GENDER DIFFERENCES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING

-This article focused on the gender differences in English Language Learning. It discovers students’ learning styles as affected by the notions about men’s and women’s differences in communication. The data were randomly collected from ten male and ten female students of the English department of Tanjungpura University Pontianak. The population was the third-semester students of English department students. They were given an online questionnaire through Google Form. It is to find out their attitudes towards speaking to a different gender, strategy to express an opinion, group work preferences, and activeness/passiveness in the class. The findings showed some factors affect the different styles of female and male students in learning English. The result of the data indicated that more females felt reluctant to speak English to a different gender. Besides, it can also affect the successful strategies of English students in learning English. The great potency of female students to be ashamed, nervous, and women’s language can affect their achievement in English. Meanwhile, male students as influenced by their need to challenge and maintain strength as men and can use speaking English ability as a way to show their status as men.


INTRODUCTION
A human is a communicating organism that uses language to communicate.
Without language, a human might not survive because they will not be able to associate with others.Language is used to communicate among members of society.It is a means to express the tradition and values of a group feature (Sirbu, 2015, p.405).When someone starts to communicate with another and there is a response, that is called a dialect or conversation.Generally, there are two styles of using language since humans have two genders called male and female.In everyday conversation with members of the other sex people may or may not be aware of the differences between males and females.Men and women interact in daily life as social beings.Thus, creating differences in the interaction activity (Irawan & Triandjojo, 2017, p.34

