Grammar learning strategies in Primary School Children

Abstract

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.