monolingual

Purpose: This study investigated the relationship between gender and bilingualism with English learning among 7-11 years old students. Methodology: 261 students (124 girls and 157 boys) were selected through multi-stage sampling method from elementary school. Employing check list the level of English scores was obtained .The children's private speech obtained from listening to them when they were solving a puzzle in group. Findings: An independent t test showed that there was no significant relationship between bilingualism and English scores (p<05/0). Furthermore an ANOVA test indicated that there was a significant relationship between the type of private speech and English scores (p<0/01). A Sheffe post hoc showed that the solving private speech had the significant relationship with high performance in English scores among four types of private speech: Solving speech, Task relevant speech, non- facilitative Coping/ reinforcing speech and task- irrelevant speech. Discussion: considering the nature of the "solving private speech" indicates that this kind of private speech had a more meta-cognitive nature which leads to better cognitive function such as learning English.

Expressing doubt and certainty in academic writings requires a cautious use of hedges and boosters. Despite their importance in academic writing, little is known about how they are used in monolingual and bilingual male and female EFL learners’ academic writings. To shed some lights on the issue, the present study investigated the use of hedges and boosters in research articles written by monolingual and bilingual male and female EFL learners. Based on the collected corpus from twelve academic research articles, the overall rhetorical and categorical distribution of hedges and boosters were identified across four sections of these articles (Abstract, Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusion). The results evinced that the overall distribution of hedges and boosters in research articles written by bilinguals was higher than that of monolinguals. Moreover, there were significant differences between male and female EFL learners in the use of hedges and boosters in their academic research articles. These findings not only paved the way for further studies in the use of hedges and boosters but they also presented some beneficial implications for teaching of academic writing to EFL learners.