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1. Introduction
“Men and women almost seem to be from different planets， speaking different languages and needing different nourishment.”（John Gray2004） Remember that the title of John Gray’s book， Men Are from Mars， Women Are from Venus is a metaphor or conceit - we don’t really come from different planets. Though men and women share a common social space or environment， they are different in many aspects.Gender difference is one of the important factors which affect language learning. For many years ，English teachers have such kind of feeling that girls are better than boys in English study. According to some boys in China，no matter how hard they try in learning English， it seems that they can’t learn English well. With the purpose of discovering the causes of this problem and searching for some useful implications for the classroom teaching， I take on gender differences in language learning as my literature review topic.
2. Gender Differences in Affective Aspect of Language Learning
Researches on language learning attitudes， motivation， beliefs from the gender perspective are of particular significance to this paper. Among such academic inquiries are Boynton and Haitema （2007）， Mori and Gobel’s （2006）， Nikitina and Furuoka （2007） studies. Boynton and Haitema （2007） investigated student attitudes toward early foreign language learning of a total number of 52，227 children in 2 elementary school systems in North Carolina over a 10-year period. Either French or Spanish was studied by the children as a foreign language. The results indicated that both boys and girls had positive attitudes toward foreign language classes and teachers. When asked the desire to continue with the foreign language study in the next grade， female students showed a positive incline， while male students were neutral.
Using two famous motivational models， which are Expectancy-value Theory and Gardner’s Socio-educational Model， Mori and Gobel （2006） sought to explore the differences in motivational sub-constructs from the gender perspective. The participants were 453 second-year non-English major students in a Japanese university. In analyzing the data， there was a multidimensional construct consists of many factors such as integrativeness， intrinsic value， motivation， as well as attainment value. The results revealed significant gender differences in integrativeness， with the female students scoring much higher compared to the males.
3. Gender difference in sensory preference Visual students prefer to learn by seeing. Therefore they like to read a lot，which requires concentration and time spent alone. Visual students need the visual stimulation of bulletin boards， videos， and movies. They must have written directions if they are to function well in the classroom. Statistics show that 50% of an 80% of the learners are visual learners； there is no significant gender difference.
A learning style preference characterized by tactile and kinesthetic way might be related to the spatial ability prominent in the masculine gender role. Because males do seem to have an edge in some spatial learning tasks， language teachers might expect that their tactile and kinesthetic students would more often be males than females. It is also possible to predict that nontraditional females （women who have chosen to follow gender–role patterns different from the traditional norm） would show these preferences more frequently than traditional females.
4. Gender difference in cognitive preference
Gender difference has often been found for field–independence/field– dependence through many different measures： tests of perception in titled rooms， embedded figures tests， and rod–and–frame tests. As adolescents and adults—and sometimes even children—males are usually more field–independent and females are more field dependent. Field– independent learners， often males， have advantages in language achievement （Hansen
“Men and women almost seem to be from different planets， speaking different languages and needing different nourishment.”（John Gray2004） Remember that the title of John Gray’s book， Men Are from Mars， Women Are from Venus is a metaphor or conceit - we don’t really come from different planets. Though men and women share a common social space or environment， they are different in many aspects.Gender difference is one of the important factors which affect language learning. For many years ，English teachers have such kind of feeling that girls are better than boys in English study. According to some boys in China，no matter how hard they try in learning English， it seems that they can’t learn English well. With the purpose of discovering the causes of this problem and searching for some useful implications for the classroom teaching， I take on gender differences in language learning as my literature review topic.
2. Gender Differences in Affective Aspect of Language Learning
Researches on language learning attitudes， motivation， beliefs from the gender perspective are of particular significance to this paper. Among such academic inquiries are Boynton and Haitema （2007）， Mori and Gobel’s （2006）， Nikitina and Furuoka （2007） studies. Boynton and Haitema （2007） investigated student attitudes toward early foreign language learning of a total number of 52，227 children in 2 elementary school systems in North Carolina over a 10-year period. Either French or Spanish was studied by the children as a foreign language. The results indicated that both boys and girls had positive attitudes toward foreign language classes and teachers. When asked the desire to continue with the foreign language study in the next grade， female students showed a positive incline， while male students were neutral.
Using two famous motivational models， which are Expectancy-value Theory and Gardner’s Socio-educational Model， Mori and Gobel （2006） sought to explore the differences in motivational sub-constructs from the gender perspective. The participants were 453 second-year non-English major students in a Japanese university. In analyzing the data， there was a multidimensional construct consists of many factors such as integrativeness， intrinsic value， motivation， as well as attainment value. The results revealed significant gender differences in integrativeness， with the female students scoring much higher compared to the males.
3. Gender difference in sensory preference Visual students prefer to learn by seeing. Therefore they like to read a lot，which requires concentration and time spent alone. Visual students need the visual stimulation of bulletin boards， videos， and movies. They must have written directions if they are to function well in the classroom. Statistics show that 50% of an 80% of the learners are visual learners； there is no significant gender difference.
A learning style preference characterized by tactile and kinesthetic way might be related to the spatial ability prominent in the masculine gender role. Because males do seem to have an edge in some spatial learning tasks， language teachers might expect that their tactile and kinesthetic students would more often be males than females. It is also possible to predict that nontraditional females （women who have chosen to follow gender–role patterns different from the traditional norm） would show these preferences more frequently than traditional females.
4. Gender difference in cognitive preference
Gender difference has often been found for field–independence/field– dependence through many different measures： tests of perception in titled rooms， embedded figures tests， and rod–and–frame tests. As adolescents and adults—and sometimes even children—males are usually more field–independent and females are more field dependent. Field– independent learners， often males， have advantages in language achievement （Hansen