International Journal of Educational Policy Research and Review Vol.3 (6), pp. 98-103 August, 2016 Available online at http://www.journalissues.org/IJEPRR/ http://dx.doi.org/10.15739/IJEPRR.16.014 Copyright © 2016 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article ISSN 2360-7076 Original Research Article An investigation of language learning strategies used by university English language teaching students in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Considering the gender variable Received 1 July, 2016 Revised 25 July, 2016 Accepted 27 July, 2016 Published 9 August, 2016 Ceylani Akay* and Salih Cıngıllıoğlu English Language and Literature Department, Faculty of Education, International Burch University Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina *Corresponding Author Email: ceylaniakay@hotmail.com, ceylani.akay@ibu.edu.ba The purpose of this study is to assess the language learning strategies used by English Language Teaching students in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Oxford's Stratetegy Inventory Language Learning (SILL) was conducted to investigate the differences between male and female university students in BiH.The study also explores the effect of gender on strategy choice of university students in BiH in the ELT departments. The more we discover about the language learning strategies, the more we influence the performance of language learners. This study contributes to further implications for research on language learning strategies, material design and teacher education. Key words: Language learning, teaching, metacognitive, Bosnia and Herzegovina INTRODUCTION Learning strategies are considered by linguists to be a key component in second language acquisition and it has been studied a lot for the last years. For a better result in language learning, a second language learner should become aware of how people learn a language more efficiently. The more we discover about the language learning strategies, the more we influence the performance of language learners. That is why the investigations about learning strategies play an important role for second language learning. It is worthwhile investigating the strategies of the learner as they are useful for school-based learning and they also have the potential for informal learning environments (Wenden, 1987). According to Rubin (1987), once the learners have developed an ability to evaluate their own learning process, they become the best judge of how to approach the learning task. Language learners vary in terms of factors such as: aptitudes, demographic variables, affective variables, learning styles, and learning strategies when they start learning the second language. These factors have profound effects on how the learners approach language learning tasks and how successful they are. Cook (2001) pointed out that gaining more information about how language learners actually learn can help the teacher to make any teaching method more effective and help them put their hunches on a firmer basis. Ehrman et al. (2003) also suggested that the more we learn about individual differences (i.e. how individuals learn a language); the more we gain a sense of how many different ways we can understand the complex system of language learning and teaching. The description of language learning strategies and the term succesful language learners made the researches to investigate more and more about the strategies used by the language learners. O'Malley and Chamot (1990) made some distinctions about the Language learning strategies dividing them into three major categories: cognitive, metacognitive, and social-affective. Oxford (1990) made another classification for the language learning strategies broading them into six categories such as: memory, cognitive, compensatory, metacognitive, affective, and social. She suggested that language learning strategies are ''specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations.'' . In this study Oxford's SILL was used on the grounds that it has been used to assess strategy use by EFL and ESL learners from a large and varied group and language cultural backgrounds. And also its