scholarly journals Using Social Strategies in Teaching German as a Foreign Language at Primary School Level

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (22) ◽  
pp. 216-237
Author(s):  
Marija Nijemčević Perović ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Primary School ◽  
Performance Assessment ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
School Level ◽  
Rank Test ◽  
Social Strategies ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

The major purpose of this quantitative research is to investigate the frequency of social learning strategies used in teaching German as a foreign language within the population of primary school students of the higher grade (corresponding to the age of 11 to 14). Furthermore, the aim of this study is to explore the statistically significant differences between pupil’s gender, age, second language performance assessment as predictors and social learning strategies as dependent variables. The research was done during the first semester of the school year 2019 / 2020 with 218 students. The modified questionnaire Strategy Inventory for Language Learning designed by Rebecca Oxford, Likert and Guttman scale were used for data collection. The Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient of the modified scale was α = .89. The research data was analysed by a quantitative method with IBM SPSS 23 and the results revealed that the primary school learners employed social learning strategies with an average value of 3.30, which represents a medium frequency of use. Results have shown that female students tend to use social learning strategies more frequently than males (Mf = 11.05; Mm = 9.74) and their usage becomes less intense with age (М5 = 4.14, М6 = 3.69, М7 = 2.42, М8 = 2.39). Performance assessment is not contributing significantly to their frequency (rho = .18, p = .39). The Mann - Whitney U test is used to compare whether there is a statistically significant difference in the dependent variable for two independent groups: students in late childhood and students in early adolescence. Results have shown that the second group of students use rarer social learning strategies than the first. Therefore, older learners were exposed to the strategies input. The Wilcoxon signed - rank test was used to compare repeated measurements on a single sample to assess whether their population mean ranks differ. Results have shown that strategies input contributing statistically significant to the detected changes in a date caused by strategies input (z = - 5.24 , p = .01). The slight difference between arithmetic means (М1 = 3.22; М2 = 3.36) was explained with the Affective filter hypothesis Stephen Krashen developed in the 1980s. This paper points out the importance of using social strategies in teaching and learning German as a foreign language. Pedagogical implications refer to some important indicators of social learning strategies – symmetrical and complementary interpersonal communication and the use of cooperative learning principles in the classroom.

A comparative study on learning strategies used by Australian CFL and Chinese EFL learners

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenying Jiang ◽  
Qingyu Wu
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Social Strategies ◽  
Language Learning Strategies ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Grade Levels ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Four Levels

AbstractThis study compared language learning strategies used by Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners in Australia and English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in China through Oxford’s (1990. Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know. Boston: Heinle and Heinle.) Strategy Inventory of Language Learning (SILL) questionnaire survey. Two cohorts of learners, namely Australian CFL learners (N=101) and Chinese EFL learners (N=100), participated in this study. It was found that the most frequently used strategies by the Chinese EFL learners were compensation strategies and the least frequently used strategies were memory strategies while the most frequently used strategies by the Australian CFL learners were social strategies and the least frequently used strategies were affective strategies. Australian female learners used slightly more strategies than male learners, but no difference was found in the strategies used by the Chinese EFL male and female learners. No significant difference was found either in the strategies used by learners of different grade levels, regardless of whether they were Chinese EFL or Australian CFL learners. Scores of some individual categories significantly differed between the three levels of the Australian CFL learners and the four levels of the Chinese EFL learners. In general the Chinese EFL learners used more strategies when compared with those used by the Australian CFL learners. Pedagogical implications of the findings were also discussed. This study contributes to the research in language learning strategies in that it considers the typological distance between learners’ L1 and the target language for the first time. It also has clarified the seemingly inconsistent findings in the literature in terms of memory strategies use by Asian learners (Chinese learners in this case): when compared with other categories of strategies, memory strategies were used the least frequently by the Chinese EFL learners; when compared with learners from other cultural backgrounds such as the Australian or American, the Chinese EFL learners used memory strategies more frequently.

Social Learning

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Hoppitt ◽  
Kevin N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Experimental Psychology ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Mathematical Methods ◽  
Indispensable Tool ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

Many animals, including humans, acquire valuable skills and knowledge by copying others. Scientists refer to this as social learning. It is one of the most exciting and rapidly developing areas of behavioral research and sits at the interface of many academic disciplines, including biology, experimental psychology, economics, and cognitive neuroscience. This book provides a comprehensive, practical guide to the research methods of this important emerging field. It defines the mechanisms thought to underlie social learning and demonstrate how to distinguish them experimentally in the laboratory. It presents techniques for detecting and quantifying social learning in nature, including statistical modeling of the spatial distribution of behavior traits. It also describes the latest theory and empirical findings on social learning strategies, and introduces readers to mathematical methods and models used in the study of cultural evolution. This book is an indispensable tool for researchers and an essential primer for students.

