This study, using Oxford's 80-item Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL), examines the self-reported language learning strategy use of 678 university students learning Japanese and French as foreign languages in Singapore. The study differs from previous SILL studies in that the participants were bilingual from a multicultural setting, and the use of all 80 strategies was examined. Relationships between background variables and overall strategy use were investigated using ANOVA. Results were significant for motivation, self-rated proficiency, and language studied, with motivation significantly interacting with language studied. The use of each strategy by proficiency and also by gender was investigated using chisquare. Results showed more learning strategy use among learners with higher proficiency and, unexpectedly, more strategies used significantly more often by men.In the past two decades, researchers and teachers have shown an increasing interest in determining what distinguishes successful from less successful learners. This has led to attempts to characterize successful language learners (Rubin, 1975), particularly their use of modifiable L2 variables, in the hope that such information can be passed onto less successful learners so as to improve their learning efficiency. Prominent among these modifiable L2 variables is that of language learning strategy use.Learning strategies have been defined as behaviors, steps, operations, or techniques employed by learners to facilitate the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information (Oxford, 1990b). The important part they play in second language acquisition (SLA) has been noted by many SLA researchers. Skehan (1989) considered language learning strategies one of the most important factors accounting for individual differences in language learning. Both Ellis (1985) and McLaughlin (1987) included language learning strategies as one of three processes, along with production and communication strategies, in their models of SLA. In Gardner and McIntyre's model (1993), L2 proficiency is determined by situational variables, language learner characteristics, and learning strategy use. Learning strategies are seen as particularly important in the enhancement of learner autonomy because the use or adoption of appropriate strategies allows learners to take more responsibility for their own learning (Dickinson, 1987).The majority of research on language learning strategies to date has been conducted in language learning settings in the United States either on native speakers of English learning a foreign language (FL) or on groups of mixed nationalities studying English as a second language (ESL) with specific language learning goals. As a result, many SLA researchers (warned of the dangers of an ethnocentric bias regarding the definition of good language learning strategies, with some (Oxford & Burry-Stock, 1995;Rees-Miller, 1993) justifiably calling for the replication of language learning studies within and across cultures and countries (e.g., Singapo...

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of speaking rate changes on the perception of English stop consonants by four groups of subjects: English and Spanish monolinguals, ‘early’ Spanish/English bilinguals who learned English in childhood, and ‘late’ bilinguals who learned English in adulthood. Subjects identified, and then later rated for goodness as exemplars of the English /p/ category, the members of two voice onset time (VOT) continua. The English monolinguals identified a well-defined range of VOT stimuli as English /p/, and stimuli with longer VOT values as ‘exaggerated’ instances of English /p/. Their goodness ratings increased as VOT increased, then showed a systematic decrease as VOT began to exceed values typical for English /p/. The English monolinguals’ goodness ratings also varied systematically as a function of speaking rate, which was simulated in the two continua by varying syllable duration. The Spanish monolinguals, on the other hand, failed to consistently identify any of the stimuli as English /p/. Although speaking rate influenced their goodness ratings, the Spanish monolinguals’ rate effects differed significantly from the English monolinguals’. The early bilinguals resembled the English monolinguals, and differed from the Spanish monolinguals to a greater extent than did the late Spanish/English bilinguals. This was taken as support for the hypothesis that early bilinguals are more likely than are late bilinguals to establish new phonetic categories for stop consonants in a second language.

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