NOTE-TAKING STRATEGIES AND A STRATEGIC READER

A common topic of publications on reading over the last three decades has also been a reader, typically labeled a strategic reader. Reading strategically has been defined as taking deliberate actions, utilized locally or globally, to

pro-mote comprehension, being able to work towards the established goals and to constantly monitor the efficiency of the process and its outcomes (CHODKIE -WICZ, 2006; JANZEN, 2001; KODA, 2005). KODA (2005: 221) emphasizes the sig-nificance of strategic reading providing the following statement: “Strategic reading, obviously, is an essential competence for anyone who reads for the sake of reading and thinking”. Her view of reading obviously does not allow for a reductionist interpretation of reading just in terms of information process-ing but demands that readprocess-ing be conceptualized as a goal-directed, conceptually demanding activity, taking place when the text is read and reflected upon. In recent years different taxonomies of reading strategies have been worked out as well as many research studies have been conducted into variables affecting strategy use by L2 readers (e.g. individual reader differences, text properties or reading tasks’ characteristics). One type of strategies that have found their place on reading strategies lists are note-taking strategies, despite that fact that accompanying reading tasks is not their sole application, and that they are often treated as an independent activity.

Currently, there seems to be growing interest in exploring a variety of edu-cational situations in which learners are demanded to take notes or just feel they need to do it to optimize the results of the tasks to be accomplished. Some psychologists have also taken a stance on the issue of note-taking, an activity commonly encountered in many learning circumstances both in L1 and L2, as well as in professional and everyday life contexts. It was also claimed to be an important skill transferable to real life situations when one’s education is com-pleted. Both from the psychological and educational perspective note-taking has started to be investigated as an activity based on complex mental operations of selective processing of information, involving both comprehension and produc-tion of relevant written outcome.

Taking notes, undoubtedly, is a strategy significant to all foreign language learners who additionally have to find different means to compensate for their language deficiencies in learning and testing situations. In their classic book on L2 learning strategies, O’MALLEY and CHAMOT (1990: 138) list note-taking among 11 cognitive strategies defining it as “Writing down key words and con-cepts in abbreviated verbal, graphic, or numerical form to assist performance of a language task”. They perceive its value in reformulating the information one arrives at while performing some language tasks so as to make it representative of the original, yet presented in a shorter and a more concise form. OXFORD

(1990: 86—90) singles out a category of strategies called ‘creating structure for input and output’, which comprise taking notes, summarizing and highlighting.

As for taking notes, she claims that to do it efficiently one should mainly focus on the process of understanding of listening or reading materials rather than on having things written down, and postulates that note-taking be done by means of varied formats. She also expresses the view that note-taking — a cognitive

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strategy is associated with the metacognitive strategy of ‘organizing’. With re-gard to L2 situations, WHITE (1996) defines the role of note-taking as played through three approaches: recording information in content subjects, learning language as knowledge (e.g. noting down grammar generalizations) and as sys-tem (working knowledge of language noted down in form of learners’ personal, independent notes). She contends that despite content focus of some language learning tasks (structuring input at different levels of organization) also their linguistic aspects have to be appropriately taken care of by the language learner.

Much new light has been shed on the value of note-taking in connection with the decision allowing TOEFL-iBT testees to take down notes in different parts of the new format of the exam, especially when the integration of infor-mation is needed, the rationale for the decision being that this is a common pro-cedure of many authentic academic tasks. The importance of the strategy of note-taking in L2 has been confirmed by researchers who have investigated its use while listening to lectures. In their publications, CARRELL et al. (2002) and CARRELL(2007) studied an effect of a number of variables such as allowing vs.

disallowing to take down notes, a lecture length, a quality of notes (a number of content words from the lecture and test answers found in the notes) on perfor-mance on TOEFL tasks. Although those research findings have some implica-tions for the understanding of the problem undertaken for the present discussion, that is, taking reading notes in academic reading to learn situations, that is, in content-based instruction, apart from being related to the general is-sue of note-taking, note-taking strategies that assist reading have their unique characteristics.

In order to clarify how note-taking operates KIEWRA’S (1989, quoted by FABER et al., 2000) seminal paper has frequently been cited due to its descrip-tion of basic funcdescrip-tions note-taking plays, namely: encoding, external storage and encoding plus external storage. Encoding means operations based on attentional mechanisms activated when the target information is coded, then in-tegrated and synthesized by students for their own personal purposes. While re-organizing the information the learning process is triggered. External storage indicates the process of recording the information, that is, providing a product for later use — reviewing. And it is reviewing, also a means of learning, that is to be treated as encoding plus storage function of note-taking. What is impor-tant about note-taking strategies is that they are generally beneficial for aug-menting attentional processing of text contents and as a result enhance learning and retention, while learners are able to transform the language input they get into a form not only meaningful to them but also fully personal.

As already mentioned, note-taking — predominantly based on cognitive pro-cesses of comprehension and production indispensable for information process-ing — is also regulated by means of metacognition. It is a kind of metacognitive

control that makes it possible for the reader to purposefully regulate the simulta-neously running processes of comprehending, evaluating, sorting information and putting it down in a written form (KODA, 2005, PIOLAT et al., 2005).

Whereas some cognitive processing becomes automatized with the passage of time, selecting information means taking deliberate decisions, and the cognitive effort required additionally depends on such situational factors as the nature of information or its relevance for the area of knowledge covered. The research data comparing the difference of cognitive effort needed to perform different in-formation processing tasks have revealed that note-taking is considerably more effort costly than just graphic copying of a text, as it demands working out a mental representation of the text to be put down in an appropriate form, al-though it is not that difficult as e.g. summarizing, which requires producing a text, not to mention writing an original composition (PIOLAT et al., 2005).

Some accounts of note-taking strategies have examined a product of note-taking, providing a qualitative analysis of students’ notes, especially the ones connected with lectures, checking their completeness, and ability to distin-guish between relevant and irrelevant ideas. CARRELL (2007) finds it important to explain the relationship between note-taking and comprehension. She also suggests conducting more research into the quality of notes in terms of their contents (main ideas vs. details, connecting ideas), organization (at the macro-and micro-levels), macro-and note-taking efficiency (abbreviations, symbols, para-phrasing etc.). Many of the issues mentioned undoubtedly may refer to taking down notes in both listening and reading situations, yet one has to bear in mind that they also differ in many respects.