Grammar learning strategies in Primary School Children
Laburpena
The field of Language Learning Strategies (LLS) is a well-researched topic in
language acquisition. The importance of LLSs is highlighted in Chamot’s (2001)
definition, in which LLSs are defined as the “techniques or procedures that
facilitate a learning task”. LLSs support the student in the learning process, and
helps the learner become more successful in the study (Chamot, 2001). Despite
the wide variety and numerous definitions for LLSs, the study of Grammar
Learning Strategies (GLS) has been relegated to a secondary plane. GLSs are
understood as “deliberate thoughts and actions students consciously employ for
learning and getting better control over the use of grammar structures” (Cohen &
Pinilla-Herrera, 2010). The importance of the study of such a field resides in the
fact that grammar is an essential element that forms a language system (Zhen
Zhou, 2017). In addition, the scant studies conducted up to day on GLSs have
taken as an object of study secondary school or university students (Zhen Zhou,
2017; Pawlak, 2018). These studies have revealed that secondary school learners
reported using cognitive strategies with the highest frequency, then metacognitive
and finally social/affective strategies (Zhen Zhou, 2017), while university students
reported using social strategies with the highest frequency, followed by cognitive,
metacognitive and affective strategies (Pawlak, 2018). The present paper aims to
contribute to the small number of studies on GLSs by exploring grammar learning
strategies reportedly used by an unresearched group of participants: (fourth grade)
primary school Basque/Spanish bilingual child learners of L3 English. The 69 (28
males and 41 females) participants completed a linguistic background test, as well
as the 70 questions included in Pawlak’s (2018) Grammar Learning Strategy
Inventory (GLSI) questionnaire. Results indicate that primary school students
reported using social strategies with the highest frequency, followed by
metacognitive strategies, with affective strategies coming next and cognitive
strategies ranking last. The results of the present study differ with those offered by
Zhen Zhou (2017), in terms of general strategy usage, since secondary school
students have reported using cognitive strategies with the highest frequency, while
in the case of primary school students the most frequently used ones were social
strategies. However, our study supports the findings of Zhen Zhou (2017) fromthe gender perspective -in which the data has shown that female students reported
a higher frequency in strategy usage in contrast to their male counterparts-.
Moreover, the data presented in Pawlak’s (2018) study and the results obtained in
our paper shows that university and primary school students reported using social
strategies with the highest frequency. In addition, we also reflect on the strategies
used by male vs female students, the results indicating that female participants
report more frequent use of all the strategy groups. These tentative results seem to
indicate that female learners use grammar learning strategies more frequently than
their male counterparts, which would have to be further investigated in similar
studies with similar populations.