Discourses used by male and female teachers in language classrooms at secondary level

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Premise
1.2 Problem Statement
1.3 Hypotheses
1.4 Objectives
1.5 Significance of the Study
1.6 Definitions of Terms

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 What are Discourse Strategies?
2.2 Subject Position Affects Discourse
2.3 Gender Affects Classroom Environment

CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Population
3.3 Instrument
3.4 Research Design
3.5 Procedure

CHAPTER 4
DATA ANALYSIS
4.1 Introduction

CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSION
5.1 Findings
5.2 Recommendations
5.3 Concluding Remarks

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Appendixes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Praise to Allah, the most Beneficent, the most Merciful and the most Omniscient, who bestowed upon me all the mental abilities and encouraging milieu to accomplish this task. The completion of my thesis would not have been possible without the cooperation of many, who provided their precious support in different ways. I want to pay my heartfelt gratitude to all those people, who supported me tremendously.

I wish to express my gratefulness to my Parents who supported me all my way to complete my Masters degree, to my supervisor, Mr. Furrakh Abbas for his nearly two months of supervision, and especially for his marvelous support to guide me through my thesis, as well as for the time he has spent reading the various drafts of this thesis.

Finally, I express my thanks to my friends and peers especially Seemal Afzal and Sadia Latif for their constant support during this study. I would also like to acknowledge the help and support of the university administration.

ABSTRACT

It is obvious and widely acknowledged that discourses of male and female teachers are different and that affects the learning of students in a language classroom mostly as secondary level. The purpose of this study was to identify that this variation in speeches of male and female teachers affects the student and their responses vary accordingly, at secondary school level. Researcher made some hypotheses before initiating this research work. To measure the hypotheses an instrument was devised by the researcher. Questionnaire was the instrument used by the researcher for data collection.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Premise

Discourse is the word that describes the written and spoken communication.

In sociolinguistics and other domains of academia, discourse is known as the relationship between code real contexts. Most of the researchers relate discourse to the power structures in society which is directly related to the gender and the ways in their communication took place. These approaches discuss how men and women differently use the same language.

French philosopher Michel Foucault influenced the definition of word discourse in late 20th century and early 21st century as he defined it in terms of sign system which controls people’s action.

Keeping in view the Foucault's theories, most of the researchers analyzed gender in terms of existing social and cultural power structures. Foucaultian approaches of gender and discourse focuses on how gender and power is linked with each other.

At the same time a particular portion of gender discourse study shows the different ways in which language is used by men and women. These studies are always influenced by the culture or sub-culture of that particular area for instance a study of Malagasy-speaking people revealed women's speech to be more direct in that cultural context, while men's speech was more round-about.

But at the same time in many cultures women’s speech is more flexible and domestic than men’s language and his speech is portrayed as more powerful and direct one. Many theorists believed that this difference is because the discrimination is inculcated in them from young age when they are exposed to the social world as boys and girls irrespective to the innate biological differences between them. These differences give rise to the use of different discourses by them, while studying the distinct speeches of male and female language users it is seen that these various ways of communication also affects the teachers teaching in a language classroom and the students of that vary class.

This communication may be between teacher and student and may be among the students. Interaction between the teacher and a student is and has always been an attractive and a useful subject of study (See e.g. Sinclair and Coulthard 1975, Mehan 1979, Drew and Heritage 1992, Nassaji and Wells 2000, Cazden 2001, Seedhouse 2004, Walsh 2006, Lee 2007, Constantinou 2008) because discourse in the classroom always differs from discourse in a normal social setting, especially when the communication is considered from the gender’s point of view in EFL classroom (e.g.Sunderland 1992, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2006, Swann 1992, Lindroos 1995, Goddard and Patterson 2000), it can be extremely fascinating and useful. Teachers’ preference, unfairness and gender bias towards their students are usually considered to be prohibited in the world of education but this area of study must get its deserved attention. As Constatinou (2008: 28) says, that in previous years little attention is paid to gender bias. She adds that most of the teachers think that inequality in classroom is an old phenomena and if exists, only for female. “Reviewing that vary phenomena and addressing the gender issues is an important step toward educational equity” (Constantinou 2008: 28).

The concept of gender is wider than the only biological difference a male and a female have. The difference of personality and atmosphere as well as of context makes a boy different from a girl other than the innate difference between them. Along with all these social differences a teacher acts as a director and a guide for student to take certain directions and creating labels that are difficult to overcome. Teacher is the one who evaluates and responds to the student while in an interaction or pointing out an error in classroom. These responses are important as they play a significant role in the development and progress of a student. It is seen in a current study that teacher use different discourse according to the gender of student. Sunderland (1992: 81) says that the word “gender”, in the foreign is usually used for he and sexism in textbooks but it has other levels as well and those operates in language itself and classroom process and the communication of teacher and student also include student and student communication.

