FACTORS AFFECTINGLANGUAGE LEARNING

STRATEGIES

Fatin Athirah Binti Naim

GENDER

• American University of Beirut (AUB) studied that females make more effort and used more strategies than males.

• Ehrman and Oxford (1988) said that females used more strategies than males on four SILL factors:– general strategies– authentic language use– searching for and communicating meaning– self-management strategies.

AGE

• White (1993) studied LLS use by specific age groups of learners of French and Japanese in New Zealand and found that learners aged over thirty used metacognitive self-management strategies more than those who were younger.

MOTIVATION

• Motivation of language learners is said to be influential on the selection and use of strategy in various studies.

• Oxford and Nyikos (1989: 295) asserted that motivation had a “pervasive influence on the reported use of specific kinds of strategies…” ,

• While Nyikos and Oxford (1993), reporting on a study of university language learners in the USA who were taking a language as a requirement, reported that the students concentrating on obtaining good grades focused on formal, rule related processing strategies and academic study strategies, rather than on strategies which improve skills for authentic and communicative language use.

CULTURAL BACKGROUND

• The main finding in Bedell's (1993) study cited in Oxford, et. al. (1995) was that learners from various cultural backgrounds use certain types of strategies at different levels of frequency.

• Oxford and Nyikos (1989) believe that particular strategies are often chosen because they are compatible with a students culturally influenced learning style.

• In a study conducted by Politzer (1983), Hispanics were found to use mainly social strategies,

• While Asians presented a clear preference for rote memorization, probably because of their past school experiences.

SOSIOECONOMICSTATUS

• Studies in Greece (Giavrimis, Papanis, Rumeliotou, 2007) and abroad (Coleman, Campbell, Hobson, McPartland, Weinfeld and York, 1966; Grinion, 1999) have shown that students of a higher socio-economic status differ from those of a lower one in the so called cultural capitaL.

• Socio-economically advantaged parents often have more success in preparing their children for school, because they have access to a wide range of resources to promote and support their development.

• On the contrary, when basic necessities are lacking, parents major priority is survival, and usually there is no time, energy or knowledge to foster children development and school readiness.

• In accordance to Bernstein and Henderson (1969), Bourdieu et al. claimed that low socio-economic status students lack the necessary cultural products that enhance learning, and have poor metacognitive abilities, which is reflected primarily in language learning and school adaptation.

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