An investigation on the frequency of using learning strategies of the second year English majors in productive skills in English class at Saigon university

This paper aims to investigate the autonomy of second-year English majors in English skill classes at Sai Gon University through four main focuses such as learners’ motivation to be engaged in autonomous learning, their attitudes towards autonomous learning, their level of self-esteem, and their frequency of using learning strategies for language skills. 176 second – year English majors at SGU answered the questionnaire from the researcher.

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SÀI GỊN SAIGON UNIVERSITY TẠP CHÍ KHOA HỌC SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL ĐẠI HỌC SÀI GÒN OF SAIGON UNIVERSITY Số 64 (4/2019) No 64 (4/2019) Email: tcdhsg@sgu.edu.vn ; Website: https://tapchikhoahoc.sgu.edu.vn AN INVESTIGATION ON THE FREQUENCY OF USING LEARNING STRATEGIES OF THE SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS IN PRODUCTIVE SKILLS IN ENGLISH CLASS AT SAIGON UNIVERSITY Khảo sát tần suất sử dụng chiến lược học tập sinh viên năm hai chuyên ngữ việc học kỹ nghe nói tiếng Anh Trường Đại học Sài Gòn ThS Phạm Lê Kim Tuyến Trường Đại học Sài Gòn Abstract This paper aims to investigate the autonomy of second-year English majors in English skill classes at Sai Gon University through four main focuses such as learners’ motivation to be engaged in autonomous learning, their attitudes towards autonomous learning, their level of self-esteem, and their frequency of using learning strategies for language skills 176 second – year English majors at SGU answered the questionnaire from the researcher The study’s findings show that the participants express high frequencies of using learning strategies in productive skill in English skill class with 78% for speaking skill, and 68% for listening skill Besides, the most popular learning strategies applied are metacognitive, cognitive, and compensation whereas memory, affective, and social ones are not fully exploited These findings lead to the fact that the participants are able to become considerably positive autonomous learners Finally, the research suggests some implications for cultivating the learners’ employment of learning strategies in productive skills as wells as fostering their autonomy in learning English Keywords: English class, English majors, learning strategies, productive skills Tóm tắt Bài viết khảo sát việc tự học sinh viên năm thứ hai chuyên ngữ lớp học kỹ tiếng Anh Đại học Sài Gòn với bốn vấn đề trọng tâm: động lực người học để tham gia vào việc tự học, thái độ họ việc tự học, mức độ tự tin, tần suất sử dụng chiến lược học tập cho kỹ ngôn ngữ họ 176 sinh viên chuyên ngữ năm hai Đại học Sài Gòn trả lời bảng câu hỏi khảo sát tần suất sử dụng chiến lược học tập học kỹ Nghe, Nói Nghiên cứu cho thấy sinh viên khảo sát thể tần suất sử dụng chiến lược học tập kỹ Nghe, Nói Tiếng Anh cao với 78% kỹ Nói 68% kỹ Nghe Bên cạnh đó, chiến lược học tập áp dụng phổ biến siêu nhận thức, nhận thức khen thưởng chiến lược học tập liên quan đến trí nhớ, tình cảm xã hội khơng khai thác triệt để Từ đó, thấy đối tượng sinh viên khảo sát trở thành người tự học thật tích cực Nghiên cứu đưa số đề xuất thực tiễn việc trau dồi cho người học sử dụng chiến lược học tập kỹ Nghe, Nói, phần việc thúc đẩy tự học họ việc học tiếng Anh Từ khóa: lớp học tiếng Anh, sinh viên chuyên ngữ, chiến lược học tập, kỹ nghe nói Email: kimtuyen2206@gmail.com 130 PHẠM LÊ KIM TUYẾN TẠP CHÍ KHOA HỌC ĐẠI HỌC SÀI GÒN as evaluate their learners’ learning process basing on the learning strategies they apply in their autonomous studying Learning Strategies 2.1 Definitions of Learning Strategies It seems that there has been no unanimous opinion on the definition of learning strategies According to Elli (2004, cited in Wang Xianrong, 2015, p.7), the concept of learning strategies is still “a somewhat fuzzy one” and “not easy to tie down” Hence, in an attempt to draw some main characteristics of learning strategies, we will review several definitions of learning strategies given by a number of leading figures in the second and foreign language field O'Malley and Chamot (1990) define learning strategies as, “ special thoughts or behaviors that individuals use to help them comprehend, learn, or retain new information” It can be understood from this definition that learning strategies can be either observable (behaviors) or unobservable (thoughts) Besides, this definition evidently mentions the goals of learning strategies that are to help students achieve comprehension and learning new information Furthermore, Oxford (1990, cited in Selma Deneme, 2008) provides one of the most comprehensive definitions, considering learning strategies as “specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, and more transferable to new situations” In Oxford's (ibid.) definition, the changed nature of learning when learning is enhanced by strategies is clearly described as “easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, and