Leila Ghalani - Department of English, E-Campus, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Pantea Pahlavani - Department of English, Qazvin Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qazvin, Iran

Nowadays, English has become an international language and is used for communication and interaction among different countries and cultures across the world. So, the ability to communicate in a comprehensive way is one of the major goals of any second language educational setting. The aims of the present research were to investigate the relationship between Iranian EFL learners’ social intelligence (SI) and their willingness to communicate (WTC) across gender, as well as to find out any possible difference between male and female learners in SI and their WTC relationship. To this end, 240 male and female EFL learners from different institutions were selected as the participants of the study with different age ranges based on convenient sampling. Then two standardized questionnaires, i.e., SI and WTC, were administered for all participants to answer. After collecting the required data and its analysis, the findings revealed a positive and significant correlation between male and female SI and their WTC. In addition, further statistical analysis using  formula showed no difference between learners’ SI and WTC relationship across gender. The findings of the present research could be applicable for EFL learners, teachers, and material developers.   Keywords:  

EFL learners,Gender,Social intelligence,Willingness to Communicate, EFL learners, gender, social intelligence, willingness to communicate