This study was prompted by a question about how learners learn differently in various periods of learning: at the beginning of, in the middle of, or nearly at the end of their learning. In this sense, learner strategies and motivations are supposed to be appropriate learners\u27 factors to get insight into the process of English learning. For that purpose, we investigated the characteristics of three kinds of Japanese learners of English as our research participants: junior high school, high school, and university students. The newly designed strategy and motivation questionnaires were employed as instruments, which were revised several times through discussion of researchers and the pilot study. Results indicated that different strategies were used by the three kinds of learners, which are assumed to have close relationship with the goals of their learning. At the same time, common strategies were consistently used among those learners. This study shows that as English learning goes on, learners select the most effective strategies to achieve their goals. An implication of this study is that teachers should be also aware of learners\u27 strategy use for effective language teaching.論