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As socially and culturally constructed, gender differences are one of the interesting phenomena in contemporary society related to the characteristic, the style of using language and communication.Men and women are different in their ways of communication, and therefore they should be treated differently.Irawan & Triandjojo (2017, p.35) study that men and women are different in their politeness and their choice of words.The women use standard and polite words while the men use harsh and impolite words to communicate.Besides, Wahyuningsih (2018, P.89) finds out that men and women have differences in forms, contents, and uses in communication.The study shows that men are more directive and use plain words while women are more expressive and polite in using language.In short, gender has its characteristics in using language and style of communication.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This discourse had been seriously and creatively debated since Lakoff (1976) and Tannen (1990), in their study on English-speaking countries, illuminated the concept of women's language which highlights the existence of men's and women's differences in communication.One characteristic of women's language as stated by Lakoff (1976) is the great tendency of women in using lexical hedges or fillers (e.g.you know, sort of, well, you see), tag questions (she's very nice, isn't she?), rising intonation declarative (it's really good), empty adjectives (divine, charming, cute), precise color terms (magenta, aquamarine), intensifiers (just, so), hypercorrect grammar (consistent use of standard verb forms), super polite forms (indirect requests, euphemisms), avoidance of strong swear words (fudge, my goodness), and emphatic stress.
Gender differences mean men and women that are specific to a particular culture and influenced by its attitudes and practices.Another difference is that women are more passive than men.If they are talking, they tend to show that they are not sure about what they are saying.The passiveness and tentativeness of women in communication are affirmed by Rahmi (2015).Conversely, men are represented as leaders and breadwinners.Furthermore, in some cultures women take the name of their husbands after getting married, sons have more freedom to play outside the house, and daughters must stay at home and take care of younger ones.silence, proxemics, kinesics, haptics, paralinguistics, chronemics, oculesics, vocalic, and others. Tymson (1998, p.8) classifies differences between men and women in communication as seen in Table 1: The storytelling style of speech Working towards a destination On a journey Need to know the answers Want to ask the right questions These differences in men's and women's communication may affect expectations for men and women in various fields of life.The different ways of men and women in communicate can become a critical point of gender inequality.Because of those differences, men and women are treated differently.Sugihartono et al (2007: 35) state that sex and gender are two different things.But still interrelated.In general, gender is defined as individual differences based on biological factors brought about by birth, namely the differences between male and female sex, while gender is a psychosocial aspect of men and women.This means that gender is psychology aspect in women and men, an aspect that can influence their behavior or their aptitudes.
Gender is referred to variously across areas of social science (Rahmi, 2015, p. 81).The expression "gender" has more than one valid definition, where the meaning of the word can be related to the context.However, all definitions have one common thread, "gender" refers to a wide set of characteristics that are seen to distinguish between male and female entities, extending from one´s biological sex to, one´s social role.
Gender difference can be assumed as an individual difference generally existing and catching attention in foreign language teaching and learning (  & Lindqvist, 2015)."Gender" is more appropriate for distinguishing people based on their socio-cultural behavior including speech.Then, "sex" refers to categories distinguished by biological characteristics (Holmes, 2013, p.159).It can conclude that gender refers to socially constructed roles, behaviors, and attributes considered appropriate for men and women in a given society.The reference to "sex" is the biological category.
According to Muin (2019) sociolinguistics studies how language is used in its society, and why and to what extent a certain language is related to society.Sukarno (2015) stated from sociolinguistics, that people have known some definitions, terms, and issues related to the nature of language in the society in which it is used.Therefore, the language is used in a social context.It can be used in the communication of daily life.Everybody should communicate with other people.For example, males speak with a different gender.Likewise, females speak with the same gender even different gender.
Gender can be identified from a linguistic perspective as well.In this context, gender refers primarily to the classification of nouns into a gender class that, in most languages, consists of three gender categories; masculine, feminine, and neuter.It is typical for articles and adjectives to take different forms to "agree" with the gender of the noun.For example, the agreement between a boy and his is based on the relationship involving the male entities.In this language, gender is essential for constructing sentences and communication.
Other research on language and gender also reveals the differences between men and women in using language for communication.One of them is that women are more polite than men.Nurjanah (2017) notes that when talking with the same sex peers, women will use many positive politeness strategies.On the other hand, men in similar circumstances do not show this tendency.Lakoff (1976, p.74) also states that women tend to speak concerning the rules of politeness, conversational implicature, and interpersonal exploration whereas men tend to speak concerning the rules of conversation and straight factual communication.
This result was consistent with Manzoor et al., (2020) andJeong, Feng, Krämer, Miller, &Marsella (2017) who revealed similar findings.It might be because se the gendered tendency in terms of social gender anticipation and the occupation tendency.
In addition, most people believe that work concerning language is more suitable for  2016) once remarked that one of the main reasons why females attain greater success in foreign language learning is that they generally have stronger positive emotion, and this emotion reflects their anticipation of employment seeking.It relates to the belief for girls that a foreign language has a more important professional value to them, while boys do not think in similar ways.
Another gender study on language learning belongs to Rahayu (2016), the findings of the study show that there are important gender differences in the use of language learning.Female students also tend to use overall language learning strategies more often than males, especially with affective and metaphysic strategies.Thus, gender could be one of the important things that should be paid attention to related to language.In the area of English Language Teaching in which female and male students interact with each other by using English for their communication, problems caused by men and women's differences in using language may be affecting.Severiens and Dam (2005) studied the close relationship between gender differences and learning styles and found that men were more likely than women to prefer the abstract conceptualization mode of learning.Another study by Lestari (2018) found that male and female teachers implied four types of politeness strategies depending on context and situation.The result of this study showed that female teachers used positive politeness as the dominant strategy, while male teachers used bald on record as the dominant strategy.
It is interesting to discuss how gender differences in language and communication are practiced in different areas.Practices in language and gender may also vary in a particular society or group.That is why the researcher chose the topic of

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gender because many varieties and differences when students learn English between female and male students, especially in communication.