more transferable to new situations” Introduction No matter how many attempts have been continuously made towards enhancing the efficiency of English teaching in Viet Nam, the quality of EFL learning is still far from satisfactory, especially for productive skills (listening and speaking skills) There are, of course, several reasons to blame for this, both subjective and objective However, it would absolutely be a mistake if we did not mention those stemming from learners themselves In fact, students think there is no place other than the classroom where they can learn English They seem to depend too much on their teachers without the initiative to learn on their own Nevertheless, the fact is: … No school, or even university, can provide its pupils with all the knowledge and the skills they will need in their active adult lives It is more important for a young person to have an understanding of himself or herself, an awareness of the environment and its workings, and to have learned how to think and how to learn… (Trim, 1988, cited in Lijuan Jiao, 2005, p 27) In this background, learning strategies have been a buzzword within the context of foreign language teaching in the past decades, especially in relation to life-long learning skills More and more teachers are focusing on developing students’ ability in learning English independently with a hope that they are more interested and active in learning English, consequently learning more effectively and gaining all-round abilities As a result, it is extremely important for teachers to help students master how to learn by themselves as well 131 SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL OF SAIGON UNIVERSITY No 64 (4/2019) It can be seen that while the scholars refer to “special” (O’Malley et al., 1990) or “specific” (Oxford, 1990) actions, thoughts and behaviors, they not explicitly state whether strategies must be conscious In other words, it is still not evident whether consciousness is an essential feature of learning strategies or not Chamot (1992, cited in Wang Xianrong, 2015) definitely refers to strategies as “deliberate actions”, but other researchers avoid addressing this issue Hence, we believe that strategies are conscious in most cases, but sometimes they are probably unconscious Additionally, a distinction has also been made between learning strategies and study skills that are sometimes interchangeably used with each other According to O’Malley and Chamot (1990), they wrote: “Study skills describe overt behavior, such as taking notes, writing summaries, or using reference materials, while learning strategies generally pertain to unobservable mental processes.” 2.2 Classification of Learning Strategies In fact, different scholars have their own understanding of learning strategies It is no surprise that there exists a diversity of classifications of learning strategies Rubin's (1981, cited in O’Malley and Chamot, 1990) model of classification of learning strategies in second language acquisition makes a distinction between “direct strategies” and “indirect strategies” “Direct strategies”, according to Rubin, are those that contribute directly to the learner’s language learning and include: (a) classification/ verification, (b) monitoring, (c) memorization, (d) guessing or inductive inferencing, (e) deductive reasoning, and (f) practice “Indirect strategies” are those that benefit language learning indirectly: (a) creating opportunities for practice, and (b) using production tricks such as using circumlocutions, synonyms, or formulaic interaction As Rubin’s model was based on her observations of the learners, particularly the good language learners, it certainly makes contribution to outlining the important strategies used by successful language learners Nevertheless, O’Malley and Chamot (1990) distinguishes three major types of learning strategies in accordance with the level or type of processing involved: “metacognitive strategies”, “cognitive strategies”, and “social/ affective strategies” Although these two researchers made strenuous efforts in providing these useful classifications, there was a need to develop a more comprehensive classification system Oxford (1990) is generally believed to have established one of the most widely accepted classification taxonomies in the language learning area Initially adopting a version of Rubin’s direct or indirect distinction, Oxford (1990) also divides language learning strategies into two main classes, direct and indirect, which are further divided into six categories of learning strategies: memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, and social strategies Each of these will be respectively identified below and also illustrated with examples Memory strategies: are those used for storage of information They are specific devices used by learners to make mental linkages that will allow new information, most often vocabulary, to enter and remain in long-term memory, such as to make associations with what has already been 132 PHẠM LÊ KIM TUYẾN