GENDER DIFFERENCES IN VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES AMONG EFL SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to identify the most and the least use of Vocabulary Learning Strategies (VLS) by Indonesian EFL tenth graders and to determine whether there are statistically significant gender differences in the strategies used by male and female students. In order to improve students' ability to understand and communicate in English, expanding their vocabulary is an essential part of language learning. But students may use different strategies for learning new words depending on characteristics about themselves, such gender. Thirty male and thirty female students from Al-Irsyad Senior High School made up the sample for this quantitative cross-sectional survey. A Vocabulary Learning Strategies questionnaire that incorporates determination, social, memory, cognitive, and metacognitive strategies was used to collect data, with the questionnaire being adapted from Schmitt's VLS framework. Descriptive statistics, an independent samples t-test, and the Shapiro-Wilk normality test were used to assess the data. With mean scores ranging from 2.86 to 3.21, the results demonstrated that students utilized vocabulary learning tactics to a modest degree. Out of the five categories, strategies for memory and metacognition were the least employed, while social techniques were the most commonly used. There were statistically significant variations between the sexes in the memory, social, and determination strategies, but no differences in the cognitive or metacognitive strategies. When given the choice between independent and collaborative or memory-based tactics, male students favored the former. We need more diverse and inclusive vocabulary learning activities in EFL learners classes because the results show that gender can affect some parts of how people acquire new words