METHOD Research Design
This article was conducted to find out the gender differences in students' learning English.Thus, in this study, the researcher used the descriptive qualitative method to find a deeper understanding related to learning objectives.Kim (2017) proposed that qualitative descriptive research produces data that elaborates the 'who, what, and where of events or experiences from a subjective point of view.Creswell (2012) stated that a qualitative research study is needed to explore this phenomenon from the perspective of distance education students".Sutopo explained in Cahyaningsih (2017) that the purpose of descriptive research is to express and describe the qualitative data or information accurately and also includes the analysis and interpretation of that data.

Data Collection
This article was based on data collected from English Department students at Tanjungpura University Pontianak.The population of the paper was the third-semester students of the English Education study program.For the sampling, the researcher just took 20 students from class A: 10 male students and 10 female students.
The respondents were given an open-ended questionnaire, such as online questionnaires through Google forms to reveal their perceptions regarding their strategies in learning English as affected by gender differences.

Data Analysis
The data were analyzed by using qualitative analysis.The researchers used Google form as the tool for collecting the data.The researcher generated the questions mainly about their preferences in gender to communicate in English, reluctance in speaking with different gender, preferences in expressing opinions, and preferences of being active.The results were explained descriptively about gender differences.

Findings
According to responses to the questionnaires, the researcher found the phenomenon regarding the students' perception of the strategies to improve English skills dealing with gender difference which elaborated as follow:

Students' Reluctance to Speak English with Different Gender
The first observed aspect was whether the students feel reluctant to speak English with a different gender.Of the whole population, there were more female students than male students who felt reluctant to speak English to a different gender.
There were 80% of female students who felt reluctant to speak English to male students whereas only 50% of male students felt reluctant to speak English to female students.
Male students also neutralize their reluctance by saying that no difference at all, in which they could communicate using English well to both genders.Of the rest of the male respondents 50% felt more enjoyable speaking English with their female counterparts.Some of them stated that different thoughts between women and men

Students' Preferences in Expressing Opinions
Based on two important productive skills in English, writing and speaking, as the way to express their opinions in English, each female and male respondent had different preferences.There were more male students (60%) than female students (80%) who preferred uttering their opinions.On the other hand, 20% of female students and 40% of male students preferred writing to speaking to express opinions.Their reasons for expressing their opinions either in written or oral form can be seen in Table 3.

Males' reasons to choose writing
Males' reasons to choose to speak Writing will give time to breathe and to think about the appropriateness of the words chosen.

It takes no time in expressing things
Writing has a broader chance of getting fewer mistakes Could show the ability to speaking Feel free to write anything Feel free to speak Based on Table 3 and Table 4, the researcher concluded that female students chose to speak English to convey their opinions by using their gestures, body language, and facial expressions.It is one of the simplest ways for them to voice their ideas.Then, more male students preferred to write English to communicate their assumptions.In working with a group, female and male students also had different preferences, either single or mixed-gender groups when it came to group projects.The single group refers to individuals of the same gender, such as females.Whereas, the mix-gender group works with people of different genders, such as males and females.In this research, males (50%) chose to work with mixed-group, while others chose to work with mixed-group.Besides, the female students preferred working with single-group (60%) whereas there were only 40% of female students preferred workings with mixedgroup.Female students chose to work with a single-gender group that an ed-gender group.Then, male students preferred working with the mixed-gen groups.

Gender
There are some reasons for male students working with a single-gender group, such as similar thoughts to express something, being more cooperative, and the easiest way to build good teamwork.On the other hand, different gender had a different thoughts.It got every perspective when discussing things.Female students preferred working with a single-gender group, they built a cooperative team and got a similar way of thinking.Besides, they chose to work with different gender because they could see a different point of view and had better insights.

