Gender difference in CALL Programs for English as a second Language Essay

Gender difference in CALL Programs for English as a second Language Acquisition - Essay Example Lai and Kuo have struggled to further prove this claim by evaluating the learning outcomes of both male and female counterparts making use of CALL programmes. 2. Aim: The study is conducted to identify the effects of language learning through CALL programs on gender basis. Many researches provide evidence that gender does affect the learning process. The basic distinction of this research paper is the evaluation of English learning pace and attributes in second language acquisition using CALL programs. Which means that this study also incorporates the evaluation of computer based learning on gender basis. The study also aims to identify the differences in the attitudes of male and female students towards learning, their differing views about learning efficacy, their differing levels of learning anxiety in learning language via CALL programs and the different learning barriers they identified. 3. Methodology: Proper methodology is mandatory to produce valid results. Lai and Kuo used b oth quantitative and qualitative techniques to produce reliable results. To develop initial understanding, Lai and Kuo, used different studies conducted by various researchers. They produced proper setting and created an appropriate understanding of the importance given to this area of research. The quantitative data was collected from a sample of 200 students of which 166 were female and the rest of 34 were male. The participants were given a questionnaire to gather data about EFL & CALL. The qualitative data was collected by interviewing 10 participants including 5 males and 5 females. The qualitative data aimed to identify the key challenges that each gender faces in learning language through CALL programs. ... The qualitative data aimed to identify the key challenges that each gender faces in learning language through CALL programs. 4. Results: The results of this research were divided into 4 parts. The first part was about the learning attitudes of male and female participants using Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) Programs. A fairly large number of male participants provided an affirmative result on the learning processes of language via CALL programs. In contrast to 91.1 percent males, only 42.7% females showed a positive result on using computer based learning for English language. Results on learning efficacy were also in line with this trend. Only 53.6 percent females believed that it may be helpful to increase learning efficacy whereas, 88.2 percent male participants believed that CALL programs are helpful in increasing the learning efficacy. A different result was found when the participants were asked about the learning techniques used in CALL programs. Both groups found it interesting to use computers in learning Language and a smaller population marked CALL programs as ‘boring’. In addition, majority believed that CALL programs may be more beneficial to enhance reading, writing and listening skills but less helpful in increasing speaking power. Learning anxiety was lesser in male (14.2%) counterparts on using computer as a learning tool as compared to female participants (19.2%). Learning barriers for female students was the difficulty of using the CALL programs’ software, whereas, the only big hurdle for the male participants was the availability of learning software due to expensive nature of new technologies. 5. Interpretation of Data: The results obtained by the authors were as expected if compared with other studies