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In other words, there appears to be a discrepancy between SLA learning theories and FLL (foreign language learning) which has largely relied on SLA for theoretical explanations of language learning processes. He (ibid: 23) thus endorses a new relationship between SLA and FLL:

The FL profession needs to cease being only a customer of SLA research and theory and start becoming an active contributor … Indeed, it can be argued that there are some questions asked in SLA that are best answered or even only answerable by researching foreign language learners and not second language learners.[Italics in the original]

This theoretical gap partly explains this study’s aim to investigate the locally developed SLSEs of EFL learners in the hope of not only making a contribution to LLS research but also having implications for EFL teaching and learning in Taiwan. This imbalance of ESL-EFL research appears to have its root in the conceptualization of SLA.

2.2.2 The Conceptualization of SLA and contexts SLA

SLA research, which entails LLS research, is generally pedagogy-motivated and has been conducted within a traditional cognitive framework in the main. The main underpinning theory is the information-processing model. It is not, therefore, surprising that most SLA research is more than likely to be conducted in classroom settings (Ellis, 1994). This sees learning as the internalization of de-contextualized professional knowledge, the learning process as happening primarily in individual learners’ heads, and individual differences as the defining factor in learning. Accordingly, the internalization of linguistic items and rules has been the main focus; local learning contexts and environments are inclined to be overlooked.

2.2.2.1 Acquisition: input, output and interaction

An illuminating example of this cognitive view of SLA has been described by Lamy and Hampel (2007). They summarize the preceding hypotheses in the cognitive SLA tradition to catch the dynamics of second language learning as a cognitive process which is

considered universally true for all second (and foreign) language learners (Appendix 3). Though SLA researchers tend to used ‘second language acquisition’ and ‘second

language learning’ interchangeably, this conceptualization of acquisition is at the core of the SLA field in general with the goal of investigating and establishing the cause and effect relations between second language use and second language acquisition (Block, 2003). The confusion between the acquisition process and the learning process is made evident when we are looking at learners who need to develop English speaking skills in a

learning environment in which this ideal input-output-interaction acquisition loop is most often either unavailable or incomplete as aforementioned in 2.2.1. These missing links

might help illustrate the difficulties in learning to speak English in EFL environments. Distinguishing the essential differences between ESL and EFL learning environments can help address the long existing issue of the unbalanced view shown in LLS research and the confusing findings produced through self-report questionnaires in this field (e.g., Gao, 2004).

2.2.2.2 The gap between the ESL-based theoretical framework and EFL local reality

Since Oxford’s (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL), is ‘perhaps the most comprehensive classification of learning strategies to date’ (Ellis, 1994: 539) and is often adopted as a convenient framework, I will use this framework to exemplify the ESL tendency in LLS research. In her six-category SILL, Oxford summarized the LLSs

identified in previous LLS research literature. SILL has since been the most widely used questionnaire in LLS research (Oxford et al., 2004; White et al., 2008; Woodrow, 2005) because of its strength in measuring range and frequency of strategy use and correlating strategy use with other factors (Chamot, 2004). Concerns about its contextual sensitivity were probably first addressed by Locastro (1994): she compared data collected by Oxford’s SILL, and group interview data collected from the same group of Japanese language learners. She found that the SILL appeared to fail to address the participants’ use of ‘listening as a means to learn’ (p. 412). Though SILL was intended for use in different contexts (Oxford, 1996), the identification and classification of SILL have been based on research conducted mainly in an ESL context (Yabukoshi and Takeuchi, 2009) and this could account for the discrepancy when employing SILL to understand EFL learners’ strategy use (e.g., Lai, 2009).

In effect, the field of LLS research presents a similar unbalanced view, with more focus on cognitive/mentalistic orientations than on social/contextual aspects of second language learning (Gao, 2010). To fill the gap, Politzer and McGroarty (1985), among others, administered a questionnaire, which was divided into classroom behaviours, individual study behaviours and interaction behaviours, to thirty-seven Asian and Hispanic students enrolled in an intensive ESL course in the United States. The result suggests that the Hispanic students used significantly more GLL strategies. However, when it came to the subsequent grammar test and communicative competence test, Asian students’ results were higher than those of the Hispanic. The researchers conclude that learning strategies are not inherently good or bad and successful strategy use was related to the learners’ educational and cultural values. Wharton (2000: 207) postulates that the popularity of rote memorization strategies among Chinese students in Singapore may come from their L1 experience, i.e., their ‘conscious learning of thousands of characters’. This seems to echo the essential assumption of the sociocultural research paradigm – the social/cultural nature of learning in local contexts.

To sum up, as Dörnyei (2005: 182) points out, one of the main issues in LLS research is a discrepancy between the question asked and the methods adopted to answer this question:

A learner using as many different strategies as possible…it is largely the quantity that matters. This is in contradiction with strategy theory, which has indicated clearly that in strategy use it is not necessarily the quantity but the quality of the employed strategies that is important.

I will now focus on giving a general picture of the Taiwanese EFL context to introduce to the more detailed local environment within which this research study is conducted. This will be described in the methodology chapter.