The Importance of Language Learning Strategies in Foreign Language Acquisition

Abstract

The paper reports the results of a study on language learning strategy preferences of higher-education students. It is motivated by an ever lower level of English proficiency although most of students have been studying English since the first grade of primary education. The translated version of the SILL questionnaire was used (Oxford, 1990), with several personal background questions added for the purpose of clarifying the results. The data were analysed using the SPSS software. The results show either low or medium strategy utilisation per category, social strategies being most frequently used, followed by compensation, metacognitive and cognitive ones, whereas affective and memory strategies were the least favoured. Average and high-proficiency students use a vast majority of strategies more often than low-proficiency ones. However, affective and memory strategies are most often employed by the least successful students. The comparison between male and female students’ strategy utilisation shows that the former use four categories of strategies more often than the latter, who are more frequent users of social strategies only. However, T-test results reveal statistically significant gender differences in the use of only several individual strategies. The above-mentioned, together with the fact that more than half of the students belong to the low-proficiency group, indicates that the explicit strategy instruction would be beneficial to their English language acquisition.