Relationship of ESL Pakistani Learners Learning Styles and Writing Strategies: A Correlative Study

Abstract

This study deals with the relationship of ESL learning styles and ESL writing strategies used by the ESL Pakistani University learners to learn and improve their method to gain new information (Felder & Brent, 2005). Through the random sampling 200 students studying ECC (English Comprehension and Composition) from the COMSATS University-Lahore Campus at undergraduate level were selected to collect data. A quantitative research design has been followed. To investigate the preferred learning styles Reid‟s (1984) questionnaire (PLSQ) has been used to know the highly and low adopted style. To know the writing strategies at before writing stage, when writing stage and revising stage Petric and Czarl‟s (2003) questionnaire has been used as a tool. Descriptive statistics like mean score and standard deviation has been done to know the use of learning styles and writing strategies at high and low. Furthermore, Pearson Correlation is used to know the correlation between learning styles and writing strategies. Findings show that the most preferred learning styles of COMSATS Lahore are visual and auditory. With respect to ESL writing strategies, they use writing strategies but at the revising stage they use the most. Moreover, there is significant correlation between learning styles and writing strategies as p < 0.05. The study is helpful in pedagogy as it helps the teacher to become familiar with students learning styles and syllabus designer can design syllabus according the preferred learning styles of the students. This study also recommends the future researchers investigate learning style in relation to other variables.