The Relationship between Iranian EFL Learners’ Use and Preferences of Language Learning Strategies and Their Meta-Knowledge and Tasks of Pragmatic Competence

Khadijeh Najafi,Mohammad Sadegh Bagheri,Firooz Sadighi,Lotfollah Yarmohammadi

doi:10.5539/ijel.v7n1p142

Abstract

The present study investigated the relationship between Iranian EFL learners’ use and preferences of language learning strategies and their meta-knowledge and the tasks of pragmatic competence. Quick Oxford Placement Test, version 2 (2004) was administered and 120 upper-intermediate EFL university students majoring in English translation and TEFL were recruited from the available branches of the Islamic Azad University, Fars province. Likewise, a questionnaire entitled Iranian EFL learners’ meta-knowledge and pragmatic tasks (2016) was used to explore EFL learners’ meta-knowledge and tasks of pragmatic competence and the mean score was calculated. Then, Oxford Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (1990) was used to analyze EFL learners’ use and preferences of language learning strategies and the mean score was calculated. Also, to examine any possible relationship between EFL learners’ use and preferences of language learning strategies and their meta-knowledge and pragmatic tasks, some correlations were run. The results of data analyses showed that Iranian EFL learners were moderate in meta-knowledge and tasks of pragmatic competence and in their use of language learning strategies in general. More detailed analyses of the data ranked the order of the applications of the strategies as: social strategies, meta-cognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, memory strategies, compensation strategies and affective strategies from the most to the least frequent strategies applied by the participants of the study. There was a significant medium positive relationship between meta-knowledge and tasks of pragmatic competence and meta-cognitive strategy. However, there were slight but significant positive relationships between meta-knowledge and tasks of pragmatic competence and compensation and affective strategies and no relationships between meta-knowledge and tasks of pragmatic competence and social, affective and compensation strategies.

Highlights

Knowledge of language is acquiring linguistic knowledge, rather learners need to know how to apply their linguistic knowledge in different contexts
The present study aims at investigating the relationship between meta-knowledge and tasks of pragmatic competence of EFL learners who are upper-intermediate regarding their level of language proficiency and their use and preferences of language learning strategies
Based on the analyses of the related data which were presented before, it was found that Iranian EFL university students were in general moderate in their meta-knowledge and tasks of pragmatic competence, including meta-language information, meta-pragmatic information, knowledge of speech acts and pragmatically oriented tasks

Summary

Introduction

Knowledge of language is acquiring linguistic knowledge, rather learners need to know how to apply their linguistic knowledge in different contexts. Learners need to communicate effectively in social interactions and this is in line with the concept of communicative competence that Hymes (1972) introduced. He argued that a learner should pay attention to the social and cultural factors that affect the L2 learning in order to be able to communicative effectively. In order to acquire communicative competence well, paying attention to the components of communicative competence is of high importance.

Methods

Results

Conclusion