Language learning strategy use in a multilingual setting: A study of university students of Japanese and French in Singapore

Using Oxford's (1990) 80-item Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL), this study examined the use of language learning strategies by a group of 678 bilingual university students of Japanese and French in the multilingual, multicultural setting of Singapore. The study also investigated factors affecting the overall use of such strategies and searched for patterns of variation by proficiency self-ratings and also by gender in the use of individual strategies.;Most previous learning strategy studies have been conducted in monocultural settings with mostly monolingual subjects. Moreover, most previous SILL research has concentrated on the broad picture of overall strategy use and strategy categories. The current study differs in that it also examined the use of each of the 80 SILL strategies by bilingual subjects in a multilingual setting.;A background questionnaire and the SILL were administered to students in all classes of Introductory and Intermediate Japanese and French. The relationships between the background variables and overall learning strategy use were investigated using ANOVA. Results were significant for the variables of motivation, proficiency, and language studied, with motivation significantly interacting with language studied. Unlike most previous learning strategy studies, no significant effect was demonstrated for gender.;The use of each of the 80 SILL strategies by proficiency and also by gender was investigated using Pearson chi-square tests. Results showed more learning strategy use among more successful learners and a larger number of strategies used significantly more often by men than women. The latter finding contrasts with those of previous learning strategy studies, where men reported using few strategies more frequently than women. Most Singaporeans are multilingual, unlike the subjects in previous learning strategy studies in other countries, and this may partly explain the Singaporean males' good showing. An analysis at both the level of strategy categories and that of each individual strategy indicated a curvilinear relationship between use of compensation strategies and proficiency. Many strategies which did not demonstrate significant variation by proficiency were still used frequently. supporting Green and Oxford's (1995) argument that such strategies nevertheless play an important role in L2 acquisition.