TẠP CHÍ KHOA HỌC ĐẠI HỌC SÀI GÒN learned, to draw pictures to help remember new words, and to repeatedly pronounce or write new words in order to remember them Cognitive strategies: are the mental strategies learners use to make sense of their learning They help learners process and use the language for learning or for accomplishing a task involving the language Examples of cognitive strategies are to watch TV in English, to listen to radio or CDs in English, to use English computer programs, and to find similarities between first and second languages Compensation Strategies: are intended to make up for missing knowledge while listening, reading, speaking, or writing For instance, use gestures or body language (for speaking), rephrase (for speaking and writing), ask for help (for listening, speaking, reading, or writing), and make guesses based on the context (for listening and reading) Metacognitive Strategies: help learners regulate their learning “Meta” means “above” or “beyond”, so metacognitive strategies means “beyond” the cognitive They encompass the planning, organizing, evaluation, and monitoring of one’s own language learning, such as to organize time for learning, or to check one's progress Affective strategies: are concerned with the learner’s emotional requirements such as confidence to help learners deal with their own emotions, motivations, attitudes while learning English Examples of such strategies are fo try to relax when feeling anxious about learning, or to reward oneself for succeeding Social strategies: refer to how learners interact with other people in the context of learning langu�N TẠP CHÍ KHOA HỌC ĐẠI HỌC SÀI GÒN FREQUENCY Learning Strategies Strategy category Very Often Sometimes Rarely Never often High Strategy use Medium Strategy use Low Strategy use I think of what I have known Cognitive about the topic 45% 20% 35% I try to remember as many Memory words as I can to deal with the topic 36% 36% 28% I identify if it is a conversation, Cognitive an advert, a news bulletin, or a lecture 81% 11% 8% I periodically check if the Metacognitive information is making sense to me 66% 24% 10% I pay attention to the tone of Cognitive voice and any background noises for clues 36% 25% 39% 10 I use other clues like key words Cognitive to identify the rough gist 69% 26% 5% 11 I use context, like familiar Cognitive words, pictures and the content to help me guess the meanings of unfamiliar words I hear 76% 15% 9% 12 I imagine scenes or draw Cognitive pictures of what I am hearing 30% 16% 54% 13 I use my knowledge of the Cognitive world to make sensible guesses 55% 22% 23% 14 I don’t give up and just make Compensation wild guesses if I can’t hear anything 62% 15% 23% 15 I try to break the stream of Cognitive sounds down into individual words and write them down to see if they are like the words I know 53% 24% 23% 16 I listen out the names of people Cognitive and places 49% 31% 20% 17 I listen out of grammar clues Cognitive like tenses and pronouns 11% 41% 48% While listening,… 135 SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL OF SAIGON UNIVERSITY No 64 (4/2019) FREQUENCY Learning Strategies Strategy category Very Often Sometimes Rarely Never often High Strategy use Medium Strategy use Low Strategy use 18 I don’t panic when there is Compensation something I don’t understand, but I carry on listening for general idea because I don’t need to understand every word 79% 15% 6% 19 I try to take notes Cognitive 75% 15% 10% 20 I encourage myself by saying Affective positive statements such as “You can do” 66% 17% 17% 21 I check whether I Metacognitive accomplished my task for listening 72% 6% 6% 22 I summarize (in my head or writing) important information that I heard Cognitive 38% 26% 20% 23 I rate my comprehension by reflecting on how much I understood what I heard Metacognitive 87% 39% 28% 24 I check whether my predictions Metacognitive were correct 75% 11% 16% 25 I decide whether the strategies or techniques I used helped me understand, and think of other strategies that could have helped 78% 27% 35% After listening,… Metacognitive It is evident from table that the picture emerging here was quite cheering with seventeen out of the twentyfive listening strategy items surveyed displaying the proportion of high strategy use being well over 50% This obviously shows that the participants of the study significantly showed high strategy use on the majority of listening strategies given in the table above Interestingly enough, these twenty-five strategies belonged to four strategy categories: metacognitive, cognitive, compensation, and affective with the number of cognitive strategies being the highest (9), followed by metacognitive strategies (6), compensation strategies (2), and affective strategies (1) In addition, clearly, the most frequently used strategy item in the cognitive strategy was strategy number seven - “I identify if it 136 PHẠM LÊ KIM TUYẾN TẠP CHÍ KHOA HỌC ĐẠI HỌC SÀI GỊN is a conversation, an advert, a news bulletin, or a lecture” (81%), whereas the most