertheless, as shown by this table, the researcher could not detect any strategies from the three SILL subscales: currently used strategies.Below are the case examplesof strategies used by the two L2 English learners.
fight during the battle and the spirit that carried by the Samurai warriors.Besides, this movie shows the materialization, civilization and the technology of the Westerners during 19th century who tried to colonize Japan for economic trading purposes as well as the natural resources.The whole idea of this movie is to show the viewer about the Japanese culture and the spirit of Samurai warriors.As shown by the feedbacks Tommy's instructor scribbled on one pageofthiswriting assignment, his English professor stated that Tommy's movie plot summary was too long and too detailed.Nevertheless, in point of fact, by writing a movie summary for a class assignment, Tommy had already employed this cognitive strategy to some extent even though its employment might be resulted from task In the analyses of the interviews, I detected two non-SILL strategies, confirming that the SILL is not an exhaustive list of language learning strategies.Unlike the results of the document analyses, the only SILL strategy type the researcher could not detect in the interviews was affective strategies.In addition, more language strategies were elicited in the interviews than in document analysis.By directly asking the two learners open-ended and closed questions, it was easier to elicit the answers I wanted to know.Being acquainted with the learners for some time, I was in a rapport with the participants in the interview, making them less reserved in terms of revealing their perceptions, values and beliefs.Below are the case examples showing some of the strategies found in the interviews with the two ESL learners.Direct Strategies Case Example 7. "If I can't think of an English word, I use a word or phrase that means the same thing" and "When I can't think of a word during a conversation in English, I use gestures" are two SILL compensation strategies (Oxford, 1990).Both of the SILL learning strategies were identified in the interviews with Tommy and Grace.The following excerpts illustrated what one of the learners Tommy reported on his use of the two strategies.I: If you speak English and cannot find a right word to say, what do you usually do?T: That happens all the time.Yes, I will use it.Using an open-ended and a closed question in my interview with Tommy, I elicited his use of the two SILL learning Beyond Words Vol.6 No.2 (2018) strategies.Tommy indicated that when he could not think of the right words to express in his conversations with native speakers, he described the thing he wanted to say with some other words.That is, Tommy used the synonyms of the words which he could not think of to make his interlocutor understand what he wanted to express.According to the interview, when this compensatory strategy did not function as he expected, he just put aside his problems of finding the right words to express and kept the conversation going.And when asked whether he used gestures in similar conversational situations, he gave a nod to it admitting his use of this compensatory strategy.Hardan (2013) elaborated that "compensation strategies are employed by the students to compensate the missing knowledge in the target language due to lack of vocabulary" (p.1722).
. Because Tommy liked to know the details of the new words by making references to the dictionaries, this compensation strategy was only employed by Grace.Grace reported her use of the strategy by saying: But, right now, I try not to use the dictionaries.I will read the articles several times in order to get the meanings of the new words.In short articles, I will use the dictionaries to check out the meanings of the words.However, in long articles, I will not use the dictionaries.Just like I said, I will read the articles several times until I get the meanings of the words.
Example 10.The case shows how Grace employed the cognitive strategy, "I watch English language TV shows spoken in English or go to movies spoken in English".In the analyses of the transcriptions of the interviews, skill activity such as reading might not be an appealing out-of-class activity for Grace.In my interview with her, Grace admitted that she was not the type of the person who liked to read in private.Her way of improving her English in past time was watching English TV shows or movies because she could imitate the native speaker's pronunciation and intonation.L2 English learners may choose watching TV or movies as an out-of-class activity due to the multiple language skills it comprises (Maros & Beyond Words Vol.6 No.2 (2018) will go to the professor asking what he meant by that.And I will ask him what the word means.Basically, I will talk to the professor about it.I will talk to him on the spot in the class or after the class.If he is not there, I will make an appointment with him.Let's say.When I am revising a paper and have some problems with it, I will equestions to find out what learning strategies he employed when he had difficulties understanding the lectures in class and his reasons for using them.Without providing me a direct answer to my second question, Tommy reported his employment of this social learning strategy.In another session of the interview with him, I found a seemly contradiction between the low self-esteem he claimed he had and his employment of the social learning strategy in class.He indicated: I am a lazy person.I am not active.I have certain beliefs that I have low self-esteem.I don't like to hang out with people I am not close to.Because of these beliefs, I don't like to socialize with people.

I:
You put listening to music as one of your most frequently used language strategies.Are there any special reasons for that?G: When I studied English in my high school, my teacher recommended us to listen to music to improve our English.According to our English teacher, listening to music is more interesting Beyond Words Vol.6 No.2 (2018) than regular English classes.Listening to music also would make me feel happy.strategies are employed by them and five of the same are identical.In terms of the strategy types, they utilized the same types of language learning strategies: metacognitive, cognitive and social ones.Most of the documents came from the two learners' portfolios prepared for the same course requirements, sothe writing tasks might dictate their strategy employment.

2018) Table4 The Types of Language Strategies Used by Tommy and Grace
messages, letters, or reports in English."In Tommy's introductory essay written for his English 101 portfolio, he stated: This new portfolio is presented as a final work from a set of essays that I have written in the past three months.The collection of writing from the old portfolio is a set of essays which carries six different types of essay by using different writing skills; and the topics are related to my personal experiences and interests, and the titlesgiven by the professor.illustrating her ability to take notes in English.Based on the neatness of her note-taking, these notes may have taken by her in private, not in class.Beyond Words Vol.6 No.2 (I look for people I can talk to in English.I try to learn about the culture of English