“LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGIES (LLS) USED BY ESL LEARNERS AND COURSE PERFORMANCE OF KOLEJ POLY-TECH MARA IPOH.”

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Presentation by:

Hamizah binti Hj. Osman

2014742455

1.0 INTRODUCTION

English in Malaysia is viewed as:

•Despite of its prominence, the acquisition level of the language is not encouraging, even sometimes frustrating.• The government has taken many measures over the decades to rectify the problem.

- very important - an asset / factor for development and to acquire knowledge, - widely used in business sectors as well as institutions of higher learning.

•More English teachers are trained locally and abroad. •The ministry from time to time conduct short and long term courses for teachers nationwide. •Course-wares, laptops and projectors that cost millions are also provided to enhance the teaching techniques.

3 years contract (2010-2013) Brighton’s teaching English Language and Literacy (TELL) program deploys 120 English

language experts from around the world to mentor and coach approximately 2200 primary school English teachers. (The Sun 3,

July 2012; cited in Thirusanku & Yunus, 2014).

BACKGROUND OF THE RESEARCH. There are a few areas involved in acquiring second language such as motivation, learning environment, learner’s needs, preferences, learner’s background, culture and learning strategies.

Using strategies is one of the active roles on the part of the learner.

For thousands of years strategies have been used in learning. In ancient times, mnemonics or memory tools were used by narrators to facilitate them remember their lines. (Oxford, 1990)

Studies of learning strategies started way back in the mid 1960.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore second language learning strategies (Mustafa & Asgari, 2010)

LLS is the crucial factor in second language acquisition and different strategies are used by successful learners to address their learning problems within the realm of the language acquisition and production process

(Oxford, 1990)

The growing concern of identifying the characteristics of good or successful learners has led to research of LLS in the field of second language acquisition.

STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM English- accorded status- second language Government spent millions RM –various measures through MOE Most Malaysian school leavers –low achievement – low proficiencyTime to shift some focus :

TEACHING

LEARNING•Approach•Techniques•Tools•Concepts

Strategies/tactics:MetacognitiveSosio- affective compensationmemory

Make aware the students of LLS as contributing factor that enhanced their language learning.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

i. To discover the most frequent LLS used by Kolej Poly-Tech MARA Ipoh students

ii. To determine which group that uses more LLS between the higher and lower scorer.

iii. To identify the strategies most frequently used by the successful learners.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

i. What are the most frequent LLS used by Kolej Poly-Tech MARA students?

ii. Do more successful learners using more LLS than the less successful students?

iii. What strategies are frequently used by the successful students?

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

DEPENDENT VARIABLE:LLS used by respondents-grouped into 6 categories according to Oxford’s strategy system: Memory, Cognitive, Compensatory, Meta-cognitive, Affective, and Social.

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE: Respondents’ performance in English course.

CONCEPTUAL FRAME:

  Successful

&

Less successful Learners

Language Learning

Strategies

RESEARCH DESIGN

-a descriptive investigation

-aim to compile knowledge about students’ strategies

- very objective - using questionnaires

- using mostly data

QUANTITATIVE APPROACH

Can be accurately measured

using

RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

Sample:

https://richarddpetty.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/sill-english.pdf

Advantage produces standardize data - useful for statistical treatment and group summaries

Disadvantage does not provide space for individual’s creative responses

SILL- Strategy Inventory for Language Learning –Oxford (1989) 50 items Version 7.0 for ESL/EFLOne of the most widely used measures (Dörnyei 2005, White, Schramm and Chamot 2007).structured questionnaireassess how often learners employ specific language learning strategiesprovide teachers with profile of the students –kind of strategies adopted

DATA ANALYSISDescriptive statistics -to analyze the data collected by questionnaires (4 point Likert scale) such as:

- Mean ( ), Standard Deviation (SD), t test

The criteria for interpreting the mean of learning strategies used will be set as follows:

The criteria for interpreting the mean of the effectiveness of the strategies will be set as follows:

Always true of me: 3.51 – 4.00;Usually true of me: 2.51 – 3.50;Usually not true of me: 1.51 – 2.50;Never true of me: 1.00 – 1.50.

Very useful: 3.51 – 4.00; Somewhat useful: 2.51 – 3.50; Not very useful: 1.51 – 2.50; Not at all useful: 1.00 – 1.50.