1. Use of English language learning strategies by Iranian bilingual EFL learners FARHAD MAZLUM & FATEMEH POOREBRAHIM MARAGHEH UNIVERSITY, IRAN

2. Introduction English education in Iran Iranian bilinguals: Turkish-Persian bilinguals, Kurdish-Persian bilinguals, Arab-Persian bilinguals The status of bilinguals’ mother tongues

3. Bilingualism & LLS: An Overview  … with bilingual learners employing, on average, more [strategies] than their monolingual peers (Bobanovic, 2011)  … more efficient use of LLS by bilingual students (Parks & Raymond, 2004)  … bilingual Korean-Chinese students showed higher use of LLS than did monolingual Korean students (Hong-Nam & Leavell, 2007)  From the results… it can be stated that the bilingual learners used more strategies more frequently than the monolingual ones (Mitis & Sarafiano, 2012)  And … many more IRRESPECTIVE of variables affecting LLS use

4. This study  Purpose: to investigate if Iranian bilinguals use more LLS more frequently than their monolingual peers  Participants: 188 Turkish-Persian bilinguals & 194 Persian monolinguals  Instrumentation: Oxford’s SILL (1990a)

5. Results LLSBilingualMonolingual Memory strategies 2.202.65 Cognitive strategies 2.182.19 Compensation strategies 2.211.95 Metacognitive strategies 1.481.69 Affective strategies 1.481.54 Social strategies 1.761.95

6. Results…  No statistically significant difference between 2 groups  No statistically significant difference in LLS use for individual items between 2 groups except for 3 items (one memory, one metacognitive, and one affective strategies: In all, monolinguals use more)  No statistically significant difference in 6 categories due to gender among bilinguals; but for monolinguals it was different: in favor of females

7. A Question: why this inconsistency?  Type of bilingualism in Iran: diagonal bilingualism: Azerbaijani Turkish (L1) is od daily informal use for wider communication, but it is not used as a language of instruction to help its speakers to develop academic abilities in their L1.  Subtractive bilingualism  Cummins’s Threshold Hypothesis: minimal level of L1 competence & literacy

8. Supporting evidence  Local studies: bilinguality/bilingualism, on average, brings no advantage; it is disadvantageous in some cases * Kurdish-Persian bilinguals compared with Persian monolinguals: no difference * Iranian monolinguals’ academic achievement is higher than that of bilinguals (Adib & Mahmoudi, 2000) * Monolingual students’ performance in PIRLS is higher than bilinguals’ (Karmi & Kabiri, 2000)

9. Final word… Generally speaking, the results of several research studies with different bilinguals in different contexts tend to suggest that bilinguals, on average, use more language learning strategies and more frequently BUT… This consensus and general unanimity of results might be partially attributed to the type of bilingualism; in other words, few research studies exist in which foreign language learning strategies of learners lacking L1 literacy are examined.

10. THANK YOU!