Gender-Related Distribution of Direct Learning Strategies as a Determining Factor in Successful Second Language Acquisition

Abstract

According to Rebecca Oxford’s classification (Oxford 1990), direct learning strategies comprise three sets: memory, cognitive, and compensation strategies. The whole group can be defined as actions undertaken explicitly by the learner in order to facilitate second/foreign language learning. Direct strategies are related to declarative knowledge, and they are concerned with learning vocabulary, grammar, and communicative skills. The aim of this chapter is to present research into the use of direct learning strategies as related to learners’ gender, and to what extent they may influence success in foreign language learning. The participants of the research were 55 students from a lower secondary school (15–16 years of age). There were 36 girls and 19 boys in the group. It was expected that they should be mature enough to evaluate their own use of direct learning strategies on the basis of Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). Their success in foreign language learning was measured on the basis of average school grades, where both formative and summative assessment tools were taken into account. The quantitative results revealed that in the research group girls used more direct strategies that boys but that did not correspond to their school grades as boys appeared to be more successful. As to the average use of particular groups of direct strategies, girls used significantly more memory and compensation ones. Unfortunately, the research did not confirm any existing correlation between the use of strategies and the learners’ school grades. It may mean that this instance of research, being of exclusively quantitative character, should be supplemented by more qualitative measures, for example by observation of students’ classroom behaviour as regards strategy use.KeywordsLearning StrategyLanguage LearningCompensation StrategyCognitive StrategySchool GradeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.