Teachers’ Gender Awareness on Students’ Classroom Interaction

Abstract

The past two decades have witnessed the reversal of a remarkable gender gap in education. Even though a growing number of studies have attempted to document an improvement in the treatment of females in classroom methods and curricular materials, it would be premature to declare victory and dismiss issues of gender bias. Today, our girls and boys remain the victims of gender stereotypes in text and resource materials. They are also victims of unintended or sexist behaviors by educators. The study‘s focal point lies in the close investigation that teacher-gender awareness could have a steering effect on refining third year students’ interactive abilities at different high schools in Tiaret. To see clearly into the efficiency of the so-called teacher gender, the researchers advanced the research hypothesis; Teacher’ gender perceptions have a significant influence on classroom interaction. For such surge of interest, we opted for a mixed approach as one of the important processes to ensure validity and reliability: classroom observation in which data was analyzed according to the researcher’s conversation analytical tool. Furthermore, a questionnaire was distributed for the sake of obtaining a deeper understanding of their schemata and attitudes regarding classroom interactional competence. The Results indicate no extreme egalitarian or chauvinistic responses between teachers’ professed attitudes and actual practices. Henceforth, we can safely bear out the null research hypothesis (H0). Interestingly enough, these negative findings pointed to propound a plethora of pedagogical implications to further extend the area of research for those concerned in language teaching and learning such as teachers and instructional materials developers to help language learners enhance their oral performances.