frequently employed strategy items in the metacognitive and compensation categories were self-evaluation strategy number twenty-one - “I check whether I accomplished my task for listening” (88%) and compensation strategy number eighteen - “I don't panic when there is something I don't understand but I carry on listening for general idea because I don't need to understand every word” (79%) Nonetheless, still, there exist five listening strategies where well over 28% of the English gifted learners displayed their low strategy use, in which, most noticeably, imagery strategy number twelve in the cognitive category - “I imagine scenes or draw pictures of what | am hearing” was either “rarely” or “never” used by as many as 54% of the participants in the Study, making this strategy item the least frequently adopted learning strategy among the 25 listening strategies examined Next came elaboration strategy number seventeen - “I listen out for grammar clues like tenses and pronouns” (48%), followed by elaboration Strategy number nine - “I pay attention to the tone of voice and any background noises for clues” (39%), elaboration strategy number five - “I think of what I have known about the topic” (35%), and selfevaluation strategy number twenty- five “I decide whether the strategies or techniques I used helped me understand, and think of other strategies that could have helped” (35%) Now that we have had a brief account of students’ frequencies of employing learning strategies in the learning process, let us now look at how frequently students adopted the selected strategy items according to listening stages, namely prelistening, while-listening, and postlistening respectively 4.1.1 Students’ frequencies of employing pre-listening strategies As far as pre-listening strategies are concerned, the majority of these strategy items appeared to be of popularity among the respondents with up to four out of the six strategies displaying their high strategy use by well over three-fourths of the surveyed students Among these four learning strategies, surprisingly enough, there were three metacognitive strategies and one cognitive item, thus somehow proving that the former seemed to be preferably used in the pre-listening stage than the latter In details, metacognitive strategy number one - “identifying the purpose of a listening task”, metacognitive strategy number two - “setting goals and objectives”, and metacognitive strategy number three - “focusing on specific information” were either “very often” or “often” used by 87%, 75%, and 78% of the informants respectively while the corresponding figure for cognitive strategy number four - “predicting outcomes” was approximately 79% Equally noticeably, although nearly 35% of the participants in the claimed their low strategy use on cognitive item number five - “I think what I have known about the topic”, this strategy item also showed their relatively high Strategy use by roughly 45% of the surveyed students Another worthconsidering point is that the only memory strategy number six - “I try to remember as many words as I can to deal with the 137 SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL OF SAIGON UNIVERSITY No 64 (4/2019) topic” was reported with well over 70% of respondents claiming their high strategy use and medium Strategy use in comparison with only 28% of the students showing their low strategy on, representing a rather encouraging picture of the students using memory Strategies to assist themselves in their listening process 4.1.2 Students’ frequencies of employing while-listening strategies As regards while-listening strategies, another picture, which is not any less cheering, is also revealed as almost 71% of these fourteen strategy items in total were displayed their high strategy use by over half of the participants in the study In details, there are ten such learning strategies, of which as many as six strategy items fell into the category of cognitive strategies, demonstrating a rather different pattern compared with the picture illustrated for pre-listening strategies where the majority of the most frequently used strategies were led by metacognitive strategies Among these six cognitive items, strategy number seven took a lead with as many as 81% of the respondents claiming their high use on, followed by inferencing strategy number eleven (76%) and note-taking strategy number nineteen (75%) It is also worth noticing that the only affective strategy number twenty - “I encourage myself by saying positive statements such as “You can it”” was claimed their high strategy use by approximately 66% of the respondents in comparison with 17% displaying their medium strategy use and 17% showing their low strategy use on this strategy item, thus suggesting its relatively popular use among the students in the study Nevertheless, the most noticeable thing from while-listening strategies is that although there are only two compensation strategies designed for listening skill, both of them were reported with their high use by well over 50% of the