Relations of Some Socio-cultural Variables and Attitudes and Motivations of Young Arab Students of English as a Foreign Language: A Comparative Study of Gender Differences

Abstract

This paper examines a number of variables pertaining to the role of socio-cultural outlooks of male and female young learners of English as a foreign language and the relationship of these outlooks on the type of attitudes and motivations they possess prior to their learning of the language. Results of the study indicate clearly that certain variables tend to associate with their attitudes and motivations more than others. The variability of the maid tends to associate with most of the females’ tested psycholinguistic variables and not with any of males’. However, possession of English stories and having some sort of English games at home tend to associate with most of males’ motivational and attitudinal factors. These tend to associate less with females’. The pedagogical implications for these results are discussed.