The Effectiveness of Context in Strategy-Based Instruction in Teaching English: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Studies

A large number of research on the effects of strategy-based instruction (SBI) in teaching English as a foreign or second language has been conducted so far. However, the findings regarding the context of English language in such studies, second or foreign, have not been synthesized so far. Therefore, this study aims to meta-analyze the effects of SBI experimental studies conducted in the field of learning and teaching English to clarify the aroused controversial issues regarding the context of the English Language. A comprehensive search was conducted to collect the population of experimental SBI studies. Effect sizes were calculated for 26 primary studies, contributing a total of 84 unique samples. The findings indicate that the overall summary effects of studies with English a foreign language were larger than those with English as a second language under both the fixed effect and random effects model. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretical, practical, and methodological implications.