The proposal describes a complex research into what type of foreign language learning strategies (FLLS) learners use on the primary (5th year), lower secondary (9th year) and the upper secondary comprehensive (grammar) school level in the Czech Republic with regard to their gender. Different specific research questions were asked such as to what extent gender serves as a factor influencing the use of strategies as well as whether the usage of strategies is related to different language learning outcomes. FLLS are understood as sets of actions, steps, plans, procedures used by learner to obtain, remember, recall and use information. The strategy taxonomy of R. L. Oxford (1990) and the questionnaire SILL (Oxford 1990) build the theoretical framework of our research. SILL focuses on 6 areas of strategies relating to the classification of R. L. Oxford (1990): memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective, and social strategies. Learners had to indicate how often they use the strategies on a scale from 1 (never, almost never) to 5 (ever, almost ever). There are gender differences in the use of strategies. Most researches so far conclude that girls use strategies more in quantity as well as more effectively (Erhman and Oxford 1989, Nyikos 1990). However, some studies conducted in culturally dissimilar countries such as Turkey resulted in favour of males as far as significant gender differences in strategy use are concerned (Tercanlioglu 2004) which reflects the notion of cultural background as one of the factors influencing strategy use (Oxford 1996).