Students' Preference to be Active or Passive in English Class
In English language learning, the students tend to be active in the class because it can improve their speaking skills.Based on the online questionnaire, some students tend to be passive because they want to get more vocabulary first and then they will explore or improve it by themselves.From the answer to the online questionnaire, 20% of the female students liked to keep silent and the male students only 30%.Then, the rest of the female students 80% tend to be active and try to develop their skills.Of the male students, there were 70% who are being active in the class.The reasons for being active and silent in English class can be seen in Table 5 as follows:

Discussion
According to the findings, it is found that female and male students have different strategies for learning English.Tymson (1998) categorized the distinction between male and female communication styles.As indicated in Table 1, both female and male students were constrained by their perceptions of their counterparts.Female students, felt reluctant to speak with male students because sometimes male students were rough and difficult to understand.Female students also thought that male students were arrogant in delivering opinions or ideas.Besides, male students felt reluctant to speak English with female students due to the reason that females get offended easily.
Sometimes female students were talkative and selfish.For both female and male students was mostly caused by their self-confidence in speaking skills.They were not confident and afraid to make mistakes with their English speaking skill.Therefore, they were nervous and ashamed of making pronunciation errors in front of different gender in English class.It caused less freedom to express their English ability.
Moreover, the result of the data indicated that more females felt reluctant to speak English to a different gender.This finding is supported by Nurjanah (2017), it explained about females will frequently employ politeness when conversing with their similar gender.Speaking English to the same gender was more effective than speaking to a different gender.Conversely, males speaking to either the same or different gender were similar because male students wanted to know more knowledge from a different gender.In fact, they could also enjoy talking to female students.This shows that gender differences influence the tendency of female and male students to speak to a different gender.Feeling reluctant to speak to different gender female students indicates that they are not confident and are nervous.This may give a vital impact on the students' freedom to speak English.Less freedom made them less powerful showing their inferior position.
In terms of the productive skills to choose to express opinions, the data also show different patterns.Female students preferred to choose speaking as the way to Gender Differences, Male and Female Students, English Language Learning 102 express their opinion in English in order to show the gesture, mimic, and intonation through speaking.On the other hand, 60% of male students chose to speak as an effective way of expressing opinion effectively regardless of their lack of English.In fact, male students considered speaking as a way to show their English ability.This also shows the great effects of gender differences in the strategies chosen by female and male students to express their opinions.Females' higher tendency to express their opinion by speaking performance which becomes one indicator of women's language based on Janet Holmes (2013) in the discussion of Gender and Age.
The study also indicated the different tendencies of female and male students in working with groups.40% of female students preferred working with the single group whereas male students 50% preferred working with the mixed single group.As shown in Table 5, females thought that working with a single group made them more confident as they could easily control their emotions.Talking to a single group made them easier to reduce some psychological problems due to their limited English skills.For example, being ashamed of making mistakes in pronunciation.However, male students felt enjoyable when they were working with a different group and also a single group (male).In fact, working with the same gender was not challenging for them.This also shows the impact of gender differences on their strategies for learning English.
Different preferences in working with groups indicate their learning styles as affected by gender differences.Males' preferences in working with different gender show their tendency to challenge the differences in a more dynamic situation whereas females tended to be more monotonous showing their less confidence and less certainty.
Another fact differentiating female and male students in English learning is their tendency to be active or to be passive in the English classroom.This is very important in the English classroom as their strong activity in the class will contribute much to their English proficiency, especially in speaking.There were 80% of female students tend to be active because most of them were talkative in class.Moreover, male students were 70% who liked to be active.This shows the activeness of female and male students in studying English.As indicated in Table 4 above, the activeness of male students was influenced by their need to know and do more, to show ambition and aspiration as men, or to show off.In fact, they considered that that was their nature to be active. ) Women are different from men not only in verbal communication but also in nonverbal communication.One study bySud et al (2019)looked at women to be better leaders.At this stage of the evolution of human society, women seem to have some advantage in the power dynamics caused by nonverbal communication.It explores various nonverbal behaviors like appearance, gestures, facial and eye expressions,

Table 1 . Male and Female Style of Communication Male Style Female Style
Gustafsson Sendén, idea or opinion.It is different from female students in which only 20% of them were not reluctant to speak English with their male counterparts.Their reasons can be seen in the following table: