Lessons From Good Language Learner Part13 Chapter9
Lessons From Good Language Learner Part13 Chapter9
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Chapter
Gender and its impact upon the ways that the sexes think, reason, and
solve problems is once more becoming a hot topic in the popular press,
and like any hot topic, it is at once fascinating and controversial. With
the help of technology, the last five years of research on the male and
female brain have given new insight into differences in their development
and modes of information processing (Tyre, 2005). In this chapter we are
interested not so much in gender differences per se, but in the processes
that may contribute to bringing about a language performance differen-
tial between boys and girls, women and men. For language educators
interested in enhancing the achievement of learners, it is certainly inter-
esting to note that quantitative studies show boys and girls behaving in
“strikingly different ways” (Dörnyei, 2005, p. 59).
It is those “different ways” which are the focus of research which seeks
to tease out the contribution of gender in the complex array of factors
that impact all learning and language learning and pedagogy in particu-
lar. Some factors are related to our human state and traits, and others are
environmental or situational, dependent on the context or setting.
As educators, our departure point has to include the realization that
our own socialized views of gender differences will impact our teaching
and judgments. In fact, those views are so subtle and pervasive that they
will influence the way we interpret the results being reported in this
chapter. Our socialization as gendered beings has influenced our own
learning and teaching styles, which in turn affect our students.
Regardless of the care we take to give our students many opportunities
to discover their optimal learning style, we have to be vigilant of our own
subconscious biases and expectations which may manifest themselves in
the ways we engage our students in learning.
Gender as a broad term is often used to denote not only the biologically
based, dichotomous variable of sex (that is, male or female) but also the
socially constructed roles (i.e., gender) which are created by the different
ways in which the sexes are raised from birth and socialized within a
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certain culture (see also Ellis 1994). In this chapter the term sex is used
in a more restricted sense to denote merely the physical dichotomy of
male versus female, while the term gender connotes largely culturally and
environmentally formed roles into which males and females are social-
ized (see also Ushioda, this volume).
Gender is often neglected as a variable in language learning by writers
and researchers: “The effects of gender roles, relations and identities are
everywhere. Ironically, because of this, in much writing and thinking on
English language teaching, gender appears nowhere” (Sunderland, 1994,
p. 211). However, Sunderland (2000) points out, a wide range of lan-
guage phenomena, such as literacy practices, language tests, test perfor-
mance, self-esteem, styles, and strategies, have been shown to be
gendered, since male and female students tend to be represented or to
behave or feel differently. The potential for gender to affect language
learning can therefore not be ignored.
In this paper the term gender will denote the confluence of biology
and socialization, of nature and nurture which in each culture creates
the totality of what is conveniently classified as male or female. Despite
great variation within each sex, clear and systematic differences in this
tightly interwoven complex of characteristics is observable between the
sexes. It is on these differences that we focus our research to discover if
there are significant variations based on gender in how students learn
language.
Biological research reported in recent articles in the popular press are
increasingly shedding light on neurological and hormonal differences in
the brains of males and females. For example, women have more nerve
cells in the left half of the brain where language is centered (Legato,
2005a), and have a richer connection between the two sides of the brain
(Tyre, 2005). Women seem to use more of their brains to listen and to
speak which “may make activities essential to communication easier for
them” (Legato, 2005b, p. 183). Brain scan imagery performed by neu-
roscientists shows that women utilize the same area of the brain as men
to process language but, depending on the linguistic task, women often
use both sides of the brain, and, given identical assignments, women acti-
vate more areas in their brain than men do (Legato, 2005a). Perhaps
most importantly for educators, research has reconfirmed that girls have
“language centers” that mature earlier than that of boys (Tyre, 2005,
p. 59). These reports in the popular press are important because they are
a good indicator of current interest and are most likely to reach parents
and help form beliefs and expectations regarding gender differences.
But these findings should not be interpreted as only biological. From
infancy on, there are other powerful influences at work. Psychological
studies stress gender-specific socialization and expectations which mold
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gender roles, attributes, and behavior of children from an early age (Beal,
1994; Legato, 2005). It should be noted that individual factors such as
spatial, language, and reasoning skills are linked to gender, but not
directly attributed to it. As Beal (1994, p. 223) cogently argues,
“Children first learn to talk in a social context that varies by gender”.
Parents talk more to baby girls than boys, responding more to girls’ early
attempts to use language. Parents have longer and more complex con-
versations with daughters and encourage more responses from them than
sons (Reese and Fivush, cited in Beal, 1994, p. 224). Much of the per-
ceived female superiority in language capability may be due to the added
effort which adults tend to lavish on baby girls compared with baby
boys. In the crucial early years of life, female brains may be better stim-
ulated due to the subconscious expectations of adults.
Gender socialization may be a key factor in any relative success that
women and men of any age have in language learning. The psychologi-
cal literature is rightfully cautious in designating sources of difference in
learning and processing as due to gender. Sociocultural influences
shaping young people as gendered beings include many cultural expec-
tations of male and female roles and attribution of certain qualities each
should possess, both in society and in the classroom. Today, construc-
tivist views push learning into the social space where students must work
collaboratively to achieve the desired goal (Slavin, 1996) as students co-
construct their understanding and responses to specific tasks. When we
push language acquisition into the social space, we deal with group
dynamics and the interplay of social status, personality, learning prefer-
ences and individual differences of many kinds. The very nature of co-
operative tasks in the classroom is that they bring together many kinds
of learning preferences, strategies, and styles which require individuals
to work together to negotiate solutions to problems.
Sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978; Donato and McCormick, 1994;
Swain and Lapkin, 1998) holds that cognitive development or construc-
tion of knowledge occurs as a result of social interaction. Most studies
in this area examine the language produced during communicative tasks
where negotiation of meaning and cooperation with peers is necessary
for completing the linguistic tasks. Gender is a significant, defining
dimension of our humanity and as such has at least some influence on
the way we learn.
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of the predominantly female teaching population do not fit the way boys
learn. In other words, in considering how gender relates to “good” learn-
ing, even the cultures of schools themselves need to be taken into
account, emphasizing the importance of situational factors stressed by,
for instance, Norton and Toohey (2001)
Studies have consistently found that females place a greater relative
importance on and invest more time in language learning than males,
because they see greater potential benefit from languages in their future
careers and personal lives (Gu, 2002). Women prefer social strategies
which stress communication such as forming study groups and practic-
ing with native speakers (Green and Oxford 1995, Jimenez Catalan,
2003). Women also tend to use emotionally supportive affective strate-
gies such as self-encouragement, setting up rewards for their progress
and reassuring themselves that they have insufficient background knowl-
edge when encountering difficulties (Young and Oxford, 1997). In
general, women are more willing to test the usefulness of a wider array
of strategies and consistently use more of them than men (Oxford,
Lavine, Felkins, Holloway, and Saleh, 1996). In general, men are more
career-oriented, placing lower importance on studying language than on
their primary major, they are more goal-oriented and more instrumen-
tally motivated for studying what will be on the next test, and they tend
to monitor their progress, such as timing their reading pace and tend to
prefer visual strategies such as forming a mental image of a word and
labeling objects (Nyikos, 1990). Men also tend to work alone more, sum-
marizing the readings and defining unfamiliar words to themselves
(Young and Oxford, 1997). Some studies have shown that women are
more flexible in their use of language learning strategies and favor com-
municative strategies, both of which are qualities of the good language
learner (Nyikos, 1987). Men tend to use rote memorization, repetition,
and translation more often, all of these tend to be used more heavily by
less successful language learners (Nyikos, 1987).
It would seem a natural conclusion that since women tend to desire
higher grades more than men and use learning strategies more frequently
than men (Oxford, Nyikos, and Ehrman, 1988), that the combination of
greater motivation and strategy use should lead to greater success for
women in language learning. Most studies show a slight but significant
advantage for women (Gu, 2002; Sunderland, 2000). The most notable
exception to this is Ehrman and Oxford (1995); they found no correla-
tion between the types of strategies women preferred and those preferred
by better language learners in general, nor was there a difference in per-
formance between men and women “by any measure” (Ehrman and
Oxford, 1995, p. 81). It is therefore crucial to emphasize once more that
differences in language learning preferences between males and females,
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In an age where gender equality has become a basic human right, the
idea that there might be gender differences in language learning is not
always considered politically correct, and fear of giving offence has,
perhaps, nipped potential research initiatives in the bud. In recent years,
however, there has been growing concern over the educational perfor-
mance of boys (for instance Tyre, 2005; Van Houtte, 2004), especially in
relation to learning language. Perhaps it is time to put the political
niceties in their place and look honestly at the role of gender in language
learning, at how gender differences relate to language development, and
at the pedagogical implications of gender differences.
Conclusion
The greatest impact of Rubin’s (1975) article was that it effectively shifted
the focus of language learning from teachers and researchers to the learner
by emphasizing that good learners have control over their language learn-
ing and could be guided to take even more control. It prompted interest in
individual learner differences that led to the synthesis of numerous strands
of research into language learning, including strategies, motivation, learn-
ing styles, culture, age, personality, aptitude, and gender.
Although females are often believed to be better language learners
than males, research evidence for this belief has proven elusive. This may
be partly because “gender, as one of the many important facets of social
identity, interacts with race, ethnicity, class, sexuality (dis)ability, age,
and social status in framing students’ language learning experiences, tra-
jectories, and outcomes” (Norton and Pavlenko, 2004, p. 504). Based
on the research evidence we have, however, it would seem safe to gener-
alize that both males and females can be good language learners. The
ongoing challenge, for researchers, is to discover how students may learn
most effectively regardless of gender, and, for teachers, to discover how
both their male and female students may be supported to achieve
maximum success as language learners.
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