GENDER DIFFERENCES ON LEARNING STYLES AND LEARNING STRATEGIES OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS OF STAIN KEDIRI

This paper tried to find out the gender differences in language learning styles and language learning strategies of the listening class students of English department of Stain Kediri. The study used the perceptual learningstyle preference questionnaire (PLSPQ) to investigate the learning style preferences and the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) version 7.0 designed by Oxford to find the learning strategy preferences of English department students. These were administered to 126 learners. The results indicated that there were differences between females and males students. Females students prefered auditory and group learning styles while males students prefer visual and kinesthetic learning styles. The result of learning strategies, female students showed that they took affective and social in their learning strategies with mean score was 36 and 35, while male students showed cognitive and compensation with the mean scores 36 and 38.5. It mean that minor and major learning styles were taken, major learning style is interpreted that the student feels comfortable with it, and uses it for important (to the student). Minor learning styles meaned that the student uses this mode but usually as a second choice or in conjunction with other learning styles.


I. INTRODUCTION
Students always show their interest in English class by participating in every skill.A part of them want more opportunities to take in free activity, expressing their wish towards a more communicatively oriented approach.On the other hand, there are those who would prefer more emphasis on grammar teaching.It is caused as many people has various styles and techniques.Everyone has a mingle of learning styles.Some people might find that they have a dominant style of learning, with far less use of the other styles.Others may find that they use different styles in different circumstances.There is no right mix.Nor are your styles fixed.You can grow ability in less dominant styles, as well as further develop styles that you already use well.

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In facts that the teacher, in making decisions regarding the type of activities to conduct in a language classroom, should take into account such learner diversities.How ever the result depend on teaching learning in the classroom, many strategies has applied due to increase their participation that aim to improve their achievements.The result of the achievement of English as foreign language is very variatif.
Unfortunately, even though this statement is probably accurate, most colleges still use the same curriculum, instructional methods, and assessment strategies for all students regardless of differences their learning and processing styles.Utilizing personal learning style is the way students process new and difficult material.It is needed to know their learning styles or teachers are not providing equal opportunities for all learners.Learning style studies are helpful for teachers and provide the means of understanding their own students' learning styles.With learning styles data they can match their teaching styles and classroom environment accordingly.In the literature, there are numerous quantitative studies demonstrating that teaching based on students' learning styles improves both classroom success and satisfaction.Learning styles seems to be a critical framework for processing information effectively.
According to the previous mentioned issue, it can be seen that learning style is one of the factors that can influence the achievement of English.There are many problems dialing with learning styles and learning strategies.However this study will only focus the following problems.They are;What are the learning styles preferences of listening class students?What are the learning strategies preferences of listening class students?

II. METHODOLOGY A. Reseach Design
This research design applied in this study is descriptive design since it tries to describe the current status of the objects dealing with the variable of the study.Kartadinata describes that descriptive study emphasizes on the actual or recent problem occuring at the present time, in a local area.Although it is about the actual or recent problem, the researcher may propose certain predictions1 .Best explain that the process of descriptive study involve the description, recording, analysis and interpretation of condition that exists2 .More spesific, this research applies the documentary analysis.This type of analysis is conducted by examining the students' work on their answer of questionaires.All answers are then explored and analyzed comprehensively to find the type of the learning styles and learning strategies.

Population and Sample
The population of this study is the English Department students of Stain Kediri and the sample is the second semester students.The sample is taken based on the consideration that second semester is early semester to know their learning preferences and learning strategies.The other instrument was the SILL questionnaire (Strategies Inventory of Language Learning) by Rebecca Oxford.The questionnaire is conducted on the learners of English as a foreign language.The SILL questionnaire is conducted by the lecturers who has already been informed about the function, steps and the conduction of the questionnaire beforehand.