This present study will be concentrating the interaction of student and teacher and the influence of male and female speech on the students. While analyzing responses of students and these discourses, different approaches of discourse analysis must be kept in view. Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) are considered as the founders who discovered the secret of classroom discourse with the help of three part sequence which is usually there in classroom interaction. This sequence is called IRF (Interaction-Response-Feedback/Follow-up) and this is criticized studied and considered by many contemporary researchers (e.g. Nassaji and Wells 2000, Seed house 2001, Walsh 2006, Lee 2007).

As I studied this topic it was observed that much work has been done on gender bias but when it comes with the study of discourse strategies of male and female teachers in an English language classroom, there was not any previous study to be found. This study will be considering the ways of communication of male and female teachers in an EFL classroom, how they vary when interacting with a boy or a girl and the responses of students towards such attitudes of teachers will also be covered in this study with the help of IRF sequence.

1.2 Problem Statement

The research has been accomplished to find out the variation of responses in students, due to different discourse strategies of male and female teachers, at secondary school level.

1.3 Hypotheses

- Difference in discourse strategies of male and female teachers affect the students in a language learning classroom.
- Different speeches of male and female teachers are responsible for different responses of students in a language classroom.
- Students’ concepts are more strengthen by the direct instructions given by a male language teacher as compare to the cooperative instructions given by a female teacher.
- This direct and indirect speech of teachers affects the student psychologically and creates gender bias.
- Teacher in a language classroom is more sensitive to the gender of the pupil in terms of learning and response appropriately because of inevitable (social and biological) differences of boys and girls.

1.4 Objectives

- To find that difference in discourse strategies of male and female teachers affect the students in terms of learning in a language learning classroom.
- To discover that different responses of students in a language classroom are due to different speeches of male and female teachers.
- To check the variation in responses of students created by the comparative and cooperative instructions given by the language teachers.
- To provide the teachers an opportunity to create a learning environment, not affected by gender, to help the learner to learn language in more appropriate way.

1.5 Significance of the Study

It is important for the teacher to be conscious of gender differences in code, for example in language use, as they will be confronted in the classroom. At the same time the teacher should be well informed with the ways to respond to the language of boys and girls, taking gender differences into account in teaching and learning. Gender is something that can be constructed in the classroom, as the language classroom plays a vital role constructing gender. On the other hand many studies have revealed various ways that gender bias is kept in a language classroom, for instance boys seems more blunt even though there are students who are quiet in both sexes, boys are likely more positive and straight forward more than girls, they sit independently and wrote on topics related to “gender- typed” they are also bluntly disapproving towards girls. In addition, the teachers also distinct between the gender with its discourse sometimes for motivating the learner or otherwise, but if it stops this kind of behavior towards the language the students will be equally participating in the conversation. In this way the teacher unconsciously supports the gender discrimination among the students so it is suggested that teachers themselves should monitor all the aspects (activities, behaviors, texts and language etc.) of classroom interaction, and also take help from the strategies available in order to create equal opportunity for all students. However, too much dominant attitude of teacher could hinder teaching process, as this could be diverting the attention of teacher from other teaching aspects. In this study researcher will be finding the variations in discourse of male and female teachers which affects the responses of students and learning ultimately.

1.6 Definitions of Terms

1. A discourse is a set of connotations used for discussion in a group of people on a specific topic. It can be defined in a contracted or a wider sense and a narrow definition of discourse may be referring it to a written or spoken communication. However, discourse analysis gives a broader definition of it in which the ways how the language is used and perceived by the users according to their sociological and cultural behaviours all is discussed.
2. Discourse strategies refers to the ways in which language is used on different occasions, these are affected by the cultural and social attitudes prevailing in the society, for instance, the power structures of a society, which directly refers to the gender discrimination.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 What are Discourse Strategies?

Gumperz (1982) describes the discourse strategies as the verbal code used by people in a particular context for the purpose of communication. Teacher’s discourse strategy here means the organized and the shaped communication of him according to the teaching goals. Teachers use different strategies in order to ask questions and response differently according to the need of teaching methodology while interacting with a student. For more teachers can make use of different discourse strategies to develop and manage the discourse patterns in the classroom such as typical call response evaluation pattern, Cazden, (1986); what Lemke, (1990) describes as triadic dialogue.

It is important to understand that how to design activities in classroom and how to construct discourses because these affects a lot to students learning and his/her access to learning, are the words of, Gutierrez, (1994) in order to define the importance of discourse strategies. The discourse strategies vary from person to person and when it comes to the classroom that also varies from subject to subject. Teacher must be well aware from the variation of discourse strategies, as in a science classroom, to counter the questions of students related to their inquiry in a particular area of science, teacher must reply them with appropriate examples and in relating it to natural phenomena, Kuhn, (1970). To retain the student’s attention in classroom many science teachers use to ask questions related to the problematic aspects of their inquiry, and in response students provide reasons for it and so learning took place, Roth, (1993) suggests that this is an effective type of discourse where student is learning through questions and by using his cognitive abilities. But at the same time it is important to study how the activities are made and how the discourse should be constructed in order to provide the students learning opportunities, Gutierrez, (1994).

