Differences in strategy use among learners of Italian with various amounts of previous language experience
Year: 2004
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to observe the differences in types of language \nlearning strategies used by students of Italian with varying levels and types of previous \nlanguage experience. Previous research shows that students of a third language seem to \nhave some sort of an advantage over second language learners. Part of this advantage \nmay be due to a greater use of language learning strategies and therefore this study seeks \nto identify the types of strategies used by more experienced language learners, and then \nlooks for a relationship between those strategies and amount of previous language \nexperience. The ultimate goal of this research is to provide beginning language learners \nwith a greater variety of strategies in order to facilitate their overall language learning. \nLearning strategies are specific steps taken by the learner to enhance their \nlearning experience. Foreign language students may not be explicitly aware of their \nparticular strategy use, however, all of them - regardless of their level of success in \nlanguage learning - employ at least some of these learning strategies. In order to \ndetermine the strategy use among 68 students of beginning Italian at the University of \nTexas at Austin, Oxford’s (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning was \nadministered in March of 2002. Participants also filled out background questionnaires to \ndetermine the amount and type of their previous language experience. Additional \nparticipants completed the same measures but were also interviewed to follow up on their \nself-reported strategy use. \nIt was expected that language learners with more experience - whether explicit \nclassroom instruction, or exposure at home – would exhibit a higher level of strategy use \nthan would the less experienced learners. The results indicated that students with more \nthan four or five years years of language study reported using considerably more \nstrategies than the less experienced learners did. Furthermore, those students exposed to \nanother language at home also reported using significantly more strategies than those \nstudents who were not exposed to another language at home. Thus, it would appear that \nprevious language experience is related to increased strategy use. Further research in the \narea is therefore suggested.
Author: Colclough Allison Sanders
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1953935899