2. 1) AGE
(Wong-Fillmore, 1979)
• A study of young children showed that cognitive and social
strategies were very important.
Chesterfield and Chesterfield (1985)
• children developed receptive strategies (repetition and
memorization) first.
• Then they developed strategies which allowed them to start
and maintain interactions (e.g. attention getting and asking
for clarification).
• Finally, they developed strategies for the identification and
monitoring of grammatical errors.
3. Purdie and Oliver (1999)
• Most primary school children learn English by using
metacognitive strategies and social strategies ranked next in
importance.
Omally et al (1985a, 1985b)
• secondary school student were generally use cognitive
strategies and that metacognitive strategies were reported by
some more advanced learners.
Ramirez (1986)
• after identifying successful strategies employed by 105
learners of French at three levels of study (grade 8, grade 9-
10 and grade 10-11) concluded that successful learning
behaviours were dependent on the task, and that years of
study influenced LLS use
4. 2) GENDER
Politzer (1983)
• examined ninety undergraduate foreign language learners,
found a “relatively minor” difference between male and
female learners with females making a greater use of social
interaction strategies.
Oxford and Nyikos (1989)
• females reported more frequent strategy use than males of
formal practice strategies, general study strategies and
conversational input elicitation strategies (e.g. asking to speak
slowly, requesting pronunciation correction, and guessing
what the speaker will say).
5. Tran’s (1988)
• study of immigrant Vietnamese aged from 40 to 92, in the USA
revealed that males made greater use of strategies to learn and to
improve their English language skills (e.g. taking English courses,
practicing English with American friends and watching television or
listening to the radio in English).
Nyikos (1990)
• By studying the vocabulary recall of university level beginner
learners of German using different combinations of colour and
picture stimuli,
• Nyikos (1990), found that males were better when a visual-spatial
stimulus of colour plus picture was used. However, females recalled
more when colour was the mediator.
• Nyikos suggested that such strategies were the result of the
socialisation of males and females and that such differences should
be considered when the use of strategies was promoted in
language learning.
6. 3) CULTURAL BACKGROUND
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.
Politzer and McGroarty (1985)
The study revealed that Asian students scored lower than the Hispanic
learners on the scale of good language behaviours. The researchers
concluded that such behaviours represent social interactions in which
Asian learners are less likely to engage in than Hispanics.
Politzer and McGroarty (1985:113-114)
claim that classroom behaviours such as asking the teacher, correcting
classmates, volunteering answers and other social interaction behaviours
such as asking for help and asking others to repeat are apparently more a
part of the Western rather than the Asian repertoire.
7. Lengkanawati (2004)
gathered data from 56 students at two universities in Australia learning
Indonesian as a Foreign Language (IFL) and 114 students learning English
as a Foreign Language in a university in Indonesia and found that the
differences among the two groups in LLS use were due to differences in
their learning culture.
Oxford (1994)
found Taiwanese students to be more structured, analytic, memory-based,
and metacognitively oriented than other groups.
McGroarty (1987)
cited in Oxford, et. al. (1995) found that Spanish learners use traditional
strategies such as using a dictionary to learn new words.
O’Malley and Chamot (1990)
found that Asian learners prefer their own established rote learning
strategies
8. 4) MOTIVATION
#Motivation of language learners is said to be influential on the selection
and use of strategy in various studies.
Politzer and McGroarty (1985)
indicated that the goal of the English language learning is a major topic in
any discussion of language learning strategies.
Oxford (1989a)
argued that learners learn target languages for different reasons and
purposes and this could have an effect on their choice of learning
strategies.
Oxford and Nyikos (1989: 295)
asserted that motivation had a “pervasive influence on the reported use
of specific kinds of strategies…” ,
9. 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.
10. 5) BACKGROUND OF PARENTS ACADEMICS
Slavin (1997)
• Parent that highly educated make physical and mental preparation to help
the development of physiology and cognitive or their children.
• Parent with low education background raised their children without
enough preparation and intellectual sources.
Mohd Nazali(1999) & Mohd Nazali and friends (1999)
• student with parent that highly educated used more language learning
strategies outside classroom and in examination than other group.
Faizahani (2002)
• students with parenst that highly educated used more language learning
strategies compare to students with low educated parents.
