Is there a relationship between shyness and English proficiency level of bilingual and monolingual EFL learners

It would be mention that bilingualism can be defined in different ways. For example, Maleki (2011) asserted that individual level includes consecutive or simultaneous learning which involves the content of achievement, ability, language competence and proficiency. However, social level contains complex phenomena of minority and migrants and focuses some matters like domain and diglossia. These are useful in interpreting the various ways that linguistic resources are organized in multilingual communities. In these communities, there are some phenomena like transfer, borrowing, code switching and interference. The current study seeks to examine the effects of the role of shyness in English proficiency level of Bilingual EFL Learners in Komijan (in the province of Markazi) and Monolingual EFL learners in Arak (in the province of Markazi). The number of subjects were 98 and all of them were male .The age range of learners was 12 to 15. Thus, Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale (RCBS) was used to measure the shyness level of both bilingual and monolingual learners. Results of the One-way ANOVA indicated that different level of shyness was not significant among bilingual and monolingual learners. It also indicated that bilingual students outperformed monolingual students in General English Proficiency.


What is Bilingualism?
The main purpose of this study was to investigate interactions between shyness and proficiency level of Bilingual and Monolingual EFL Learners. Thus, researchers first explain about bilingualism briefly and the importance of shyness.
As Maghsoudi (2010) has mentioned in his paper bilingualism is a difficult impression to define and there is no general agreement to do a limited informal conversation, but setting specific limitations on proficiency or representing comprehension of another speaker or how much the speaker in question is speaking is impossible. Karbalaei (2010) expressed his idea about definition of bilingualism in this way: a bilingual person can speak more than one language. But defining bilingualism becomes more complicated when anybody thinks about the exact meaning of language and how it can be defined things like fluency.
Kalyani & Sampath (2005) reported that bilingualism's effects on learning a second language can be considered as a universal phenomenon in a monoculture country such as India. So, this effect on cognitive process isn't problematic but it is important in determining situations that bilinguals are likely to retard or accelerate growth. Aa a matter of fact, the level of bilingual competency is emphasized as an intervening variable in mediating the effects of their bilingual experiences on cognition. Merrikhi (2012) asserted that one of the most important issues is bilingual acquisition for investigators. So, there is a widespread discussion about the children of bilingual parents who are linguistically at risk and their brains will not be able to manage and it can be say that they will grow up -semi lingual, confused or retarded As a matter of fact fluency displayed by millions of bilingual and trilingual children all over the world. By the time bilingual children arrive in school like their monolingual peers reached the same stage of linguistic development. But the process of learning two languages is not exactly the same as the process of learning one. Edwards (2003) first started his discussion by asking a question about the importance of bilingualism: Why should bilingualism (or multilingualism) be particularly important? After all, the majority of people in the world can use in more than one language and we know that it is monolingualism that is an aberration, a difficulty of the influential and a disease to be treated.

2. The importance of shyness
About the importance of shyness, as Tanveer (2007) said that "learners of English language often express some feelings like anxiety, stress or nervousness while learning to speak English Language and declare to have, a 'mental block' against learning English." On the other hand, Baş (2010) argued that: Shyness belongs to a particular category. For example, one such category sees shyness as a subjective experience which is presented as nervousness and apprehension in interpersonal encounters (Buss, 1980;Leary & Schlenker, 1981;Zimbardo, 1977). Buss (1980) defined shyness as an inhibition of expected social behavior followed by feelings of tension and awkwardness. So, shyness can be regarded as a social phenomenon, and a type of social anxiety. As Stockli (2002) pointed out: In a study that was done in the US about the relationship between gender and shyness, Caspi, Elder and Bem (1988) reported relationships between shyness in childhood and coping with various developmental tasks in adulthood.
This study basically attempted to answer the question about the effect of shyness on English proficiency level of bilingual and monolingual learners. Therefore the following hypotheses are formulated: H1: Bilingual male learners are shyer than monolingual male learners. H2: Regarding the level of shyness in subjects, there would be significance difference between monolingual and bilingual males in General English proficiency.

1. Participant
The initial sample of this study consisted of 98 students with the age range of 12 to 15. They consisted of two groups 1) 48 monolingual students have been lived in Arak. 2) 50 International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences Vol. 33 51 bilingual students have been lived in Komijan. Due to a background questionnaire some information about subjects were elicited, Group A included 5o male monolinguals and Group B included 45 male bilinguals.

Instruments
Different materials which were used in this study include:

a) Background questionnaire
The researchers used background questionnaire in order to elicit some information as: the subjects' full name, their age, name of their school and the language/languages they use. Since English proficiency test scores are tabulated out of 50, each question had one score. All parts were in the form of Multiple-Choice questions. In order to make sure of the reliable proficiency test at the piloting stage, the test was given to 15 students, who were selected randomly, and its reliability was estimated through the K-R21 formula as .85, therefore the test was found reliable for the purpose of this study .
The total time allotted to the test was also determined at the pilot stage as 40 minutes. Duration of the test was estimated by calculating the time spent by the fastest and the slowest students in answering the test divided by 2. Thus, the time allotted to the test was:

3. Procedures
The following procedures were adopted in order to meet the objective of this study. Phase 1: The Background questionnaire was given to the subjects to fill them out. Phase 2: Revised cheek and buss shyness scale (RCBS) has taken to both male and female learners by researchers. The items are answered on a 5-point Likert scale. The scale items are written so as to tap into affective and behavioral aspects of shyness without referring to the desire to seek out or avoid social interactions (r = -.30) (Leary, 1991). Phase 3: The Transparent test was given to 98 male monolingual and bilingual students. They are male and female guidance school students who were monolingual and bilingual. Two groups of High and Low language proficiency levels were identified, that is, those whose scores were 1SD below the mean were taken as Low and those whose scores were 1SD above the mean as High level, making 98 students in total.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In order to analyze obtained data, the researchers computed them by means of the statistical package SPSS .The kinds of analyses that were used included one way ANOVA and independent sample's t-test to determine whether or not there is a difference in mean between the two groups -if it existed -was significant at the .05 level. So, statistical representation of the analyzed data is given in Table 1 and figure1as follow: Regarding obtained mean, there's not a statistically significant difference between male monolinguals and male bilinguals in terms of shyness level (p > 0/05). Therefore the first hypothesis was rejected.
In order to see if the hypotheses of this study were approved or rejected, the one-way ANOVA and t-test statistics were calculated between the scores obtained by monolingual and bilingual subjects on the General English proficiency. Table 1 and figure1 indicates mean proficiency scores of male monolinguals and male bilinguals in General English proficiency

54
Volume 33 Regarding statistical analysis, the second hypothesis (Shyness has more effect on bilingual learners.

CONCLUSIONS
Final results indicated that there's not a statistically significant difference between the shyness level of the male mono and bilinguals. So the first hypothesis was rejected. On the other hand, analysis of data indicated that there is a significant difference between English language proficiency level of male mono and bilingual students because male bilinguals scored higher than male monolinguals. In one study by Crozier (2005), he has mentioned that students were not different in total shyness scores regarding their gender differences; however, there were differences between two out of 14 items in revised cheek and buss shyness scale (RCBS).

NO.
Question Answer

5.
Language or languages spoken at home (home language)