Towards a Good Language Learner: Investigating Individual Learning Strategies used by Jordanian EFL Students (original) (raw)
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Language Learning Strategies Among Saudi EFL Students 2
Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, 2018
This study aims to examine language learning strategies as important factors that affect students’ learning. The study sample consists of 34 male students in Royal Guard Secondary School in Riyadh city. In order to examine the English language learning strategy, use among Saudi secondary-school EFL students, they provided their responses to Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) (Oxford 1990, Version 7.0). The results showed that the students used direct strategies more than indirect strategies. The most frequently used strategies among students were compensation strategies, whereas the least frequently used strategies were social strategies. In addition, the study results show that the general pattern of language learning strategy used by the students includes compensation, affective, metacognitive, cognitive, memory, and finally social strategy. It can be concluded that teachers in secondary-schools are recommended to pay due attention to the use of language lear...
Learning Strategies of the Arab EFL Learners: Finding Correlation with Outcomes
Advances in Language and Literary Studies
Socio-psychological research and findings into learner differences led to the emergence of learner strategies research in the last century. With major contributions from the emerging field of Linguistics in the mid 1970s, language learning strategies began to receive considerable attention. It is worth noting that the primary concern of most of the studies on language learning strategies has been the identification of the characteristic of good language learners and what it is that they do to learn a second language ! The focus of this study, consequently, is the teaching of language learning strategies to facilitate better learning. It aims at differentiating the strategies of good language learners from those of poor language learners. The hypothesis is this would enable language teachers to propagate the successful strategies to ensure better learning outcomes: A major factor for socioeconomic development in KSA. It analyses the strategies used by Saudi students in learning English as a foreign language. Further, it brings out the teacher's role in raising the students' awareness of different strategies, educating the teachers in the use of these strategies, and training them to assimilate these into regular classroom activities. Instruments used include a questionnaire administered to the students and interviews with the teachers.
A Study of the Use of Language Learning Strategies among Students in Iran
melta.org.my
Many factors would influence the type and frequency of use of language learning strategies some of which are gender, year of study and father's level of education. This study encompassed Bachelor's degree students of English Literature studying at the 196 with regard to gender, year and father's educational qualifications. One of the instruments used was the Strategy Inventory For Language Learning (SILL ESL/EFL version) for gauging the use of effective learning strategies used by students. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was performed to see if there were significant differences in the use of direct vs. indirect strategies and the 6 strategy categories among students of different groups. It came to light that year of study affects students' use of strategies in that students of first year made the greatest use of meta-cognitive strategies and indirect strategies; however, Iranian students' gender and father's educational qualifications did not have much impacts on the use of LLSs. Moreover, Iranian students of all groups were high users as far as meta-cognitive strategy was concerned.
Language learning strategies employed by English majors at Qatar University: Questions and queries
Asiatic journal, 4 (2), 2010
This study discusses the type and frequency of language learning strategies used by Qatar University English majors. The subjects were 120 Arabs enrolled in the Department of Foreign Languages representing different learning levels (Year 1-4). Oxford (1990a: 293-300) Strategies Inventory of Language Learning (SILL) questionnaire was used. The results showed that the students used learning strategies with high to medium frequency. They preferred to use metacognitive strategies most (75.3%), whereas they showed the least use of affective strategies (58.6%). In general, the results indicate that Level and Proficiency have differences on the use of some strategies. The differences, however, are insignificant. The article concludes by recommending that more training should be given in using all strategies by embedding them into regular classroom activities.
An Investigation into Iranian EFL Learners ’ Use of Language Learning Strategies
Research has shown that the use of effective language learning strategies is a major characteristic of successful language learners. However, the successfulness of strategy-use is often dependent on various factors. The purpose of this study was to investigate language learning strategies used by Iranian EFL students of different age and gender at Shiraz University. The study examined students’ strategy use in relation to factors such as gender and age. The participants of the quantitative phase of the study comprised 93 undergraduate university students who enrolled in the English Literature program in Iran; 30 students from the same group were randomly selected for the interviews. Quantitative data were analyzed using the Multivariate Analysis of Variance to determine any significant difference in strategy use among students. Moreover, qualitative data were analyzed through the NVIVO and the three coding procedures of open-coding, axial-coding and selective-coding. The results of ...
