THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IRANIAN EFL LEARNERSʹʹ ASSERTIVENESS AND THEIR WRITING ABILITY

As human is a social creature, he/she needs social abilities to communicate and interact to society. A person with higher social abilities can achieve more success and happiness in social interactions. Assertiveness is one style of personality behavior which is the individualʹs ability to state his/her desires without violating the others’ right. In educational setting, learners can take the advantages of assertiveness to achieve success in their course of study. The present study investigated the relationship between Iranian English foreign language (EFL) learners’ assertiveness and their writing ability. The participants (n = 50) filled an 80-item self-perception questionnaire developed by Townend (1991). A test of writing (writing section of PET) was provided for learners to measure their writing ability. Based on learners’ performance on questionnaire, they were divided into two main groups of assertive and non-assertive learners. The results of correlation showed that there is a statistical significant relationship between assertiveness and writing ability. The results of ANOVA indicated that personality behavior groups were significantly different from each other regarding their performance on writing test. It was also reported that assertive learners outperformed on writing test. The results of this study may help EFL learners to develop their positive personality skills and achieve success in language learning.