Strong conformity requires a greater proportion of asocial learning and achieves lower fitness than a payoff-based equivalent

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 323-333
Author(s):  
Matt Grove
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Individual Learning ◽  
Heterogeneous Environments ◽  
The One ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

There is a growing interest in the relative benefits of the different social learning strategies used to transmit information between conspecifics and in the extent to which they require input from asocial learning. Two strategies in particular, conformist and payoff-based social learning, have been subject to considerable theoretical analysis, yet previous models have tended to examine their efficacy in relation to specific parameters or circumstances. This study employs individual-based simulations to derive the optimal proportion of individual learning that coexists with conformist and payoff-based strategies in populations experiencing wide-ranging variation in levels of environmental change, reproductive turnover, learning error and individual learning costs. Results demonstrate that conformity coexists with a greater proportion of asocial learning under all parameter combinations, and that payoff-based social learning is more adaptive in 97.43% of such combinations. These results are discussed in relation to the conjecture that the most successful social learning strategy will be the one that can persist with the lowest frequency of asocial learning, and the possibility that punishment of non-conformists may be required for conformity to confer adaptive benefits over payoff-based strategies in temporally heterogeneous environments.

scholarly journals Social learning strategies regulate the wisdom and madness of interactive crowds

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wataru Toyokawa ◽  
Andrew Whalen ◽  
Kevin N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Group Size ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Collective Wisdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Challenging Tasks ◽  
Task Uncertainty ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

AbstractWhy groups of individuals sometimes exhibit collective ‘wisdom’ and other times maladaptive ‘herding’ is an enduring conundrum. Here we show that this apparent conflict is regulated by the social learning strategies deployed. We examined the patterns of human social learning through an interactive online experiment with 699 participants, varying both task uncertainty and group size, then used hierarchical Bayesian model-ftting to identify the individual learning strategies exhibited by participants. Challenging tasks elicit greater conformity amongst individuals, with rates of copying increasing with group size, leading to high probabilities of herding amongst large groups confronted with uncertainty. Conversely, the reduced social learning of small groups, and the greater probability that social information would be accurate for less-challenging tasks, generated ‘wisdom of the crowd’ effects in other circumstances. Our model-based approach provides evidence that the likelihood of collective intelligence versus herding can be predicted, resolving a longstanding puzzle in the literature.

scholarly journals Social learning strategies

2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

Cognitive culture: theoretical and empirical insights into social learning strategies

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Rendell ◽  
Laurel Fogarty ◽  
William J.E. Hoppitt ◽  
Thomas J.H. Morgan ◽  
Mike M. Webster ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

scholarly journals Testing differential use of payoff-biased social learning strategies in children and chimpanzees

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1868) ◽  
pp. 20171751 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian L. Vale ◽  
Emma G. Flynn ◽  
Jeremy Kendal ◽  
Bruce Rawlings ◽  
Lydia M. Hopper ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Beneficial Traits ◽  
Children’S Behaviour ◽  
Social Exposure ◽  
Reward Information ◽  
Social Learning Strategies ◽  
Exchange Behaviour

Various non-human animal species have been shown to exhibit behavioural traditions. Importantly, this research has been guided by what we know of human culture, and the question of whether animal cultures may be homologous or analogous to our own culture. In this paper, we assess whether models of human cultural transmission are relevant to understanding biological fundamentals by investigating whether accounts of human payoff-biased social learning are relevant to chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ). We submitted 4- and 5-year-old children ( N = 90) and captive chimpanzees ( N = 69) to a token–reward exchange task. The results revealed different forms of payoff-biased learning across species and contexts. Specifically, following personal and social exposure to different tokens, children's exchange behaviour was consistent with proportional imitation, where choice is affected by both prior personally acquired and socially demonstrated token–reward information. However, when the socially derived information regarding token value was novel, children's behaviour was consistent with proportional observation; paying attention to socially derived information and ignoring their prior personal experience. By contrast, chimpanzees' token choice was governed by their own prior experience only, with no effect of social demonstration on token choice, conforming to proportional reservation. We also find evidence for individual- and group-level differences in behaviour in both species. Despite the difference in payoff strategies used, both chimpanzees and children adopted beneficial traits when available. However, the strategies of the children are expected to be the most beneficial in promoting flexible behaviour by enabling existing behaviours to be updated or replaced with new and often superior ones.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document