2.2 Subject Position Affects Discourse

The research shows that when teacher does not give equal opportunity to the students for expression of their ideas, he/she will be restricting the student’s access to the learning. It is suggested that teachers should encourage the students to verbalize whatever they want to say in terms of learning. When we talk about the discourse strategies of teachers which is affected by gender it means there are three kind of subjects in a classroom, the teacher, male students and the female ones, some researchers have shown that teachers favor boys by giving them more space to express their ideas in classroom, to inquire the reason, Joan Swann and David Graddol (1993), have done a on gender inequalities in two primary schools of Britain.

In their study, Swann and Graddol presented the issue that all the interaction in the classroom is authorized by the power structure of classroom that is the teacher, who focuses on the power relation and controls the amount of talk in the classroom, where it is not done collaboratively but asymmetrically. These unequal power relations are categorized as subject positions by Norman Fairclough, (1989) (...) a person has to act in different range of subjects, in order to behave well in social classification, one needs to use different discourse types, which they have learned (...) each kind of discourse shows the particular type of subject position and the one who is in that particular position has to adopt that vary discourse,(p. 102).

In a classroom there are two subjects, the pupils and the teachers, where it is necessary that if one is speaking the other should listen, it’s the responsibility of teacher to give proper opportunity to student to express his/ her ideas to make the learning process effective.

Study has also shown that this unequal opportunity of talk is not restricted between the teacher and student but also the students are subject to it. They do not participate in the classroom on equal basis, talking about the male and female students, it is seen that male students take much of teacher’s time in terms of class discussion and also contribute more to the classroom than the girls. Graddol and Swann,(1989), Fairclough, (1992), Graddol et alii,( 1993) Tannen, (1994), Magalhães, (1995) in their study are of the view that the same happens in the daily talk, the saying that women talk much and interrupt the men is untrue. It is shown in much of the statistics collected in this regard that, women are often interrupted by men and they are usually more talkative introducing new topics for discussions, Fishman, (1983), apud Fairclough, (1989).

All the above point of views shows that these are the attitudes of society towards the language and this inequality is influenced by social and cultural inequalities prevailing in the society, so it can be easily said that this attitude is not developed over night but taught to the people of society when they were in schools, because in school there seems to be three subject positions one is the teacher the other is male student and the third is female student. A study by Joan Swann and David Graddol demonstrates that in a primary classroom where the teacher asked students about their previous experience of learning lesson, the girls participated less than the boys. This was also shown that teacher asks more questions to boys and they get more opportunity to express their ideas while the girls were asked the rhetorical questions. If this is the situation the teachers are responsible for less access of female students towards the learning.

This also happens in an English language classroom where girls are provided with the less opportunities to talk and participate. Diana Hicks, has talked about the behavior of boys and girls in a language classroom and said that boys are more active than girls in classroom environment so are always in teacher’s eye, the same view is presented by the, Delamont, (1994), it is also shown that boys usually love to play games and participating in competitions because of their competitive nature they are ready for challenges all the time and when not getting it becomes frustrated. They are also having the attention problem, in order to gain the attention of teacher they use effective and creative techniques, but at the same time they lose interest in an activity when doing it for more than five minutes while girls do not, to retain their attention in the learning environment, may be a reason for teachers to focus on boys. In order to maintain the discipline of class the teachers usually pay more attention to the male students and called their name often, they are more interrupting in the discipline by standing away from their seats or doing other activities in the classroom, while the girls are not like this, they hardly mix up in the class. The fact cannot be denied that the male students in a classroom are the center of teacher’s attention and the talk of teacher is more or less, always controlled by the male students. In a language classroom, when the student has to find out the meaning of a word, he will not hesitate to ask the meaning from teacher but she preferably ask the person next to her or look up in the dictionary, all this happens because of less encouragement of teachers to the female students so become the effective language learner as well.

The teacher in a language classroom should not follow the subject position given by the society, rather he/ she should be more cooperative and able to manage the balance between the students in order to maximize their learning. Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) have given a framework which describes the classroom interactions. Their framework covers the interactions and not the aims and purpose of interactions of participants, their main focus was the use of patterns of English language in classroom. The purpose of it was to see how the different patterns used by teachers in planning their class activities and otherwise, affects the students. This study of teacher’s language pattern can be divided into two types, the first one is the inquiry of teacher’s language used in language classroom and the other is the investigation of the language used by teachers while teaching subject matter lessons, Gaise (1977, 1990) also said that teacher’s talk is simpler when measured in terms of grammatical formation of structure and meanings but complexity is seen when they are talking among themselves and discussing with the students.

