The Possible Differences between Learning Styles Used by Russian, English, French, and Arabic Language Learners

Abstract

One of the most enduring effects on education has been the search for individual differences that can explain and predict variation in student achievement, with the hope that pedagogical methods can be designed that will capitalize on these. Among the individual differences, ‘Learning styles’ remain a popular choice for filling this role and the number of models of learning styles on offer continues to proliferate. Learning styles are said to be influential factors, in learning a second or foreign language. Despite the fact that there are lots of papers published in this area, but comparing the learning styles employed by those who are learning different foreign languages seems to be untouched. Therefore, in this study we try to address this gap, by comparing the learning styles used by Russian, English, French, and Arabic who are learning these languages as their foreign language. A number of 100 Iranian students took part in this study. They are between 18 to 20 years of age. They were divided into four groups, each including 25 members. The Ehrman and Leaver Learning Style Questionnaire (E&L) was distributed among the language learners. The finding of the study revealed that these four groups of language learners made use of learning styles differently. And also, there are significant differences between Russian, Arabic, English, and French language learners in terms of employing learning strategies