The relationship between the learning strategies used by the successful foreign language learners in the preparatory school of universities and the types of their multiple intelligences

The Relationship between the Learning Strategies Used by the Successful Foreign Language Learners in the Preparatory School of Universities and the Types of Their Multiple Intelligences Author: Gülsen Can Thesis Advisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Z. Hülya Bartu The general aim of this study is to increase the quality of foreign language teaching in foreign language preparatory classes at universities by means of investigating the relationship among the following variables: learning strategies, multiple intelligences, age, gender, motivation level, attitudes, anxiety, learning styles and autonomy so as to raise the awareness of the teachers and administrators in these institutions. The problem in this study was to find out whether there is a correlation between the learning strategies of successful learners who had been studying in the foreign language (English) preparatory classes of the universities, and their multiple intelligences. The variables of this study were the learners' age, sex, motivation level, learning styles, abilities, and aptitudes, whether they were a student at a state or private university, whether their parents had been encouraging them, if there was anyone in the family who knew a foreign language, their attitudes towards the target language culture and society, the type of high school they had graduated from, how many hours they had studied a foreign language in high school, the department the had attended at high school, and how long they had been learning English. Which strategies and to what extent these strategies had been put to use and which type of multiple intelligences and to what extent the learners were exhibiting were also investigated. The target group includes successful learners who are studying in state and private universities in Istanbul. The sample group, on the other hand, was made up of 42 female and 41 male students from two state and three private universities. VIThe Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL), an inventory developed by Oxford (1990) for learners who learn English as a foreign language was used to assess the learning strategies and the scale developed was also used to evaluate the inventory. The inventory includes 50 questions making it possible to understand which of the six strategies are used by the learners and to what extent they are used by the learners. To assess the multiple intelligences of the learners, the inventories named Multiple Intelligence Inventories developed by Wingate (1997), and Gregory Chapman (2002) based on Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory, were used. The inventory includes 56 questions aiming to find answers to which type of multiple intelligences and to what extent the learners have. In addition, a questionnaire including the other variables was prepared by me. The questionnaire includes 25 questions asked to collect information about the learners, and to inquire what they think about the target language society and foreign language learning, how they feel when they speak a foreign language, and their foreign language learning styles. In order to prevent the inefficiencies that might occur in further studies beforehand and to make sure if the inventories had been translated into Turkish accurately, I asked a pilot group of 10 foreign language students of my university to answer the questions in the questionnaires. After the pilot study, some necessary changes were made in the questionnaires. The results of this study indicate that there is a relationship between the verbal/linguistic intelligence of foreign language university students and the following strategies: 'using mental processes', 'compensating for missing knowledge', 'managing emotions', and 'learning with others'. Furthermore, it can be concluded from the findings of this study that there is a relationship between the learners' naturalistic intelligence and their strategies of 'using mental processes' and 'managing emotions'. vnIt has also been found out that there is a correlation between some of the studied variables and learning strategies and multiple intelligences (for instance, there is a meaningful correlation between the 'sex' factor and the strategy of 'remembering more efficiently' - the girls have made use of this strategy more than the boys have done. The same factor has also got a relationship with logical/mathematical intelligence - the girls seemed to have shown a higher rate of this intelligence than the boys.). On the other hand, it has been found out that some factors are associated with only some of the strategies, while they are not associated with any of the intelligence types (for instance, there is a correlation between the duration of learning a foreign language and the strategies of 'organising and evaluating learning' and 'learning with others', and the learners whose answers are 'less than a year' are making use of these strategies more than the others. Nevertheless, no correlation has been found between this factor and any of the intelligence types.). Some factors, however, have only got a relationship with some types of multiple intelligences, not with the types of learning strategies (for instance, while there is not a relationship between any of the strategies and the factor of 'whether the learners feel as if they are native speakers', this factor has been found related with logical/mathematical intelligence, bodily/kinaesthetic, and naturalistic intelligences, and that the ones who gave positive answers to this have used these three strategies more.). Finally, no relationship was found between some of the variables, and learning strategies and intelligence types (such as between learning strategies and multiple intelligences, and parents' encouragement.). Vlll