Identifying Style Awareness, Indirect Strategy Use and Preferences of Turkish Student Teachers of English

Styles and strategies are among the fundamental issues to be investigated in the language classroom in order to monitor learning process of language learners and to increase their awareness levels. Research on learner style and strategies suggests that a certain degree of awareness on these issues helps both learners and teachers distinguish between the weak and strong aspects of the learning process and take action reasonably. In this sense, in the present study, it was aimed to investigate the learning styles of the student teachers attending Turkish universities and their awareness about indirect strategy use. In the study, survey method was used. To identify style awareness and strategy use of the student teachers, three questionnaires -The Learning Style Checklist, Indirect Strategy Use Questionnaire, and Strategy Instruction Awareness- were administered to the student teachers. Quantitative analyses were used to evaluate the collected data. Undergraduate student teachers –total 226 second year student teachers- participated in the survey. The results indicated that the student teachers used indirect strategies efficiently as consistent with their learning styles. They used metacognitive, affective, and social strategies to defeat the possible problems they faced during language learning process. It was also reported that they felt themselves capable of planning and evaluating their learning process, lowering their anxiety level, taking emotional temperature by encouraging themselves, and cooperating with others.