The Comparison of Strategy Preferences of Monolingual and Bilingual students in EFL Learning

This study focuses on the differences between strategy use of SLA and TLA. The study was conducted among 42 monolingualPersian and 42 Bilingual Persian-Turkish students of the University of Maragheh who are studying English as a foreign language. Oxford (1990) SILL inventory was used to determine Strategy use of students. The data were analyzed by using the t-test. The results showed that metacognitive, affective and social strategies were most favored by monolingualPersian students. While Turkish students, used compensation strategies more. Surprisingly,unlike findingsof the other researchers regarding high strategy use of bilinguals, this study showed that Bilingual Persian- Turkish students used fewer strategies in EFL learning. Despite the limited number of participants, these findings might not only contributeto the effect of Turkish in EFL learning, but also have implication for teachers and curriculum developers who wish to contextualize and localize EFL learning.

Keywords:

Language learning strategies , monolingual , bilingual , SILL inventory