Language learning strategies and the relationship of these strategies to motivation and English proficiency among Korean EFL students

This study investigated the profile of language learning strategy use of Korean high school students learning English as a foreign language and the types of English learning motivation of EFL Korean high school students. Also, the researcher attempted to examine the relationship between the use of language learning strategies and English language proficiency and the relationship between the use of language learning strategies and English language learning motivation.; A total of 209 high school students in South Korea participated in this study. A set of three questionnaire that contains Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (Version, 7.0), Motivation Survey, and Background Questionnaire were administrated to the participants. The English portion of the National-Wide Scholastic Ability Test was used to measure the participants' English proficiency.; The results indicated that the Korean high school students turned out to be moderate strategy users and preferred to use compensation strategies and memory strategies to other strategies. The findings of this study were generally consistent with those found in prior SILL studies, showing more frequent use and richer repertoire of language learning strategies among more successful learners. This supports the strong evidence for the relationship between language proficiency and language learning strategy use. Proficiency level had significant effects on overall strategy use, the use of four of six strategy categories, as well as, the use of some individual strategy items. The results from Motivation Questionnaire indicated that the participants in this study were moderately motivated and tended to have stronger extrinsic motivation than intrinsic motivation. As for the effect of motivation on the use of language learning strategies, language learners with higher motivation level possess a richer repertoire of strategies and employ strategies more frequently than less motivated language learners. Motivation level had significant effects on the overall strategy use, the use of all six strategy categories, as well as, most of individual strategy items. These findings proved the fact that motivation is one of the most important factors in language learning and is a key determinant of frequency and type of strategy use (Nyikos & Oxford, 1993).