A diary study : strategies in learning a saudi arabian dialect

Abstract EN

This diary study is investigating the strategies used by an experienced EFL teacher, when he was learning a second language, Arabic in this case, in a short individualized oral course with formal and informal conversational classes taught by an Arabic speaker.

The purpose is to observe: a) the learning and communication strategies used by the learner; b) the kind of metalinguistic knowledge that the learner employs to aid the participant in his learning; and c) the inferences and hypothesis made during the learning process and how these were confirmed or unconfirmed.

The learner participant's native language is Spanish and she also speaks fluently Lithuanian, and English.

The participant will be asked to keep a journal of her experiences during the learning process which will last eight weeks.

The entries will be written in a semi-systematic way.

The teacher (the researcher) will also keep a diary of the learning aspects where he will note down the strategies used by the learner and the difficulties experienced in the process of learning the language.

Both of these data sources will be analyzed to find patterns, regularities or salient events.

It assumed that the analyses would indicate that there are multiple strategies being used, such as memory, cognitive or metacognitive strategies.