This study aims to explore the autonomy level and use of language learning strategies in a preparatory school of a state university before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. One hundred fifty-five preparatory school students from a state university participated in the research. For the data collection, Oxford’s Language Learning Strategy (LLS) and a learner autonomy questionnaire developed by Zhang and Li were used. Means, standard deviation, t-test, and Pearson’s r-correlation were used to analyze the data. The results showed that while participants’ level of learner autonomy before the pandemic was high, during the pandemic it was moderate. Additionally, the results from the LLS questionnaires showed that students used a moderate proportion of language learning strategies before and after the pandemic. Finally, the correlation analysis used to determine the relationship between the level of learner autonomy and LLS use before and during the COVID-19 pandemic indicated that there is a positive and linear relationship between the level of learner autonomy and LLS use.

The Education Quarterly Reviews is an Open Access publication. It may be read, copied, and distributed free of charge according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.The Asian Institute of Research Education Quarterly Reviews is a peer-reviewed International Journal. The journal covers scholarly articles in the fields of education, linguistics, literature, educational theory, research, and methodologies, curriculum, elementary and secondary education, higher education, foreign language education, teaching and learning, teacher education, education of special groups, and other fields of study related to education. As the journal is Open Access, it ensures high visibility and the increase of citations for all research articles published. The Education Quarterly Reviews aims to facilitate scholarly work on recent theoretical and practical aspects of education.

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This study identifies the usage of language learning strategies and stereotypical thoughts on foreign languages regarding gender and language marks. It is designed in both correlation model and descriptive comparative model. The research sample is composed of 184 preparatory school students studying at a state university. Two questionnaires are used in the collection of data: Oxford's Language Learning Strategies Scale (1990) and Ünal's (2015) Stereotypical Thoughts towards Foreign Language Scale. The findings show that the use of language learning strategies is moderate and metacognitive strategies are the most widely used ones. The strategies that are used more are indirect ones while cognitive strategies are the least frequently employed ones. Additionally, while female students use indirect strategies more than males, the use of direct strategies does not differ significantly according to gender. Also, in terms of foreign language scores, it is found out that students with higher marks tend to use indirect strategies more. The findings also indicate that stereotypical thoughts towards foreign languages are moderate. The highest mean scores are indicated by regret and collectivity when compared to the other categories. In terms of gender, the stereotypical thoughts of students differ significantly in favor of female students in categories as regret and collectivity. Regarding language scores, the level of stereotypical thoughts towards foreign language is high for unsuccessful students while successful ones tend to have less stereotypical thoughts. Finally, there is a mild and inverse relationship between the use of language learning strategies and stereotypical thoughts towards languages.

This study investigates the 21st century skills of the third and fourth year students studying at the Department of English Language and Literature of two Turkish state universities. Additionally, this study reveals the levels of the 21st century skills of these students. To this end, a case study has been designed and conducted with 158 ELL students and 20 lecturers of the same department. The study has been conducted throughout the 2019-2020 academic year. In this study we review the related literature and we have chosen the two appropriate research instruments to collect the data. These instruments include a survey questionnaire for the students and a survey questionnaire for the lecturers are used to investigate the 21st century skills of ELL students. The quantitative analysis of the data reveals that the students in these ELL departments are aware of their own 21st century skills. Another conclusion of this study demonstrates that although most of the students stated that they already use most of the 21 century skills, the lecturers do not readily approve of them. The lecturers stated that the students did not use different thinking techniques to create original ideas in their lives, evaluate new ideas by using analysis, work patiently to produce solutions to the problems, and the students did not take steps to improve their skills. Additionally, the lecturers disagreed with the statements that the students listened to other's opinion about a subject, had effective communication skills, adapted to different roles in their lives, were open to criticism, knew that learning was a lifelong process, knew that media was effective in directing people's opinion, used appropriate media tools to get information and used technological tools to analyse information.