The gender differences are also found in the teacher student communication, Kelly (1988) said that teachers are more inclined towards the interaction with boys than girls both in the interactions started by teacher or student. Teachers use to ask boys more questions and so on the other hand provide them more opportunity to response so, Kelly is of the view that teachers pay more attention to boys and girls are ignored by them, this attitude is shown in language classroom where English was learned as a second language and a classroom where it was taught as a foreign language. Dale Spender (1982) also found that her classroom instructions are also gender biased and she use to spend a minimum of 58% of her classroom time communicating with but her time spent in interacting with girls never exceeds from 42%.

2.3 Gender Affects Classroom Environment

Classroom environment is also affected by the gender, Canada and Pringle, (1995), Hopf and Hatzichristoo, (1999), Duffy, (2002). A study shows that the classroom environment vary with the gender of teacher so a class taught by a male teacher has different characteristics than the class of a female teacher, it will be having quick discussions, frequent interaction with student and sudden shifts of topics , on the other hand the class organized by a female teacher will be equipped with more communicative facilities and tolerant towards the use of L1, moreover female teachers ask such question which helps to smooth the concepts of students and make them fluent language speakers, (Chavez, 2000).

Doray (2005) and Rashidi and Rafiee Rad (2010), after studying all these differences in the teaching of male and female teacher’s behavior in the classroom revealed that the discourse patterns of male and female teachers in classroom are common to some extent, they said that the features of discourse are dependent on some factors, first depend upon the context and then on the role of communication with each other in the community it is practiced.

The interaction patterns of male and female students are also different from each other with their teachers studies in past, Meece, (1987) and recent years Francis, (2004) have shown that the male students participate much in classroom interaction than the girls. The other reason for teacher’s being more interactive with male students is that they initiates and responds to the teacher more than female students, (Meece, 1987). Since the male students are more indulged in classroom interaction than the female students so the teachers get more chance to interact with them, this is the view of Duffy, (2002). As Rashidi and Rafiee Rad, (2010) has observed in the context of Iran that the boys were more interacting with the teachers and they voluntarily answer the questions even if they do not know the answers, in this way their participation increase in the classroom environment. Another fact shown by the study is that the female students are more interested in pleasing the teachers and meeting their expectations, so they are often seen creating humor in the classroom, Chavez (2000). Male students use short fragments in speech and are addressed by teachers in complete sentences. So this is no denied the fact that a teacher and a female student form strong cooperative unit than the teachers and the male students, teachers more likely to call a female student as she enjoys the interaction more than her male peers while taking notes of teacher’s lecture. By keeping all these facts in view, there is still a controversy that classroom interaction is affected by the gender. Some studies show that teacher and student interaction is not affected by the gender while male and female teachers’ acts similarly without distinguishing their teaching methodologies and behavior in the classroom.

So many researchers have discussed the discrimination caused by both teachers and students. These discriminations can affect the quality of teaching and learning positively or negatively. As the issue of gender varies from country to country and influenced by cultures so these findings cannot be generalized, they will vary from context to context.

At primary level the students’ relation and perception with their teachers show that they devise classroom activities, strategies and curriculum while taking into account the gender of the pupil. Keeping this in view the fact suggests that the teachers asses their students learning abilities according to his/her gender, Gipps & Murphy, (1994), Epstein et al., (1998), Elwood, (2007).

The underachievement of boys make the teachers treat them differently than girls in terms of learning. Gurian, (2002), Neall,( 2002). This is such a perspective which shows that gender along with other variables affects the teaching and learning out puts, Gipps & Murphy, (1994) are of the view that while keeping in mind the attitude of teachers, it can be decided that whether the gender is affecting the classroom environment or not.

The researches show that the behavior of teacher is unconsciously influenced by the cultural and social ways of thinking, Wertsch, ( 1991), Elwood, (2005).

Enough literature is found on the topic that students are well aware of their status in their teacher’s view Woods, (1990), Rudduck et al, (1996) Day, (2004). At the same time further studies students and teachers show that their beliefs and attitudes are highly influenced by the socio-cultural, gender and ethnical beliefs present in the society, for instance a girl from a middle class family when admired publically on some achievement, feels pressure unconsciously, Walkerdine et al,( 2001). Some boys, particularly black boys, says that they are characterized as less academically able than the girls by their teachers, Wright et al,(2000), Frosh et al( 2002). Harlen’s (2004) report of research into assessment shows that teachers measure students’ differences in abilities according to gender. As the male students tend to misbehave in the classroom more than girls so they deserve to be awarded with lower grades. Research by French and French, (1984) shows that it is the boys who take much time of teachers and girls stood deprived from teacher’s time in a learning environment but Younger et al, (1999) says that the attention and time dominated by boys are not of straightforward nature.

Boys’ or girls’ performance in a task or in an educational activity can be affected by the context and the content of the task, it is affected in terms of the demands of the task and the style of response required for task, Gipps & Murphy,(1994), Elwood &Gipps (1998). The student must be aware of the possible ways of responses and the content and context of task so can effectively respond to the task.

