THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FOREIGN LANGUAGE ENJOYMENT AND GENDER AMONG SECONDARY GRAMMAR SCHOOL STUDENTS

Abstract

In the context of second language acquisition, foreign language enjoyment (FLE) is a relatively new concept. For that reason, none of the few research carried out in the field thus far has been focused on whether gender might be an important determinant of either a high or a low level of FLE. Thus, the purpose of the present paper was to examine the influence of FLE on learning English as a foreign language, as well as to investigate this relationship from the perspective of gender. The results of this study revealed that there are no statistically significant differences between males and females in FLE, while such differences are found in terms of the sources of FLE each gender perceives as the most crucial ones. It has been proved that FLE increases with the level of students’ proficiency, and a high level of FLE results in students’ greater academic achievement.