B. Learning Style
Language Learning Styles is an internally based characteristics, often not perceived or consciously used by learners, for the intake and comprehension of new information reiterates that there are six major learning style preferences, covering visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, group and individual. 4irstly, students who prefer the visual learning style learn well from seeing words in books, on the chalkboard, and in workbooks.Students can remember and understand information and instructions better if their teachers read them.Students will not need a lot of oral explanation and they can learn alone with a book.Secondly, students who prefer the auditory learning style 'learn well from hearing words spoken and from oral explanation.Students can remember information by reading aloud or by moving their lips as they read; especially, when they are learning new materials.They will learn well from audiotapes, lectures, and class discussion.Thirdly, students who prefer the kinesthetic learning style learn best by experience or by being physically involved in classroom experiences.Students can remember information well when they actively participate in activities, role-play, field trips and etc. Fourthly, students who prefer the tactile learning style learn best when they have an opportunity to do 'hands-on' experiences with materials.That is, working on experiments in a laboratory, handling and building models, and touching and working with materials provide students with the most successful learning situations.Fifthly, students who prefer the group learning style learn best when they are studying in a group or at least with another student.Students value group interaction and class work with other students and can remember information better when they work with two or three classmates.The stimulation and motivation students gain from group work.
Learning styles are the general approachesfor example, global or analytic, auditory or visual -that students use in acquiring a new language or in learning any other subject.These styles are the over all patterns that give general direction to learning behavior 5 .The greatest relevance to this methodology book is this statement that learning style is the biologically and developmentally imposed set of characteristics that make the same teaching method wonderful for some and terrible for others 6 .This chapter explores the following aspects of learning style: sensory preferences, personality types, desired degree of generality, and biological differences.In relation to language learning styles, Willing identifies four major styles: communicative, analytical, authority-oriented and concrete 7 .These styles were derived from learner strategy preferences, which, in Willing's data, clustered in the following ways.Communicative: These learners were defined by the following learning strategies: they like to learn by watching, listening to native speakers, talking to friends in English, watching television in English, using English out of class, learning new words by hearing them, and learning by conversation.Analytical: These learners like studying grammar, studying English books and newspapers, studying alone, finding their own mistakes, and working on problems set by the teacher.Authority-oriented: The learners prefer the teacher to explain everything, having their own textbook, writing everything in a notebook, studying grammar, learning by reading, and learning new words by seeing them.While concrete is the learners tend to like games, pictures, film, video, using cassettes, talking in pairs, and practicing English outside class.However, Kolb explains that different people naturally prefer a certain single different learning style.Various factors influence a person's preferred style: notably in his experiential learning theory model (ELT) Kolb defined three stages of a person's development, and suggests that our propensity to reconcile and successfully integrate the four different learning styles improves as we mature through our development stages8 .The development stages that Kolb identified are: 1. Acquisition-birth to adolescencedevelopment of basic abilities and 'cognitive structures' 2. Specialization-schooling, early work and personal experiences of adulthood-the development of a particular 'specialized learning style' shaped by 'social, educational, and organizational socialization' 3. Integration-mid-career through to later life-expression of non-dominant learning style in work and personal life.
Whatever influences the choice of style, the learning style preference itself is actually the product of two pairs of variables, or two separate 'choices' that we make, which Kolb presented as lines of axis, each with 'conflicting' modes at either end: Concrete Experience-CE (feeling) -----V-----Abstract Conceptualization -AC (thinking)

Active Experimentation-AE (doing)-----V-----Reflective Observation -RO (watching)
A typical presentation of Kolb's two continuums is that the east-west axis is called the Processing Continuum (how we approach a task), and the north-south axis is called the Perception Continuum (our emotional response, or how we think or feel about it).These learning styles are the combination of two lines of axis (continuums) each formed between what Kolb calls dialectically related modes of grasping experience (doing or watching), and transforming experience (feeling or thinking).

C. Learning Strategies
Learning strategies have been in the centre of attention and they have gained great importance in the teaching-learning process.Oxford defines learning strategies as the specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective and more transferrable to new situations.Learning strategies are operations employed by the learner to aid the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information".It is an actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferrable to new situations.