It is important that boys and girls must be encouraged by the teachers and engaged with various activities, and teacher should also aware of their deep rooted gendered expectations of students so it may help him to set them on the right path in terms of learning, Walden & Walkerdine, (1985), Lingard & Douglas, (1999), MacNaughton,( 2000), Rensenbrink, (2001), Skelton & Francis, (2003).

The boys are underachieving because of the feminized teaching methodologies and because the male teachers’ can only provide them sensitive responses and they can only respond and assessed by male teachers in a right way, these findings are shown by, Browne & Fletcher, (1995), Pollack, (1998), Moir & Moir,(1999).

The teachers of UK, from past twenty years have been receiving the guidance from government that how the issues related to gender should be addressed; teachers are always on a receiving end in that context, in early days they were encouraged to offer a non discriminatory environment (Equal Opportunities Commission, 1984, p. 11) by decreasing the gender discrimination, by engaging the girls into science projects and science areas of curriculum while offering them the projects like Girls into science and technology, Whyte et al., (1985) and Girls and technology education, Whyld, (1983). There teachers at schools should be told that discrimination between boys and girls are a bad practice and must be avoided, but to cater the boys separate learning requirements is a good practice.

Discourses and gestures are the basic models used by teachers in a classroom; these are the interpretation of communicative strategies used by the teacher in a language classroom. Roth, (2001), says that in order to learn the information present in the lesson, the student should attend both the gestures and the speech of teacher.

Male and female teachers have different behaviors in their classes and there is a relationship between teacher’s gender and teacher, student interaction. Male teachers use to ask many display questions and female teachers ask more referential questions and female teachers are more interactive than male teachers either in a single gender classroom or a mixed gender classroom. Male teachers are more interactive in mix gender classroom but only with boys, Thorne (1979) and Sadker & Sadker (1992) found the same facts related to gender in classroom. Female teachers are more supportive than male and patient as well, they use to compliment their students and use less direct language. The student teacher interaction is affected by the gender of teacher and the students from different genders interact with their teachers differently, Chavez, (2000). In combine classes, the boys are more interactive and active participants and initiated the communication with the teacher and get more feedback from their teachers, Shomoossi, et.al.’s study (2008), is consistent with the above fact. The students also play an important role in highlighting classroom differences using different forms of interactions with the teachers and the teacher there is also active participants ,Shomoossi, et.al.( 2008, p. 180).

While studying the relevant literature it is found by the researcher that much work has been done on gender and issues related to gender especially the variable discourses used by male and female teachers in classrooms but how these different discourses affect the responses of students is not discussed much before. The current study is all about the variation in discourses of male and female teachers in classroom which cause the different responses by the students in a learning environment.

CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction

In this chapter the methodology of research and the process of data collection will be described. The data was collected to test the hypotheses which were made by the researcher before initiating the research work. This study focuses on how the responses of students vary due to difference in discourses of male and female teachers at secondary school level in Pakistani context. In this chapter researcher will be discussing the instrument of data collection, population which is involved in the study, research design and the complete process of research.

3.2 Population

Population is the group from which the researcher collects data to test the hypotheses. In this study total population size, determined by the researcher was eighty individuals both teachers and students. The sample taken from population for research comprises of forty individuals. This sample population was divided into two groups. First group consists of teachers and second group includes students of secondary level. There are twenty individuals in each group and from those individuals the researcher has collected the data to test the hypotheses. `The researcher has selected that sample at random from total population. Two different questionnaires were administered by the researcher for data collection. One questionnaire was for teachers having twenty four questions and the second questionnaire was for students which contained twenty four questions.

3.3 Instrument

For the purpose of research work, researcher has chosen one approach which is qualitative approach. Researcher has used questionnaire as an instrument for data collection. This instrument has been chosen by the researcher due to some certain advantages. First advantage is that questionnaire is much more efficient in comparison to use of an interview as it requires less time. Secondly it is less expensive and allows collection of data from much larger sample. Moreover it can be controlled physically or can be mailed to the respondents for the purpose of data collection.

For testing the hypotheses, the researcher has made two questionnaires for data collection, one for teachers and one for students having twenty four questions in each. In both questionnaires the questions were directly related to the objectives and hypotheses of the problem statement. Both questionnaires have been administered by the researcher separately for teachers as well as for students for the purpose of data collection. Questionnaires were managed at different times for teachers and students.

3.4 Research Design

The aim of a research design is to provide a proposed and organized way of achieving the research objectives and to establish the hypotheses developed by the researcher. Descriptive research is all about the recent status of any phenomena so it has nothing to do with what is, as the historical research that was not having control over what it was. It only measures the existing status of the phenomena, and has no concern with what caused it.

The current study is a descriptive study which aims to investigate the variation in discourse of male and female teachers in a language classroom which causes different responses of students at secondary school levels in Pakistani context.

