The Relationship between Gender and Language Learning Strategy Use in EFL Learning

Since the last decade of 1990 many researchers in different fields of language education have reported the effect of gender on access to linguistic resources as well as on language learning results. The field of Teaching English as Foreign Language (TEFL) has also exhibited a growing interest on the impact of gender on EFL learning. As a result, lots of research has been conducted on the issue of gender and its relation with language learning strategy use. Yet, it is elusive to conclude if there is a significant relation; some findings illustrate that female EFL learners use more language learning strategies than male ones. Among others, Octay Aslan(2009) and Pezhman Zare (2010) report that female EFL learners significantly prevailed over males in the use of language learning strategies. Still others provided findings displaying those male learners, use more Language learning Strategies than female learners do in certain taxonomy (Oxford, 1990). That is while some others believe there are no significant differences. Based on the results obtained, there are not gender differences in language learning strategy use in EFL Learning. Results also revealed that all participants had used same language learning strategies for different English skills. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the issue. To this aim, 102 adult language learners (25 males and 77females with intermediate level ofproficiency) participated in this study and they were selected by taking the Oxford Proficiency test. The data were collected through Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (Oxford, 1990) – consisting of 50 items -at Salman Farsi University of Kazeroun and analyzed by statistical package for social sciences(SPSS ,version 16) to find the relationship of language learning strategy use and gender. The results of the study showed that there are not any differences among male and female language learning strategy use in this university. If this result can be generalized, it will be beneficial to other researchers and also this result can be useful for using in the pedagogical situations.

کلیدواژه ها:

TEFL ، Gender ، Language Learning Strategy ، SILL