THE SOUND OF ONE-HAND CLAPPING - HOW TO SUCCEED IN INDEPENDENT LANGUAGE-LEARNING

This paper describes the self-reported strategies of thirty adults who were independent language learners for a period of six months. Their diaries were classified for attainment as either high achievers or low achievers. High and low achievers showed no significant differences in overall treatment of the learning materials. However, they differed in their treatment of language itself. The high achievers showed significantly more instances of communication-making and context-making activities. In isolation they often created imaginary partners in imaginary settings and then treated language as a medium of communication rather than as a subject to be memorized. Creativity and imagination help the independent learner to overcome the pitfalls of isolation. We suggest that the use of imagined contextualized communication should be recommended for classroom language learners to assist with independent study.