6 Resourcefulness
A
LLOW ME TO TAKE YOU ON A SHORT FLIGHT OF FANCY. IMAGINE YOU ARE
in a beautiful Scandinavian restaurant. You are wondering what to
eat. Your waiter or waitress shows you a wonderful wooden platter
of food, a smörgåsbord. On it are beautifully arranged portions of
food. There are cold meats, fish, fruit, and vegetables, each laid out
on different parts of the board. Luckily, you are in a restaurant fre-
quented by tourists, and so each section of the platter is neatly
labeled. You pick at will, sometimes pausing to read what it is you
are eating, on other occasions simply savoring the delicious combi-
nation of tastes.
This is the image I want you to have of your own learning
resources, the techniques that are at your disposal as a learner. You
need to want to use them, just as you want to eat lovely food. You
need, in short, to have an appetite for learning. If you explore the
contents of thesmörgåsbord, these are the kinds of phrases that
appear on the labels:Getting the big picture
Tuning in your mind
Using your memory
Chunking your learning
Learning by imitation
Learning online
Extending your rangeIn this chapter, I deal with some of the techniques you need to be
a resourceful learner.T
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