EFL Teachers’ Perceptions of Strategy Deficiency Syndrome: A Grounded Theory Study

Abstract

Strategy-deficient language learners struggle to develop their language proficiency through limiting and inappropriate strategies. This study aims at exploring experienced teachers’ perceptions of strategy deficiency syndrome among EFL learners. To this end, the perspectives of a purposive sample of experienced teachers teaching in private language schools of Tehran, the capital city of Iran, were theoretically sampled based on the principles and procedures of grounded theory. The final conceptualization of teachers’ perspectives yielded “learners’ limiting strategies” and “teachers proposed alternatives” as the major categories. The findings suggest that curriculum developers and language teachers merge strategy training and language teaching to remedy the strategy deficiency syndrome among EFL learners in the contexts of this study and other similar contexts where the banking model of education marginalizes strategy training and focuses exclusively on language teaching.