surveyed students, implying that the majority of the respondents either “very often” or “often” incorporate compensation strategies into their listening process 4.1.3 Students’ frequencies of employing post-listening strategies With respect to post-listening strategies, we can clearly see that up to three out of the five strategy items altogether had their percentage of being employed either “very often” or “often” by over 50% of the participants in the study What is more, although there are four metacognitive strategies designed for this listening stage, only two out of the four strategy items, comprising of selfevaluation strategies number twenty-one “I check whether I accomplished my task for listening” and number twenty-four - “I check whether my predictions were correct”, were shown their high strategy use by the majority of the respondents with the corresponding figures being 88% and 72% respectively It is also obvious that well over half of the students (54%) adopted the only cognitive strategy item chosen for post-listening phase with high strategy use 4.2 Students’ frequencies of using learning strategies in the speaking skill Speaking is the productive skill in the oral mode Like the other skills speaking is more complicated than it seems at first and involves more than just pronouncing words In fact, second or foreign language 138 PHẠM LÊ KIM TUYẾN TẠP CHÍ KHOA HỌC ĐẠI HỌC SÀI GỊN learners often neglect or have difficulty with oral production no matter how many words and grammar rules they have acquired In addition, most often think that the ability to speak a language is the product of language learning, but speaking is also a crucial part of the language process Furthermore, one special thing about speaking is that we cannot practice speaking when we are alone For the other three skills, we can alone, on our own, without anyone else We can listen to the radio alone We can read a book alone We can write a letter alone Nevertheless, we cannot really speak alone That is why we should make every effort possible to find somebody to speak with Thus, speaking strategies seem to be the key to difficulties that most language learners encounter in their master of spoken English In this study, I have chosen eighteen speaking strategies, which are separated into three sub-parts: pre-speaking, while-speaking, and post-speaking strategies The table below sketches the picture about students’ frequencies of using learning strategies in the speaking process: Table 2: Students’ frequencies of using learning strategies in the speaking skill FREQUENCY Speaking Strategies Strategy category Very Often Sometimes Rarely Never often High Medium Strategy use Strategy use Low Strategy use Before speaking, … I check that I understand the task Metacognitive I have to 91% 9% 0% I decide my goal for speaking by Metacognitive thinking about what to communicate 91% 7% 2% I think about what information is Metacognitive the most important to the listener so I can focus on it 86% 6% 8% I think of what I have known Cognitive about the topic 77% 17% 6% I brainstorm words and phrases I Memory can use while talking 76% 22% 2% 77% 19% 4% While speaking, …… I try to figure out if I’m not Metacognitive making sense to the listener so I can correct myself 139 SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL OF SAIGON UNIVERSITY No 64 (4/2019) FREQUENCY Speaking Strategies Strategy category Very Often Sometimes Rarely Never often High Medium Strategy use Strategy use Low Strategy use I focus on topics that I know Metacognitive how to talk about, and I use language structures I am familiar with so that others can understand me 85% 14% 1% I imagine or draw a picture or Cognitive situation that I want to talk about to guide me when I’m speaking 49% 19% 32% If I don’t know the word for Compensation something, I describe it 63% 24% 13% 10 If I don’t know the word for Compensation something, I substitute what I know how to say 52% 40% 8% 11 I use mime or gestures or a Compensation facial expression when I can’t think of the word for something 63% 30% 7% 12 If I don’t know the word for Compensation something, I ask for help 40% 24% 36% 13 If I don’t know the word for Compensation something, I show I need help such as pausing, a puzzled expression, etc 37% 32% 31% 14 I try to guess what the other Compensation person will say next in English 29% 27% 44% 15 I use “stalling strategies” like Compensation “Well, now let me see, as a matter of fact, let me think, I have never given it a thought before, etc 59% 31% 10% 16 I encourage myself by saying Affective positive statements such as “You can do” 66% 17% 17% 17 I check whether I accomplished my Metacognitive goal for speaking 79% 15% 6% 18 I rate how well I did 70% 17% 13% After speaking, …… Metacognitive 140 PHẠM LÊ KIM TUYẾN TẠP CHÍ KHOA HỌC ĐẠI HỌC SÀI GỊN of the students either “very often” or “often” adopted all the five selected prespeaking strategies, thus revealing their even greater popularity among the participants in the study in comparison with pre-reading