D. Oxford's Classification of Language
Learning Strategies (LLS) Among all the existing learning strategy taxonomies Oxford provides the most extensive classification of LLS developed so far9 .However, when analysed, her classification is not something completely different from the previously discussed ones.On the contrary, Moreover, while O'Malley puts socioaffective strategies in one category, Oxford deals with them as two separate categories.Yet, a significant difference in Oxford's classification is the addition of the compensation strategies, which have not been treated in any of the major classification systems earlier.
Commonly, Oxford's taxonomy consists of two major Language Learning Strategies.They are Direct and Indirect Strategies.Direct strategies are those behaviours that directly involve the use of the target language, which directly facilitates language learning.Oxford resembles the direct strategies to the performers in a stage play, whereas she takes after the indirect strategies to the director of the same play.While the performers work with the language itself, they also work with the director who is responsible for the organization, guidance, checking, corrections, and encouragement of the performers.These two groups work hand in hand with each other and they are inseparable.
Direct strategies are divided into three subcategories: memory, cognitive and compensation Strategies.The first type of direct strategies is memory strategies, which consist of creating mental linkages, applying images and sounds, reviewing well, and employing actions.Memory strategies are the language learning strategies that directly involve the target language.11Memory strategies are usually used to link the verbal with the visual, which is useful for four reasons;the mind's capacity for storage of visual information exceeds its capacity for verbal material; the most efficiently packaged chunks of information are transferred to longterm memory through visual images, visual images might be the most effective mean to aid recall of verbal material, and visual learning is preferred by a large proportion of learners12 .
The second types of direct strategies is cognitive which defined as "skills that involve manipulation and transformation of the language in some direct way, e.g. through reasoning, analysis, note taking, functional practices in naturalistic settings, formal practice with structures and sounds, etc." 13 .It is such as summarizing or reasoning deductively, enabling learners to understand and produce new language by many different means.It has four sets, practicing, receiving and sending messages, analyzing and reasoning and creating structure for input and output.Rubin identified six main cognitive learning strategies directly contributing to language learning: Clarification/Verification, Guessing/ Inductive Inferencing, Deductive Reasoning, Practice, Memorization, and Monitoring.
On the other hand, compensation strategies allow learners to use the language despite their gaps in knowledge.It helps learners to use the target language for either comprehension or production in spite of the limitations in knowledge.It purposes to make up for a limited repertoire of grammar and particularly vocabulary.When learners do not know all the words, they make use of a variety of clues either linguistic or non-linguistic so as to guess the meaning.When learners are confronted with unknown expressions, they make use of guessing strategies, which are also known as inferencing.Compensation strategies are not only manipulated in the comprehension of the target language, but they are used in producing it.They enable earners to produce spoken or written expressions in the target language without complete knowledge of it.
The second group of strategies is indirect strategies that are 'the strategies that underpin the business of language learning'.It is called indirect because these strategies support and manage language learning without directly involving the target language.They consist of three subcategories as well namely Metacognitive, Affective, and Social ISSN: 1829-9571 e-ISSN: 2502-860X Strategies.Metacognitive strategies are defined as "metacognitive strategies, which means beyond, beside, or with the cognitive.Therefore, metacognitive strategies are actions which go beyond purely cognitive devices, and which provide a way for learners to coordinate their own learning process.14It consists of three strategies in this set, which is centering your learning, arranging and planning your learning and evaluating your learning.
These 'beyond the cognitive' strategies are used to provide 'executive control over the learning process"15 .Metacognitive strategies go beyond the cognitive devices and provide a way for learners to coordinate with their own learning process.They provide guidance for the learners who are usually "overwhelmed by too much 'newness' -unfamiliar vocabulary, confusing rules, different writing systems, seemingly inexplicable social customs, and (in enlightened language classes) non-traditional instructional approaches.It allows learners to control their own cognition.
Affective strategies: Oxford and Crookall define as a strategy that help to regulate emotions, motivations and attitudes.Knowing how to control one's emotions and attitudes about learning may influence the language learning process positively since it will make the learning more effective and enjoyable.It is also known that negative feelings can hinder progress.The control over such factors is gained through the manipulation of affective strategies.On the other hand, negative emotions can stunt progress.For instance, a certain amount of anxiety sometimes helps learners to reach their peak performance levels, but too much anxiety can stop language learning.Within this affective strategies, they consist of three sub-strategies that will help students to achieve it, which are lowering your anxiety, encouraging yourself and taking your emotional temperature.Teacher can play an active role in developing and exploiting affective strategies by building a generally positive atmosphere in the class.This can happen by encouraging and counselling learners, by helping them identify achievable aims and work towards autonomous learning, through personalising activities, and through pair and group work.
The third type of indirect strategies is social strategies; since language is a form of social behaviour, it involves communication between and among people.They enable language learners to learn with others by making use of strategies such as Asking for clarification, Asking for correction cooperating with peers, and cooperating with proficiency users of the new language, developing cultural understanding, and becoming aware of others thoughts and feelings.Yet, their appropriate use is extremely important since they determine the nature of communication in a learning context.
Several studies have been conducted on language learning strategies.Kaylani 16 also reports significant differences in strategy use between males and females.For the main sample of 255 students, there were significant differences at the p < .001level for MANOVA results with a main effect of sex on the SILL.Among the strategy categories used in the SILL, female students used significantly more memory, cognitive, compensation, and affective strategies than male students.There was no significant difference in the use of metacognitive and social strategies between the two genders.Wafa 17 reports on the current English language learning strategies used by Arabic-speaking English-majors enrolled at An-Najah National University in Palestine.The results of this study show that An-Najah Erna Nurkholida, Gender Differences on Learning Styles English majors use learning strategies with high to medium frequency, and the highest rank (79.6%) is for metacognitive strategies while the lowest (63%) is for compensation strategies.In general, the results show that gender and proficiency have no significant differences on the use of strategies.

