Psaltou-Joycey, A., & Kantaridou, Z., (2009) “Plurilingualism, language learning strategy use and learning style preferences”. (Journal article)
Psaltou-Joycey and Kantaridou bring to the discussion of learning autonomy the notion of multilingualism or plurilingualism. They adopt the definition of bi/multilingualism as the “ability to function in more than one language, without reaching the same degree of perfection in all the languages known by the individual” (p.461). The authors developed a study to explore the differences between monolinguals and plurilinguals in the use of learning strategies. The level of proficiency in different languages, and the learning styles of the participants were taken into account.
The study was run at two Greek universities, with undergraduate students (N=1555) from various fields of study. The participants were classified by the number and level of the proficiency certificates they held in any European language. The instruments were two self-report questionnaires: the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) by Oxford (1990), and the Styles Analysis Survey (SAS) by Oxford (1995).
The results confirmed two hypotheses: 1) trilingual students use more strategies, more frequently than bilingual students; and 2) more advanced trilingual students use different strategies and they use them more frequently than less advance trilinguals (p.466). A third hypothesis was only “partially confirmed”: 3) trilingual students differ from bilingual students in sensory, personality and cognitive styles.
Despite the result regarding learning styles, the research suggests that learning autonomy increases with the number of languages an individual learns.
