Language learning strategies were first introduced to the second language literature in 1975, with research on the good language learner.[4] At the time it was thought that a better understanding of strategies deployed by successful learners could help inform teachers and students alike of how to teach and learn languages more effectively. Initial studies aimed to document the strategies of good language learners. In the 80s the emphasis moved to classification of language learning strategies. Strategies were first classified according to whether they were direct or indirect, and later they were strategies divided into cognitive, metacognitive or affective/social categories.[5]
In 1990, Rebecca Oxford published her landmark book "Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know" which included the "Strategy Inventory for Language Learning" or "SILL", a questionnaire[6] which was used in a great deal of research in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Controversy over basic issues such as definition grew stronger in the late 1990s and early 2000s, however, with some researchers[7] giving up trying to define the concept in favour of listing essential characteristics. Others[8] abandoned the strategy term in favour of "self regulation".