THE MALE AND FEMALE EFL STUDENTS’ LANGUAGE LEARNING STYLES

Abstract

Studies have shown that male and female students learn differently. In this study, an effort was made to identify the differences between male and female students’ language learning styles of grade 8 (junior high school level) students in Banda Aceh by employing the questionnaire by Willing (1988). This questionnaire identifies three learning styles that are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. A number of 20 male and 20 female students participated and filled in the questionnaire. The results show that, in general, there is no significant difference between the learning styles of the male and female students. Thus, the mean score for each item of the questionnaire does pose differences in the tendencies of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic styles between them. Most male students tend to be visual learners, which mean that they learn better through seeing such as reading words on paper, the board or the computer screen. In contrast, female students tend to be auditory learners, which mean that they learn better through listening such as to listen to a recording on a tape, radio or television. These findings offer some insights to teachers that by determining students’ learning style it can facilitate them in recognizing their students’ way of learning so that the goals of the teaching and learning can be achieved successfully.