A Study on English Language Majoring Students’ Use of English Language Learning Strategies: Hawassa University Students in Focus

Abstract

This research was meant to examine whether English language majoring students are high,
medium or low users of each of the six groups of the English language learning strategies:
memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective and social. Hence, the design of this
study is a descriptive survey. To this end, 61 English language majoring students enrolled from
2012/13 to 2014/15 at Hawassa University were made to take part in the study. Convenient
sampling technique was used. That is, only those students who were present in the classroom
during the administration of the questionnaire took part. Data were collected by Oxford’s (1990)
Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) questionnaire-Version 7.0 (ESL/EFL). Results
of the questionnaire were analyzed quantitatively by applying the procedures suggested by
Oxford, and thus the study employed a quantitative approach. The findings revealed that the
students are medium users of the learning strategies, but high users of the metacognitive and
social learning strategies. High users are those who always or almost always use and those who
usually use; medium users are those who sometimes use. Lastly, recommendations have been
made accordingly.