Tolerance of Ambiguity and EFL High School Students' Use of Language Learning Strategies

10.29691/JAE.200810.0007

曾繁萍(Fan-Ping Tseng)

應用英語期刊

1期（2008 / 10 / 01）

139 - 154

英文

This study examined EFL high school students' levels of tolerance of ambiguity and the relationship between their ambiguity tolerance levels and language learning strategy use. The participants were 215 first-year students in a public senior high school in northern Taiwan. They were asked to answer two questionnaires, the Second Language Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale and the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). Then multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was employed to analyze the data. The results showed that the participants tended to have less tolerance of ambiguity in learning English. In particular, they demonstrated low levels of ambiguity tolerance in the aspects of grammar and writing, and they had a slightly higher level of ambiguity tolerance in reading. The results also indicated that high ambiguity tolerant students used language learning strategies more frequently than low ambiguity tolerant ones. Specifically, the former used memory, cognitive, and metacognitive strategies more frequently than the later. Some pedagogical implications are given based on the findings of this study.