Abstract
The scope of research into language learning strategies is impressive, with scholars using various instruments to identify strategic behaviors, proposing competing taxonomies, investigating the variables affecting strategy use, tracing the impact of the application of such devices on language proficiency, and evaluating the effectiveness of strategy training programs. These advances, however, do not apply in equal measure to all language skills and subsystems, and one of such neglected terrains is learning grammar. The present article contributes to the scant body of research in this area by reporting the findings of a study which investigated the use of grammar learning strategies by 142 English philology students at different stages of a BA program. It took as a point of reference a classification of such devices derived from the theoretical framework proposed by Oxford et al. (2007) in which such behaviors are related to three instructional modes in teaching grammar, namely implicit learning with focus on form, explicit inductive learning and explicit deductive learning. Although the analysis of Likert-scale items indicated a high rate of use of grammar learning strategies, especially in the implicit mode, the subjects’ responses to an open-ended question did not support such findings, which might be the result of some inherent weaknesses of the data collection instrument. The article closes with some tentative pedagogical recommendations as well as guidelines on how grammar learning strategies could be classified and investigated.
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Notes
- 1.
In her commentary on the SILL, Oxford (1990) recommends that the averages should be rounded off to the nearest tenth, with the effect that 3.4 indicates medium and 3.5 high strategy use. Since in the present study, the scores were rounded to two decimal spaces, an average of 3.49 falls between Oxford's cut-off points, thus posing some interpretation problems. Still, it is logical to assume that, being closer to 3.5 than 3.4, a score like this should be interpreted as evidence for a high rate of frequency of GLS use.
- 2.
The levels of statistical significance were z = 3.26 and p = 0.0011 and z = 3.03 and p = 0.0025 for the differences between implicit learning, on the one hand, and explicit inductive and explicit deductive learning, on the other.
- 3.
The levels of significance were as follows: z = 3.00 and p = 0.0027 for the difference between implicit learning with focus on form and inductive explicit learning, and z = 2.82 and p = 0.0048 for the difference between implicit learning with focus on form and deductive explicit learning.
- 4.
The levels of significance for these statements were as follows: 4–z = -2.32, p = 0.0206 (year 1 vs. year 2), 9–z = 3.62, p = 0.0003 (year 1 vs. year 3) and z = 2.03, p = 0.0419 (year 2 vs. year 3), 10 – z = 1.90, p = 0.0574 (year 2 vs. year 3), and 6 – z = 1.73, p = 0.0835 (year 2 vs. year 3).
- 5.
The levels of statistical significance were as follows: 3 – z = 3.45, p = 0.0006 (year 1 vs. year 3) and z = 2.83, p = 0.0046 (year 2 vs. year 3), 4 – z = 2.46, p = 0.0131 (year 1 vs. year 3) and z = 2.06, p = 0.0390 (year 2 vs. year 3), 5 – z = -2.05, p = 0.0399 (year 1 vs. year 2) and z = 1.91, p = 0.0561 (year 2 vs. year 3), 9 – z = 2.17, p = 0.0302 (year 1 vs. year 3), and 10 – z = -2.32, p = 0.0203 (year 1 vs. year 2).
- 6.
The following levels of statistical significance were obtained for these statements: 1 – z = 2.04, p = 0.0411 (year 1 vs. year 3) and z = 1.39, p = 0.1632 (year 1 vs. year 2), 4 − z = −2.47, p = 0.0136 (year 1 vs. year 2), 11 – z =−2.51, p = 0.0119 (year 1 vs. year 2) and z = 1.31, p = 0.1886 (year 1 vs. year 3), and 14 – z = −2.04, p = 0.0417 (year 1 vs. year 2) and z =−2.21, p = 0.0269 (year 1 vs. year 3).
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Pawlak, M. (2012). Instructional Mode and the Use of Grammar Learning Strategies. In: Pawlak, M. (eds) New Perspectives on Individual Differences in Language Learning and Teaching. Second Language Learning and Teaching. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20850-8_17
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