Abstract:
English is unquestionably the contemporary language of science, technology, commerce, intercultural
communication and scholarship. It is consists of accomplished growing importance in the
world. Consequently, in Malaysia concerned parents, researchers, scientists and instructors that
know the inevitable impact English language possess over the academic and socio-economic
progress of the students clamour for English proficiency. In Malaysia, English is not only the
second language in importance but also a school and college subject, and language of instruction of
science and mathematics. Interestingly, ESL/EFL studies nowadays are devoted to finding out
techniques employed by learners. It is against this backdrop that this study was carried out to
discover strategy use among ESL students in Malaysian secondary schools to look further at the
implication of their strategy use with regards to inter-cultural communication. Oxford’s SILL Questionnaire
was administered to 180 secondary school students and SPSS 7.0 version was used for
analysis. Findings reveal the dominance of indirect learning techniques, meaning high anxiety,
dependence heavily on peers and teachers to learn English and fewer practice of the oral language.
The study recommends the teaching of learning techniques to students and positive exploitation
of core-curricular activities that will create and sustain constant practicing of English language
among students to facilitate inter-cultural communication.