strategies Specifically, nearly 91% of the subjects reported their high strategy use on metacognitive strategies number one - “Identifying the purpose of a learning task’ and number two - “Setting goals and objectives” making them the two most frequently used prespeaking strategies What is more, there seemed to be a gradual decline in the proportion of students showing their high strategy on metacognitive strategy number three, cognitive strategy number four, and memory strategy number five with the corresponding figures being 86%, 77%, and 76% In fact, the memory strategy as a pre-speaking strategy was implemented with the greater rate of high strategy use than memory strategies of the pre-listening and pre-reading stages Furthermore, from the result above, we can see a great dominance of metacognitive strategies over cognitive strategies or memory ones at the pre-reading stage 4.2.2 Students’ frequencies of employing while-speaking strategies As far as while-speaking strategies are concerned, as many as seven out of the eleven strategy items altogether were reported with high strategy use by well over half of the students These seven strategies fell into three categories of strategy including metacognitive, compensation, and affective, in which the number of compensation strategies led with four items followed by metacognitive (2) and affective (1), but it was metacognitive strategy that The table tells us that over three-fourth of the total eighteen speaking strategies examined had their rate of high strategy use accounting for well over 50%, which appeared to be somehow very encouraging compared with listening and reading strategies In details, there were fourteen strategies being used either “very often” or “often” by almost half of the participants, in which up two strategies, strategy number one and number two, were claimed with their high strategy use by well over 90% of the total students With respect to low strategy use, noticeably enough, only four strategies were reported by over 30% of the students Most prominently, strategy number fourteen - “ I try to guess what the other person will say next in English” was either “rarely” or “never” employed by nearly 44% of the informants, implying clearly its unpopularity among all the speaking strategies surveyed Next came strategy number twelve (36%), number eight (32%), and number thirteen (31%) Another evident point to know from the table is that none of the participants displayed their low strategy use on the first speaking strategy - “I check that I understand the task I have to do”, making it the only learning strategy all the subjects in the study showed either high strategy use or medium strategy use on 4.2.1 Students’ frequencies of employing pre-speaking strategies All the pre-speaking strategies, encouragingly enough, were employed with high strategy use by the majority of the students, which seemingly bore a strong resemblance to pre- reading strategies It is apparent that well over 75% 141 SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL OF SAIGON UNIVERSITY No 64 (4/2019) took a lead in terms of frequencies It is quite clear that metacognitive strategy number seven - “I focus on topics that I know how to talk about, and I use language structures I am familiar with so that others can understand me” had the highest percentage of high strategy use (85%), and another metacognitive strategy number six “I try to figure out if I'm not making sense to the listener so I can correct myself” came second with approximately 77% of the respondents showing high strategy use on Another noticeable thing is that of the seven compensation strategies designed for speaking skill, interestingly enough, although the four strategies, comprising of strategies number nine, eleven, fifteen, and ten, were reported with their proportion of high strategy use being 63%, 63%, 59%, and 52% respectively, there still lie the other three strategies, all of which were listed in the table summarizing the fourteen least frequently used strategy items Besides, not less noticeably, cognitive strategy number eight - “I imagine or draw a picture or situation that I want to talk about to help guide me when I'm speaking”, by the same token, appeared to be among the fourteen least frequently used strategy items with the proportion of low strategy use accounting for nearly 32% Furthermore, it is clearly shown that the only affective strategy - “Encouraging oneself’ turned out to be relatively popular among the respondents because as many as 66% of the surveyed students claimed that they either “very often” or “often” adopted it for their speaking process, proving once and again the undeniable importance of the affective strategy to facilitate the learning process 4.2.3 Students’ frequencies of employing post-speaking strategies With respect to post-speaking strategies, both of the metacognitive strategies chosen specially for this speaking stage were shown their high strategy use by over 70% of the participants, displaying a rather encouraging picture of