GENDER-RELATED LANGUAGE LEARNING BELIEFS IN POLISH ADOLESCENTS

The aim of the paper is to investigate language-learning beliefs of 488 (164 males and 324 females) Polish high school students in relation to their gender. Their responses to the Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory by Horwitz (1988) were explored by means of the U Mann-Whitney test. The main results show that for females English is a language of medium difficulty, but they believe they have a talent for language learning. They are also strongly motivated to learn English and ready to work hard in spite of feeling self-conscious when speaking in front of others. Males believe English is an easy language, and they are not keen to practice.