Contributory Role of Intermediate Iranian EFL Learners' Risk-taking Strategies in Improving their Speaking Fluency: The Case of Gender

Abstract

The present study was an attempt to investigate the relationship between male and female Iranian EFL learners’ risk-taking and their use of language learning strategies to improve their speaking fluency. To this end, 50 intermediate EFL (English as a foreign language) learners (30 males and 20 females) were selected from a language institute in Isfahan, Iran. They ranged in age from 18 to 24 years old. The subjects were divided into two groups (males vs. females). Prior to the start of the experiment, a QPT test was administered to Data Collection of the learners. They also took part in a semi-structured interview. A two-way ANOVA was used to analyze the data. The results demonstrated that there was a significant relationship between risk-taking behavior and speaking fluency. The results revealed that the higher risk-takers had a better speaking fluency. The results demonstrated that high risk taking learners could obtain the highest fluency scores compared to moderate and low risk-taking learners. Also, it was observed that gender did not modify the effect of risk-taking level on the speaking fluency of the intermediate Iranian EFL learners.