The relationship between language learning strategies and success for Turkish university preparatory students

This study intended to investigate the language learning strategies used by Turkish University Preparatory English students aiming to find the strategies they utilize and to discover the link between their strategy use and achievement in English.170 (105 male, 65 female) students from Istanbul Technical University English Preparatory School participated in the study. At the time of the study the participants were in three different proficiency levels (i.e. elementary, pre-intermediate and intermediate). The data were gathered through the English Language Learning Strategy Inventory (ELLSI) constructed by Griffiths (2003b). The participants responded to the inventory before the proficiency exam was held. The results of the proficiency exam and email interviews conducted after the exam were also used in the study.The data were analyzed through SPSS (16) to find the relationship of language learning strategies and achievement in learning the target language. To reveal the correlation between these factors, Spearman?s correlation coefficient was performed on the gathered data.According to the findings of the study, overall use of language learning strategies was not significantly correlated with success in English. However, a group of four strategies was found to be significantly positively related to the exam results. It was also found that students from different proficiency levels used strategies with very similar frequency. Initially, gender was not aimed to be studied but when gender differences emerged out of the data, it was added to the study. The results revealed that females used language learning strategies significantly more frequently when learning English although they were actually slightly less successful than males in the proficiency exam.It was concluded that even though language learning strategies may have some effect on language learning performance, there are clearly other factors which affect students? choice of language learning strategies and language performance. These other factors need to be investigated in order to gain more insight into the learning process of students and to enhance the effectiveness of English language instruction.