E. Data Analysis
This research employs a simple quantitative statistical method to calculate the frequency and the percentage of the learning styles and learning strategies preferences.The score is got by answering the questionaires with the likert scale 1-5, add the numbers together and multiply the answer by 2. While the learning strategies as follows; write your response to each item (i.e., write 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5) in each of the blanks, Add up each column, put the result on the line marked SUM.Then divide by the number under SUM to get the average for each column.After that round this average to the nearest tenth, figure out your overall average.To do this, add up all the sums for the different parts of the SILL.Then divide by 50.

III. FINDING AND DISCUSSION
This section presents the results of the study and discusses the findings.The first part deals with the findings about the overall learning style preferences of listening class.To clarify what it has already been presented, the mean scores of male and female learning styles preferences were calculated.The mean score major learning style preference(s): score: 38 -50 minor learning style preference(s): score: 25 -37 negligible learning styles score: 0 -24.Table I shows the number of students who choose different types of learning styles based on PLSPQ questionnaires.As the total number of the participants were 126.The number of males are 21 and females are 105.
There are three major interpretations of language learning styles, which are major, minor and negligible.Major learning styles score show the student feels comfortable with it, and uses it for important (to the student) learning.A student does not necessarily have one and only one preferred style.Minor learning styles indicate that the student uses this mode but usually as a second choice or in conjunction with other learning styles.Negligible learning styles express the student prefers not to use this if other choices are available.
Table 2 showed the percentage of learning style preference between male and female.It is calculated number of them who choose different sorts of learning styles based on PLSPQ questionnaires.The result showed that male students prefer visual learning style with 57 % participation and kinesthetic learning style with 52 %.While female students chose auditory learning style get 63 % and group learning style as a minor learning style with 80%.From the result above it showed that most of listening class students prefered auditory as major learning style preference, it meaned that they learn from hearing words spoken and from oral explanation.They may remember information by reading aloud or by moving their lips as they read, especially when they are learning new material.They benefit from hearing audiotapes, lectures, and class discussion.They benefit from making tapes to listen to, by teaching other students, and by conversing with their teacher.
While kinesthetic as major learning style preference they learnt best by experience, by being involved physically in classroom experiences.They remembered information well when they actively participate in activities, field trips, and role-playing in the classroom.A combination of stimuli -for example, an audiotape combined with an activity -will help they understand new material.Meanwhile, tactile, auditory, group and individual were taken as minor learning styles.It indicated areas where they could function well as a learner.Usually, a very successful learner can learn in several different ways, and so they might want to experiment with ways to practice and strengthen their minor learning styles.
Table 1 and 2 showed the preferences of learning styles by both males and females.As it can be seen, the visual learning style was chosen as a major style by both groups with mean score 38 for males and minor style 37 for females.The tactile style was chosen as a minor style by males (mean=36) and a minor style by females (mean=35).For the auditory style, it was chosen as a minor style by males (mean=35) and a major styles by females (mean=38).For the group style, it was chosen as a major style by both groups (mean= 41 for males and 38 for females).For the kinesthetic style, it was chosen as a minor style by males (mean=35) and a major style by females (mean=36).Finally, for the individual style, it was chosen as a minor styles for males (mean=35) and a minor style by females (mean=36).
The results showed that for the visual style, males could learn well with the eyes (seeing).For males they could learn best in it.For the tactile, females and males could learn well with hands-on activities.For the auditory, females could learn best and males can learn well with the ears (listening).For the group style, both females and males could learn best when they were working with their friends but females tend to learn with this style better than males.For the kinesthetic, males could learn best and females could learn well with experiential learning.Lastly, for the individual style, females and males could learn well or working alone.The results of the descriptive statistics conducted to identify the general tendency of strategy preferences of the participants in this study, it was indicated that the most preferred strategy category of male students were cognitive with a mean score of 31.2.Compensation strategies ranked the second with an average of 27.4.The third place in the ranking order was taken by the metacognitive strategies with a mean score 22.7.The mean scores of the affective was 20.1 as the fourth rank.Social strategies as the fifth with mean scores 19.8.The last preferences of learning strategy is memory strategy was 19.2.
