Language Learning Strategy Use and Prediction of Foreign Language Proficiency Among Iranian EFL Learners

The purpose of this study was twofold. firstly, it attempted to investigate whetherlanguage learning strategies (llss) can predict foreign language (fl) proficiency.secondly, it examined what kind of llss iranian learners of english use morefrequently in fl institutes. to do so, 112 intermediate iranian efl learnersparticipated in the study. oxford’s strategy inventory for language learning (1990;sill) was used to collect the data on the participants’ strategy use. additionally, theparticipants’ scores on an achievement test were used as a measure of their languageproficiency. data were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics. resultsshowed that fl proficiency is predictable through llss. metacognitive strategieswith the largest beta coefficient (0.302) made the strongest contribution to predictingfl proficiency. furthermore, results indicated that the participants were mediumstrategy users (m = 3.17) and used metacognitive strategies significantly more (m =3.80) than other categories.