Gender and Language Learning Anxiety

Gender has been considered as a significant factor in SLA. There are some discrepancies between men
and women with regard to second language learning which cannot be fully erased through education.
According to gender theory proposed by Baumeister and Sommer (1997), gender stereotypes are the
expectations which are shared culturally for gender appropriate behaviors. Individuals learn the
appropriate behaviors from the culture and the family they grow up with. Therefore, non-physical
gender differences are the result of socialization (Eagly, 1987). Also, males and females differ
biologically with regard to their learning style and cognitive ability. These differences result from
their differences in their brain and their higher-order cortical functions (Keefe, 1982). In terms of
lateralization, there are differences between males and females, with males having more
lefthemisphere dominance than females (Banich, 1997). Research studies have shown that gender
differences affect students’ academic interest, needs, and achievements (Halpern, 1986). SLA theorists
believe that females have superiority in their L2 process (Ehrlich, 2001)
Anxiety, as an important affective factor, influences second language learning particularly
speaking skill. Males and females have different levels of anxiety and it might delay the development
of their speaking ability. Therefore, learners have to make use of some learning strategies to overcome
this problem.

Some studies have been done regarding the relationship between gender and language
learning anxiety. Chang (1997) concluded that females had higher level of anxiety than males. In
another study, Ezzi (2012) investigated the relationship between FL anxiety and gender among male
and female students with regard to their educational level, age and residence and found that females
had a higher level of anxiety than males.

The study of the role of gender in L2 acquisition has found that in general females perform better
compared to males in L2 acquisition because females tend to have an advantage over males due to higher levels
of motivation (Kissau, 2006). However, considering the roles of language anxiety and gender in L2 performance,
gender, language anxiety, and L2 performance are intricately related to each other. A logical assumption is that
males may be more anxious compared to females, which, in turn, may lead to their lower L2 performance
compared to females. This assumption, however, has produced conflicting findings in gender studies of language
anxiety (Campbell and Shaw, 1994; Koul et al., 2009; MacIntyre et al., 2002; Matsuda and Gobel, 2004; Zhang,
2000).
Campbell and Shaw (1994) attempted to investigate the role of gender in foreign language anxiety among
students learning Spanish, German, Russian, and Korean in the Defense Language Institute. Using the Survey of
Attitude Specific to the Foreign Language (SASFLC), they found that females were better language learners and
less anxiety ridden than males. This finding was confirmed by Zhang (2000) who investigated whether anxiety is
associated with foreign language reading among Chinese ESL students at tertiary institutions in Singapore using
Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS). He found that male students in general reported a higher
degree of English reading anxiety than female students probably because the former perceived a lower level of
English proficiency than the latter. However, no significant gender differences in language anxiety were found
among university students learning English in Japan and among students in a junior high French immersion
program in Canada (MacIntyre et al., 2002; Matsuda and Gobel, 2004). Contrary to the aforementioned studies,
Koul et al. (2009) found using university students learning English in Thailand that even though females
performed better compared to males in learning English, they were more anxious compared to their male
counterparts. They posited that females showed higher instrumental motivation and social support for learning
English than males, which, in turn, helped high anxiety females be better English learners than low anxiety
males.