However, the female students took different choice of their learning strategies, social learning strategy is dominated with percentage was 62 %.Then, affective was in the second option with 25%, later the students chose compensation learning strategies as fourth row with 4.2%.Three last choices were cognitive, metacognitive and memory.
From all of these results above it can be seen that listening class female students prefered social strategies that since language is a form of social behaviour, it involves communication between and among people.They are enable language learners to learn with others by making use of strategies such as asking questions, cooperating with others, and empathising with others.Yet, their appropriate use is extremely important since they determine the nature of communication in a learning context.The other students who chose affective strategies that presented techniques like self-reinforcement and positive self-talk which helped learners gained better control over their emotions, attitudes, and motivations related to the language learning.Knowing how to control one's emotions and attitudes about learning may influence the language learning process positively since it would make the learning more effective and enjoyable.Compensation strategies was used as they helped learners to use the target language for either comprehension or production in spite of the limitations in knowledge.They aimed to make up for a limited repertoire of grammar and, particularly vocabulary.When learners were confronted with unknown expressions, they made use of guessing strategies, which are also known as inferencing.When learners did not know all the words, they made use of a variety of clues either linguistic or non-linguistic so as to guess the meaning.Compensation strategies were not only manipulated in the comprehension of the target language, but they were used in producing it.They enabled earners to produce spoken or written expressions in the target language without complete knowledge of it.
Cognitive strategies as fourth choice showed the skills that involve manipulation and transformation of the language in some direct way, e.g. through reasoning, analysis, note taking, functional practices in naturalistic settings, formal practice with structures and sounds, etc.They were not only used for mentally processing the language to receive and send messages, they are also used for analysing and reasoning.
In addition for metacognitive, they used for centring, arranging, planning, and evaluating one's learning.These 'beyond the cognitive' strategies were used to provide 'executive control over the learning process metacognitive strategies go beyond the cognitive devices and provide a way for learners to coordinate with their own learning process.They provided guidance for the ISSN: 1829-9571 e-ISSN: 2502-860X learners who were usually "overwhelmed by too much 'newness' -unfamiliar vocabulary, confusing rules, different writing systems, seemingly inexplicable social customs, and (in enlightened language classes) non-traditional instructional approaches.
The last preference was memory strategies that could be understood they specifically tailored to help the learner store new information in memory and retrieve it later".They were particularly said to be useful in vocabulary learning which was "the most seizable and unmanageable component in the learning of any language.

IV. CONCLUSION
The researcher finds different learning styles and learning strategies both female and male students.The other effect of this study is treat students with further chance to use LLS is more frequently.It is a must for a language teacher today to familiarize the learners with the most common language learning strategies.First teacher identifies or indicate the student's language of their current strategies, explain the reasons and applications to use the additional learning strategies, provide opportunities and materials for practice, and evaluate or help students to evaluate their success rate with new learning strategies.Students and teachers need to know personal learning style preferences of the students or we do not provide equal opportunities for all learners.
In conclusion, there is difference preferences in learning styles and language strategies of second semester of English department students.The dominated language learning styles are visual and kinesthetic language learning styles for male students while audio and group languge learning styles for female students.There are two preferences of language learning strategies for male students namely cognitive and compensation and affective and social for female students.Gender difference can originate from biological and socialization related causes.The gender difference may have been associated with women's greater social orientation, stronger verbal skills, and greater conformity to norms, both linguistic and academic.
Oxford's taxonomy overlaps with O'Malley's taxonomy to a great extent.For instance, the Cognitive Strategies category in O'Malley's classification seems to cover both the Cognitive and Memory Strategies in Oxford's taxonomy 10 .

Table 2 Percentage of Students for Male and Female Learning Style Preferences
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