The following profile was created from think aloud interviews with effective high school Spanish learners. Effective learners use strategies appropriately and flexibly. These students have a wide repertoire of strategies from which they consciously choose depending on the demands of the language task. They monitor their strategy use and are aware of whether a strategy is working or not. If a strategy is not helping, they are able to call upon another, perhaps more appropriate strategy.
Effective learners plan before beginning a task.
In speaking, they think of useful words and phrases in advance and choose topics that are familiar. Before beginning intensive reading, good students think of what they know about the topic and preview the title and text in order to make predictions. Then, they follow up on their predictions and guesses by verifying their accuracy and revising expectations as necessary. These students consciously monitor their production and comprehension. When speaking, they can talk about complex ideas by creatively rephrasing unknown words.