3.5 Procedure

Procedure includes all the steps that have been taken by the researcher in this study. First of all the researcher has selected the area of interest for research. After reading the literature on different topics, researcher has selected a topic for research work that is study of discourse strategies of male and female teachers in English language classroom at secondary school level. Researcher selected this topic after observing the responses of secondary level students and found that students are psychologically affected by different discourse strategies adopted by teachers so their responses vary accordingly. So the researcher determined to do a descriptive type research to explore the different discourse strategies of male and female teachers which cause various responses of students in a language classroom.

After selecting the topic of study the researcher developed some hypotheses. After forming the hypotheses the question was how to assess these hypotheses. So, for the purpose the researcher has made an instrument to test the hypotheses, which was a questionnaire. The next step was to study the previous researches which were related to the topic statement. The researcher has studied a lot of literature about the topic statement and got some relevant material for her study. The material taken from the previous researches has been rephrased by the researcher to minimize the plagiarism.

The questionnaire that was developed by the researcher for data collection has been authenticated by the supervisor of the researcher. So, after the validation of data collection instrument, the researcher collected the data from the sample population. The total population size was eighty including forty students and forty teachers. The researcher’s target respondents or population was forty people including twenty teachers and twenty students.

After collecting the data the researcher has analyzed it to assess the hypotheses developed by the researcher. The analysis showed that the different discourse strategies used by male and female teachers affects the responses of students, their cooperative and comparative instructions creates gender bias among the students in a language classroom and students are psychologically affected by the variations in speech events.

CHAPTER 4

DATA ANALYSIS

4.1 Introduction

This chapter is related to the presentation of analyzed data collected by the researcher. The researcher has analyzed the data after collecting it in order to check the hypotheses proposed by her. The data was collected by using questionnaires; two questionnaires were made by the researcher for the purpose, one for the teachers and the other for students. The questionnaire was licker scale type having three options, the options were, Strongly Agree, Agree and Disagree. To ease the data analysis process researcher has taken the option of Strongly Agree and Agree as Yes and the option of Disagree as No. The data collected and analyzed is presented in form of percentages and the charts showing percentage graphs. The researcher has used charts for presenting the percentages of data analysis, which has been collected by the target population, and the responses of teachers and students are also separately analyzed. Data analysis is presented in the following pages where charts are showing the percentages of responses collected by researcher from teacher and student separately.

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Question:2

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Question:3

Do you provide equal opportunity to your students for expressing their ideas in classroom?

Answer:

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Question:4

Do you prefer to make a CR in the class for maintaining the discipline?

Answer:

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Question: 5

Do the girls scores more than boys in the classroom?

Answer:

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Question: 6

Do you device such activities which are equally useful for all students?

Answer:

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Question: 7

Do you distinguish your teaching according to gender of pupil?

Answer:

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Question: 8

Do your classroom management strategies vary according to gender of pupil?

Answer:

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Question: 9

Do you think that teacher needs to be sensitive to the gender of the pupils in terms of teaching?

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Question: 10

Do you think that teacher need to response appropriately because of the inevitable (biological and social) differences between boys and girls?

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Question: 11

Do you believe in treating pupil same but differently?

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Question: 12

Is it important to integrate boys and girls for creating a better learning environment?

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Question: 13

Do you think integrating boys and girls for learning purpose are better for teacher usually for behavioural reasons?

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Question:14

Do you think devising comparative activities in learning are equally beneficial for all students?

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Question:15

Do you feel yourself as a role model for your students?

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Question: 16

Do you feel that there must be a good relationship between students and teachers for creating a better learning environment?

Answer:

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Question: 17

Is the relationship between student and the teacher affected by the gender?

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Question:18

Do you think boys ask more organizing questions?

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Question:19

Do you think girls ask more facilitative questions?

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Question: 20

Do male students use effective and creative technique to gain teacher’s attention than girls?

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Question: 21

In your opinion cooperative style of female teacher is more helpful in a language classroom?

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Question: 22

Do you think the direct and comparative speech of male teacher is more helpful in language classroom?

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Question: 23

Does the cooperative style of female teacher affect the response of student in language class?

Answer:

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Question: 24

Does the comparative style of male teacher affect the response of students in language class?

Answer:

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The researcher has divided the questionnaire to twenty teachers for the purpose of data collection. The questionnaire contained fifteen questions. The first question asked to them was that they believe they treat their students fairly, so the response was all in positive, all agreed that they treat their students justly and tries to give equal opportunities to them for expressing their ideas in classroom while encouraging them on equal basis. Sixty percent teachers agree that they use to make a class rap (boy) to maintain the discipline in classroom, this may lead to gender discrimination initiated by the teacher, but forty percent teachers were of the view that they give equal opportunity to students. The whole sample agreed the point that they device such activities in classroom which are equally beneficial for all students. When the question was asked about the variation in teaching strategies according to gender ninety percent of population replied positively, the rest of ten percent were of the view that teaching cannot be distinguish according to gender. Researcher also put a question about the responses of teacher in terms of teaching that he/she should be sensitive to gender while responding or not, the respondent were totally agreed that a sensibility should be shown on behalf of a teacher while responding to the student. In showing the importance of integration of boys and girls in a language classroom eighty percent of the respondents reply positively, while other twenty percent thinks that its ok to teach boys and girls separately, at the same time for creating a better learning environment the boys and girls should be integrated in a language classroom for learning purpose and it is also better for teacher for several behavioral reasons, eighty percent positive reply of teacher showed the above.

