The Research History and Trend of Language Learning Strategies

Learning strategies have started to be considered valuable for language learning in the recent decades. This switch of pedagogical focus is resulted from many studies focusing on different aspects of L2/FL learning strategies. However, there has been little attempt to conduct a comprehensive literature review on the fruitful findings of the research. This article attempts to investigate and compare the existing literature, which includes the chronological examinations on the range of research in language learning strategies, the discussions on the factors that account for variance in strategy use, and the extensive investigations on the empirical studies situated overseas and in Taiwan. Criticisms and arguments over several problematic issues are also specified, which might cast some light on the future direction of research.