Students’ Attitudes towards Male and Female English Language Teachers’ Teaching Practices: a case Study

Abstract

The present study investigates students’ attitudes towards male and female English language teachers’ teaching practices. It seeks to determine the effect of teachers’ gender on the students’ attitudes, behaviours and interactions in classroom. The theoretical framework of this work focuses on Katz’s (1960) Functionalist Formation Theory of attitude, the Social Constructionist Theory of Gender and Dee’s (2006) theory of Gender Gaps in Students’ Achievements. This investigation adopted the Mixed Method Approach to collect qualitative and quantitative data. Thus, twelve (12) classroom observation sessions were conducted on a sample of two hundred and fifty students (250) and twelve (12) of their male and female teachers. One hundred (100) questionnaires were distributed to fifty (50) boys and fifty (50) girls at the department of English at Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi Ouzou. The data gathered from observation attendances were quantified and interpreted using Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) as well as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and the data gathered from the questionnaires are analysed by using a computer software named SPSS. The results indicate that first year students of the department of English at Mouloud Mammeri University have positive attitudes towards male teachers rather than female teachers. That is to say, they perceive male teachers as the appropriate gender to teach the English language. The results also reveal that in addition to the teachers’ gender there are other personal and pedagogical traits that affected the students’ attitudes and choice of English language teacher. To ensure a good atmosphere of teaching and learning English language according to students’ needs and wants, recommendations are provided at the end of this research.