students’ frequencies of employing post-speaking strategies In details, metacognitive strategy number seven - “I check whether I accomplished my goal for speaking” was either “very often” or “often” adopted by up to 79% of the informants, closely followed by metacognitive strategy number eighteen - “I rate how well I did it” with the corresponding figure being 70% Discussion and Recommendations Table 3: Breakdown of learning strategies by productive skills Strategy category/ Language skill Metacognitive Cognitive Compensation Memory Affective Social Total Listening 13 1 25 142 Speaking 7 1 18 Total 15 15 2 43 PHẠM LÊ KIM TUYẾN TẠP CHÍ KHOA HỌC ĐẠI HỌC SÀI GÒN From Table 3, the picture for students’ frequencies of using learning strategies in productive-skill learning process emerging here is rather comforting Among 43 learning strategies categorized by language skills, there are 25 listening strategies and 18 speaking strategies in total This means that the number of learning strategies is fairly equally distributed among two productive skills With respect to the six strategy categories, interestingly enough, we can see that metacognitive and cognitive strategies appear to dominate in listening skill strategies, whereas both metacognitive strategies and compensation skills seem to exert their dominance in speaking skill In other words, the most obvious difference between the speaking strategy pattern and that of listening skill is that compensation strategies proved their dominance over both metacognitive and cognitive strategies in the speaking skill Furthermore, not less interestingly, only one memory strategy item and one affective strategy item designed for each language skill is carefully chosen to discuss the students’ frequencies of using learning strategies for these two strategy categories Last but not least, it is also apparent that although there still exist enormous disparities about what strategy categories were preferred for each phase of language skills, most of the total students in the study displayed preferences of adopting metacognitive strategies with high strategy use over other strategy categories both before carrying out and after finishing a language task All in all, by taking all these main findings mentioned above into consideration, we can arrive at the conclusion that surveyed second-year English majors at SGU demonstrate a quite high level of employing a range of learning strategies in productive skills in English class to study effectively and independently To a certain extent, it means that they are capable of becoming autonomous learners, which has been the final target of many learning and teaching methodologies With a desire to further promote the autonomy of English majors at SGU, bearing in my mind that although it is rather encouraging to explore that the majority of the students reported their high strategy use on most of the learning strategies, it is also apparent that students not fully exploit the range of learning strategies given Therefore, it is highly recommended that English teachers should pay more attention to empower their students with the ability of learning how to learn For example, more concern should be invested in raising the students’ awareness of adopting social strategies as well as providing learner training because social strategies, among the six strategy categories, appeared to be the least fully exploited among the six strategy categories It is the teacher's role to offer their students a great deal of guidance in order to help them decide on what strategies that work for them and experiment with those strategies, with which they are not so familiar 143 SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL OF SAIGON UNIVERSITY No 64 (4/2019) REFERENCES Lijuan, J (2015) Promoting EFL Learner Autonomy Sino-US English Teaching, (5), 27-30 O’Malley, J & Chamot, A (1990) Learning strategies in second language acquisition Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Oxford, R (1990) Language Learning Strategies- What Every Teacher Should Know New York: Newbury House Publisher Selma, D (2008) Language Learning Strategy Preferences of Turkish Students Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, (2) Wang, X (2015) A Tentative Study on Language Learning Strategies of Non-English Majors at Teachers’ Colleges M.A Thesis Anhui Province: Anhui University Ngày nhận bài: 29/3/2019 Biên tập xong: 15/4/2019 144 Duyệt đăng: 20/4/2019 ... evaluate their learners’ learning process basing on the learning strategies they apply in their autonomous studying Learning Strategies 2.1 Definitions of Learning Strategies It seems that there... no unanimous opinion on the definition of learning strategies According to Elli (2004, cited in Wang Xianrong, 2015, p.7), the concept of learning strategies is still “a somewhat fuzzy one” and...r finishing a language task All in all, by taking all these main findings mentioned above into consideration, we can arrive at the conclusion that surveyed second- year English majors at SGU demonstrat