Foreign language learning strategies used by young learners
The aim of this study is to explore foreign language learning strategy usage in the Serbian young learners’ classroom. The purpose is also to examine what learning strategies students mostly use in this teaching context (young learners of age 7 to 11) and whether in-service teachers conduct a language learning strategy research. The hypothesis is that teachers of young learners (in the Serbian teaching context) are not aware of the learning strategies their learners use and therefore, the research in learner strategies would be helpful for teachers of young learners in order to find out which strategies are used by their learners and to suggest alternative strategies for those learners who are less successful in language learning. In this way it would be possible to suggest learning strategies for organizing and storing information and to encourage students to consider which strategies work best for them. For this research, one questionnaire was used: SILL questionnaire taken from Oxford (1990) which questions were used for the purpose of interviewing young learners (N=80) while English language teachers (N=20) were asked to read each statement in the questionnaire and then to answer, in their professional opinion: How true of their students that statement is? The results revealed that students and teachers perceptions of the type and frequency of the strategy usage mismatch very much. However, although teachers thought that they knew which strategies their learners use and what problems they might have in learning English, it is felt that an attempt to improve such classroom research could possibly be carried out; despite the fact that it may require hard effort.
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