SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGIES

The major purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between socioeconomic status and language learning strategies (LLSs). The data for this research were provided by ۱۰۰ Iranian intermediate EFL learners from language institutes in Mazandaran using SILL test version ۲۰ developed by Oxford (۱۹۹۰) as the measurement instrument. It was found that socioeconomic status would affect the user’s use of LLSs. The major finding was that socioeconomic status would greatly influence intermediate EFL learners’ use of Social Strategies. It was also found that males and females had a significant difference in using Memory, Compensation, Cognitive, Metacognitive, and Social Strategies to learn English, with females using all of these strategies more frequently than males. This result provides an area for future research since the relationship between socioeconomic statuses and LLSs was seldom investigated in previous studies.

Keywords:

language learning strategies , socioeconomic status , second language acquisition , English learning , gender