INVESTIGATING THE PREFERRED LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGIES OF TAIWANESE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

INVESTIGATING THE PREFERRED LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGIES OF TAIWANESE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

In Taiwan, the Ministry of Education has implemented new curriculum guidelines which promote the need for more communicative-based English classrooms. These guidelines coincide with the country’s implementation of bilingual education at all levels of schooling. With new bilingual programs, students may need to utilize new language learning strategies (LLSs) as teachers adopt new communicative-based methods. Few studies have been done on the LLSs used by elementary school students in EFL contexts, especially in Taiwan. Furthermore, there is conflicting literature on the differences in LLS-usage between genders and levels of English proficiency. This quantitative, quasi-experimental design investigated the LLS-usage of 111 5th-grade students from southern Taiwan. A bilingual version of Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) was used to evaluate the students’LLS preferences. The results showed that overall, the students used compensation and social strategies the most, and they used cognitive and affective strategies the least. There were significant differences between the amount and types of LLSs used between genders and English proficiencies, with English proficiency proving to be the strongest indicator of LLS-usage. Implications and suggestions for research are provided.