Eighty percent teachers think that they are role models for their students and followed by them, a hundred percent agreement of sample population was shown on the question that there must be a healthy relationship between the teacher and student in order to assist the learning, and ninety percent of teachers were agreed that this relationship between teacher and student in terms of learning is affected by the gender. A question was also put to the sample that more organizing questions are asked by boys, on which ninety percent of then agreed and the girls ask more facilitative questions was also replied with ninety percent positive response. There was also a question which receives hundred percent agreement of respondents, that was the boys in order to gain importance use much creative and effective techniques. In response to the question related to the cooperative teaching style of female teachers in language teaching, all agreed that it helps in language learning while the comparative and direct speech of male teachers also helps in language learning, the percentage of eighty positive replies shows this. It is seen after analyzing all results that discourse strategies of male and female teachers vary in a language classroom, which affects the responses of students and accordingly the boys and girls develop their attitude towards language learning. A positive and healthy environment in classroom motivates the learner to learn language while an environment showing discrimination may hinder the learning ability of student.

Student’s Data Analysis

Question:1

Is your teacher treats you fairly?

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Question: 2

Is your teacher try to encourage you on equal basis?

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Question: 3

Is your teacher provides you equal opportunity for expressing their ideas in language classroom?

Answer:

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Question: 4

Is your teacher prefers to make a CR in class to maintain the discipline of class?

Answer:

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Question: 5

In your classroom usually girls score more than boys?

Answer:

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Question:6

Do your teacher device such activities which are equally useful for all students?

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Question: 7

Is your teacher distinguishes his teaching according to gender?

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Question: 8

Is your teacher response differently according to the gender of the pupil?

Answer:

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Question: 9

Do you think that there must be a good relationship between teacher and student in a language learning classroom?

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Question:10

Is your teacher treats you same but differently?

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Question:11

Do you think that it is important to integrate boys and girls in a language learning classroom?

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Question:12

Do you think integrating boys and girls improves learning in a language classroom?

Answer:

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Question: 13

Do you feel your teacher as a role model for you?

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Question: 14

Do you think that relationship between student and teacher is affected by the gender?

Answer:

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Question: 15

Do you think teacher makes rank according to IQ level?

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Question:16

Do you use native language in class freely to avoid the negative response of teacher?

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Question: 17

Do you think teacher’s positive response help in language learning?

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Question: 18

Do you think that teacher’s negative response to student proves a hurdle in language learning?

Answer:

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Question: 19

Is a direct instruction from your teacher helps you to learn language appropriately?

Answer:

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Question:20

Is a flexible instruction from your teacher helps you to learn language more appropriately?

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Question:21

In your opinion male teachers are effective language users?

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Question: 22

Do you think female teachers are effective language users?

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Question: 23

Do you think the medium of instruction of male teachers is more effective in language teaching?

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Question: 24

Do you think the medium of instruction of female teachers is more effective in language teaching?

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For the assessment of hypotheses and collection of data, a questionnaire was also distributed to the students. The questionnaire comprised of twenty four questions and those were related to the hypotheses and objectives of the research. Secondary level students were used for the purpose of data collection and questionnaire was distributed among the target population.

Researcher put a question to the students that they are treated by their teachers justly so in response the ninety percent of them replied positively and the rest were not satisfied with the treatment of teachers. It was observed from the response of students that they are not equally encouraged by the teacher and so are unable to express their opinion in the classroom on equal basis. It is also the perception of seventy percent students that girls score more than boys in classroom but still there is consensus of all students that activities devised by the teachers in the language classroom are equally beneficial for all students. Eighty percent students are of the view that teachers distinguish their teaching according to the gender of the student and at the same time their responses to the pupils vary from gender to gender, ninety percent positive reply of students shows the above result. A hundred percent positive result was shown when the researcher proposed the question that there must be a good relationship between teachers and students in a language learning classroom. In response to a question researcher found that seventy percent students feel that they are treated same but differently, rest of thirty percent disagreed with the opinion. To integrate boys and girls in a language learning classroom is important, this result is shown when ninety percent students agreed in response, same results were shown when a question was proposed by researcher that this integration improves learning in language classroom. All students were of the view that their teachers are their role models; hundred percent positive results depicted this. Twenty percent students negate the idea that teacher student relationship with in the learning environment is affected by gender of pupil but rest of eighty percent agreed with the statement of question. Eighty percent students were in favor of the question that teachers rank their students according to IQ level. Ninety percent of students use native language freely, in order to avoid the negative response of teacher in the language classroom and to minimize the embarrassment of using incorrect forms of language. Student’s hundred percent favorable responses showed that the negative response of teachers hindered in language learning and the positive response of teacher helps and motivate the language learner. Teacher’s direct instructions helps in appropriate language learning, hundred percent favorable responses by respondents showed this and the flexible and indirect language used by teachers confuses the students; this result was shown when sixty percent of students agreed with it. The overall response collected, is that there is a mark difference in male and female discourse in a language classroom and by the reason the responses of students vary as well, they are of the view that male teachers are more fluent language users and their medium of instruction is more effective than female teachers in a language teaching classroom, so in classroom the language learning becomes biased with students this kind of attitude towards language and teachers.

CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

5.1 Findings

- Students find the discourses of male and female teachers different and this difference cause them to reply differently.
- Students are of the view that they are not provided with the equal opportunity of expression in classroom.
- Students feel less motivated towards the language learning when they receive a negative response from teachers.
- Male teachers are more effective language users and their direct speech makes the student able to strengthen the concepts of language.
- Female teachers are cooperative and their speech is more flexible that helps the student to feel motivated towards the learning of L2.
- Students feel that to integrate boys and girls in a language classroom improves the learning positively and the competitive environment make the students more effective language learners.
- Students are of the view that there must be positive relationship between teacher and student in terms of learning that will help in effective language learning.
- The students of secondary school level show the result that their teachers have different strategies of teaching in a classroom and that distinguished on the bases of gender.

Students are treated differently by the teachers in a language classroom on the basis of gender, the discourses of the teachers vary from student to student and this difference in discourses result in different responses by students, these hypotheses which were proposed by the researcher while initiating the research are proved correct. These results are shown in the analysis of data collected from the students and teachers of secondary school level.

5.2 Recommendations

Discourse strategies used by male and female teachers are different in a language classroom and they are responsible for variable responses of students. So it is very important that teachers should use such discourses which do not de-motivate the students in terms of language learning and the teachers must know how to respond appropriately according to the gender of student. For this purpose some suggestions are given below:

- Teachers should devise such activities which are equally beneficial for all students.
- Teachers should response appropriately to the students and must be sensitive enough to deal with the gender issues in classroom.
- Teacher should provide equal opportunity to all students for expressing their ideas in classroom.
- The teacher should act as a facilitator but not the cause of gender discrimination in the classroom and must treat all students fairly.
- Teacher should try to build a positive relationship with the student in terms of learning
- Teacher should adopt those strategies which are equally helpful in language teaching for all students in the classroom.

5.3 Concluding Remarks

The purpose of this research was to find out that how the use of different discourses of male and female teachers affects the responses of students at secondary school level in Pakistani context and how it contributes in creating positive or negative attitudes towards language learning. While initiating the study the researcher first proposed hypotheses and afterwards make an instrument for data collection for the measurement of hypotheses. Data collected and analyzed, the results show that discourse strategies used by male and female teachers in English language classroom vary and this variation results in different responses of students in a learning environment. During this research the researcher found that it is important for the teacher to be sensitive while responding to a student according to his/her gender, this gender affects the teacher student relationship in terms of learning. Some students also feel that they somehow are deprived of the equal opportunities of expressing their ideas and encouragement, which is essential in language learning. Teacher often use negative responses for students, sometimes to make them correct or otherwise but this negative response proves a hurdle in language learning and student feels less motivated towards the language learning. This also results in lack of interest in classroom activities and student’s participation decreased in classroom. To avoid the negative responses, the students use native language freely in the classroom, this attitude hurdles the language learning and they became ineffective language learners.

It is found by the researcher after collecting and analyzing the data that in student’s opinion the male teachers are better users of language and their direct and comparative instructions, given in a language classroom effectively assist the student to learn the L2, while the responses collected from students showed that they are less satisfied with the teaching methods of female teachers and are of the view that they are less effective language speakers than the male teachers. But the fact is there that the cooperative style and methods of female teachers are more effective in language teaching.

Students also feel that they are ranked by IQ level and the teachers discriminate them by gender with distinguished teaching strategies in classroom so students feel that their relationships with their teachers are affected by gender of the pupil.

Researcher has also found that integrating boys and girls in a language learning environment helps in language learning and in a competitive environment the students learn language more effectively. Researcher also found that activities which are equally helpful in learning for all students must be devised. The variation in discourses sometimes assists the language teaching and sometimes hurdles the language learning, the students with different discourse strategies used by teacher become motivated sometimes and sometime this become the reason for creating gender bias among the students.

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Appendixes

A study of discourse strategies of male and female teachers in English language classroom at secondary level.

Questionnaire for Teachers

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