{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.024891101431238332, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0012445550715619166, 'mean_word_length': 5.2084942084942085, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS OF LEARNING DIFFICULTIES AND STRATEGIES

This research is concerned with Tunisian secondary school students’ perceptions of the difficulties they encounter in learning English as a foreign language, the reasons underlying these difficulties, and the strategies they use in accomplishing their linguistic tasks. It is based on two student questionnaires in which the following hypotheses are made: a) The learners’ difficulties are linguistic. b) The reasons for difficulties in learning English vary with the learners’ course level, sex/gender, socio-economic and cultural background. c) The learners’ strategy use and frequency vary with gender: i. Female students make use of social learning strategies more often than male students do. ii. Female students use translation/ borrowing more often than male students do. The results revealed that the targeted students had difficulties that were essentially due to their lack of knowledge of the English linguistic rules, and that they made use of various strategies; social and affective strategies mainly. They also indicated that strategy use and frequency varied with the learners’ course level, gender, and socio-economic background. It was also found that 6 th and 7 th graders had almost the same classification for the various strategies, but that they did not have the same frequency use, and that the boys used social and affective strategies, and translation more than the girls. In addition, the results showed that the low socio-economic groups’ use of strategies was the most frequent and the most varied.