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This study builds on previous research using the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). Most previous SILL research has made comparisons across the entire survey or in terms of strategy categories and has stressed proficiency level at the expense of other variables. The present largescale (N = 374) study of language learning strategy use by students at three different course levels at the University of Puerto Rico relates strategy use to gender as well as to L2 proficiency level and includes analysis of variation in the use of individual strategies on the SILL. Like previous researchers, we found greater use of learning strategies among more successful learners and higher levels of strategy use by women than by men. Our analysis, however, revealed more complex patterns of use than have appeared in previous studies. With both proficiency level and gender, only some items showed significant variation, and significant variation by proficiency level did not invariably mean more frequent strategy use by more successful students. The strategies reported as used more often by the more successful students emphasized active, naturalistic practice and were used in combination with a variety of what we term bedrock strategies, which were used frequently or moderately frequently by learners at all levels. The study's generalizability and its implications for teachers and researchers are discussed.

IN THIS ARTICLE WE DISCUSS VARIABLESaffecting choice of learning strategies used by 1,200 foreign language students in a conventional academic setting, a major university in the midwestern USA. In terms of the number of subjects involved, this investigation is probably one of the largest learning studies to date in anyinstructional field, and is almost certainly the largest completed study oflanguage learning strategies.! RESEARCH BACKGROUNDLearning strategies are operations used by learners to aid the acquisition, storage, and retrieval of information (52). Outside of the language learning field, research comparing experts to novices indicates that experts use more systematic and useful problem-solving and native-language reading comprehension strategies.s A similar finding occurs with more successful language learners as compared to less successful ones." Better language learners generally use strategies appropriate to their own stage oflearning, personality, age, purpose for learning the language, and type of Ianguage.! Good language learners use a variety oflearning strategies, including cognitive strategies for associating new information with existing information in long-term memory and for forming and revising internal mental models; metacognitive strategies for exercising "executive control" through planning, arranging, focusing, and evaluating their own learning process; social strategies for interacting with others and managing discourse; affective strategies for directing feelings, motivations, and attitudes related to learning; and compensation strategies (such as guessing unknown meanings while listening and reading, or using circumlocution in speak-The Modern LanguageJournal, 73, iii (1989) 0026-7902/89/0003/291' $1.50/0 <1:>1989 The Modern Language Journal ing and writing) for overcoming deficiencies in knowledge of the language. 5 Appropriate learning strategies help explain the performance of good language learners; similarly, inappropriate learning strategies aid in understanding the frequent failures of poor language learnersand even the occasional weaknesses of good ones."Use of appropriate learning strategies enables students to take responsibility for their own learning by enhancing learner autonomy, independence, and self-direction. 7 These factors are important because learners need to keep on learning even when they are no longer in a formal classroom setting (42). Moreover, cognitive psychology shows that learning strategies help learners to assimilate new information into their own existing mental structures or schemata, thus creating increasingly rich and complex schemata. 8 As they move toward language proficiency, language learners develop their own understandings or models of the second or foreign language and its surrounding culture. Unlike most other characteristics of the learner, such as aptitude, attitude, motivation, personality, and general cognitive style, learning strategies are readily teachable. 9 Various researchers have studied factors related to choice of language le...

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This article explains key concepts found in the articles in this special issue, such as second and foreign languages, learning styles, learning strategies, and motivation. In addition, this article introduces the other articles in the issue and explains how they relate to each other, to the concepts, and to psychological and sociocultural research traditions in applied linguistics. Order of the articles in the special issueThe articles in this issue have the following order based on their foci, conceptual relationships, and age groups studied. The most general article comes first: "The learner's side of foreign language learning: Where do styles, strategies and tasks meet?" by Andrew Cohen. Following this is Nae-Dong Yang's article "Integrating portfolios into learning strategy-based instruction for EFL college students", with an emphasis on young adult students' learning strategies and styles, attitudes, beliefs and proficiency.