It is reported that language learning is a creative and dynamic process and the learners are active partners in this process. This trend in language teaching motivated the researchers to investigate the learners' individual differences and the identification of language learning strategies (LLS) has become a major area of interest in this regard because it is suggested that language learners consciously or unconsciously employ different LLS. This research study investigated LLS used by Saudi English-major undergraduates by using SILL version7. Paired Samples t-test was applied to see if significant differences exist as a result of their GPA differences. The informants of this study were 240 English-major undergraduates (low GPA, 106 & high GPA, 134) enrolled at foreign languages department Taif university. Results reported that the participants with high English language proficiency use language learning strategies more frequently. The participants ranked the metacognitive strategies the highest as compared to other LLS followed by social and cognitive LLS respectively. Among the remaining three categories of LLS, compensation and affective strategies showed mixed preferences but memory strategies were assigned the least mean values by both sample groups. Considering the fact that frequency of LLS usage and English language proficiency are positively linked to each other, it is concluded that it seems necessary to teach language learning strategies explicitly so that even the weaker students should be able to enhance English language proficiency by exploiting a wide range of suitable strategies that are appropriate to different classroom activities and learners' L2 experience. Keywords: language learning strategies, English language proficiency, effect
Language Learning Strategy Use of Saudi EFL Students in an Intensive English Learning Context
Asian Social Science, 2012
This study investigates the type and frequency of language learning strategies used by Saudi EFL students. The subjects were 701 male and female Saudi EFL students enrolled in an intensive English language program at the University of Ha'il. The Oxford Strategies Inventory of Language Learning (SILL) was used with some modifications. The study seeks to extend our knowledge by examining the relationship between the use of language learning strategies (LLS) and gender and proficiency level. The results revealed that the students used language learning strategies with low to medium frequency. They preferred to use cognitive and metacognitive strategies the most, whereas they showed the least use of affective strategies and memory strategies. The findings of the study showed that there was no significant gender difference in the use of language learning strategies except for social strategies, as where females reported using them significantly more than males. Female students also tend to use overall language learning strategies more often than males. Moreover, the results revealed that highly proficient students used all six categories more than low-proficiency students. The paper concludes by recommending that more training should be given in using all strategies by embedding them in regular classroom activities. Suggestions are offered for future research.
This study examined the influence of motivation and gender on the choice of language learning strategies by Iranian post-graduate students. One hundred and fifty six Iranian post-graduate students in Kerman province were selected based on a two-step cluster sampling. A translated version of Oxford's strategy inventory for language learning was administered to the participants to determine their use of strategies. Attitude/motivation test battery was also employed to identify the participants' type of motivation. Data analysis showed the following results: a) the participants reported the use of compensation, social, metacognitive, and affective strategies at a high level, whereas memory and cognitive strategies were reported at a medium level; b) integratively-motivated students showed higher overall strategies mean score than instrumentally-motivated ones but it was not statistically significant. Instrumentally-motivated students employed memory strategy more frequently than integratively-motivated students; c) female students employed strategies more frequently than male students. However, this difference was found to be not statistically significant. The findings also showed that the teachers should encourage the learners to actively employ all the strategies in their learning process. Future research may focus on the sub-categories of the strategies and other factors, such as attitude, age, major, personality types, and testing methods.
Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2008
As part of a larger study (Rahimi, 2004), this study investigates the use of language learning strategies by post-secondary level Persian EFL learners. Particular attention is paid to the variables affecting learners' choice of strategies, and the relationship, if any, between these variables and learners' patterns of strategy use. Data were gathered from 196 low-, mid-and highproficiency learners using such instruments as the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL; Oxford, 1990), and two questionnaires of attitude and motivation (adapted from Laine, 1988) and learning style (Soloman and Felder, 2001). The results of the study point to proficiency level and motivation as major predictors of the use of language learning strategies among this group of learners. Gender, on the other hand, is not found to have any effect while years of language study appear to negatively predict strategy use. The difference between learners' use of the SILL's six major strategy categories is found to be significant and indicates learners' preference for metacognitive strategies. Cette étude, qui s'inscrit dans le cadre d'une étude plus vaste (Rahimi, 2004), porte sur l'usage de stratégies d'apprentissage des langues par des étudiants de niveau post-secondaire de langue persane apprenant l'anglais comme langue étrangère. En particulier, on étudie chez ces apprenants les variables affectant le choix de stratégies et la relation possible entre de telles variables et les patrons d'utilisation de stratégies d'apprentissage. Les données de l'étude ont été recueillies auprès de 196 étudiants de compétence faible, moyenne et élevée, à l'aide du SILL (Oxford, 1990)-Strategy Inventory for Language Learning-et de deux questionnaires, l'un portant sur les attitudes et la motivation (adapté du questionnaire de Laine, 1988), et l'autre sur les styles d'apprentissage (Soloman et Felder, 2001). Les résultats de l'étude révèlent
Investigating the Language Learning Strategies of Students in the Foundation Program of United Arab Emirates University, 2013
Recently, language learning strategies have gained a lot of importance in different parts of the world, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Successful foreign or second language learning attempts are viewed in the light of using appropriate and effective language learning strategies. This study investigated the patterns of language learning strategies (LLS) used by 190 male and female students in the Foundation Program of the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU). It also explored the effects of language proficiency level and gender on the use of these strategies. An Arabic translated version of the Oxford's (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) was used for collecting the data. The results demonstrate that these learners were overall medium strategy users. Metacognitive strategies were the most frequently used among the six strategies followed by social strategies, compensation strategies, affective strategies, cognitive strategies and memory strategies respectively. Proficiency level and gender had no significant effect on the overall strategy use nor on the use of each individual strategy. The findings of this study provide some implications for classroom instruction, curriculum design and teacher training. The study ended with some recommendations to direct future studies.