6533b871fe1ef96bd12d191b

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Processing habits and second language learning: Students’ self‐evaluation of their learning

subject

description

Abstract This article reports a study of students’ second language learning at the upper stage of the comprehensive school. The aim of the study was to analyse students’ conscious second language learning activity and the kinds of language problems the students themselves recognise. 700 students (14–15 year‐olds), representative of the Swedish‐speaking schools in Finland, answered a questionnaire regarding their learning habits and language problems in Finnish. The differences between successful and less successful students were then analysed. The results show that successful and less successful language learners did not differ from each other in processing intensity and general approach to learning tasks, nor in the use of processing techniques. The high‐achievers were, however, somewhat more eager to find out things about language by themselves and they were more oriented towards the semantic aspects of the language. Students seemed to relate feelings of difficulty to certain contents rather than to cer...