The Relationship between Iranian Male vs. Female EFL Learners’ Beliefs and Their Use of Learning Strategies

The present study was an attempt to examine the relationship between male and female Iranian EFL learners’ beliefs and their use of learning strategies. To this end, Horwitz’s (1987) BALLI(Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory) and Oxford’s (1990) SILL (Strategy-Inventory for Language Learning) were administered to 52 male and 48 female students majoring in English Language Teaching at two universities in Gonbad-e Kavous. The relationship between languagelearning beliefs and language learning strategies was calculated using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The Independent samples t-test was conducted to explore the impact of gender onlearners’ beliefs and descriptive analysis was used to explore the mean and frequency oflanguage learning strategies used by learners. The statistical results showed that gender difference did not affect learners’ beliefs and revealed that the highest mean average among thefive components of beliefs about language learning was belief of foreign language aptitudefollowed by belief of learning and communication strategies, and belief of difficulty of language learning. The two components with the lowest means were belief of the nature of language and motivations and also revealed that learners used direct strategies more than indirect strategies,and also indicated that there was significant relationship between learners’ belief and strategy use.

Keywords:

Gender , Iranian EFL learner , Language learning beliefs , Learning strategies