How can I help my eleventh grade students understand that spoken English is not a feminine language?

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(1)HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY. Facultad de Educación Departamento de Inglés. HOW CAN I HELP MY ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS UNDERSTAND THAT SPOKEN ENGLISH IS NOT A FEMININE LANGUAGE?. ACTION RESEARCH. GHILIAN ANDREA NAVEA BECERRA. 11/30/2015.

(2) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 1. Table of Contents. Abstract ................................................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgment .................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 6 Context ................................................................................................................................... 9 Research Question ................................................................................................................ 12 Rationale ............................................................................................................................... 14 Literature review................................................................................................................... 16 Mind Map ......................................................................................................................... 16 Teaching English .............................................................................................................. 17 Spoken English ................................................................................................................. 17 Understanding ................................................................................................................... 18 Gender roles (What do we mean by feminine?) ............................................................... 20 Strategies ........................................................................................................................... 22 Group work ....................................................................................................................... 22 Methodology......................................................................................................................... 25 Interviews.......................................................................................................................... 25 Journal (descriptions and reflections) ............................................................................... 25 Recordings and transcriptions ........................................................................................... 26.

(3) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 2. Photographs ...................................................................................................................... 26 Focus group....................................................................................................................... 26 Charts ................................................................................................................................ 27 Procedures for data collection........................................................................................... 27 Action Plan timeline ............................................................................................................. 30 Interventions ......................................................................................................................... 31 Data Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 34 Journals summary ............................................................................................................. 34 Surveys .............................................................................................................................. 36 Reflection and Analysis ........................................................................................................ 42 Conclusion and implications ................................................................................................ 43 References ............................................................................................................................ 45 Appendix .............................................................................................................................. 47 Appendix A ....................................................................................................................... 47 Teacher‘s interviews ..................................................................................................... 47 Appendix B ....................................................................................................................... 50 Journal ........................................................................................................................... 50 Appendix C ....................................................................................................................... 58 Recording and transcription .......................................................................................... 58 Appendix D ....................................................................................................................... 60.

(4) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 3. Apendix E ......................................................................................................................... 71 Survey............................................................................................................................ 71 Appendix F ....................................................................................................................... 72 Students surveys ............................................................................................................ 72.

(5) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 4. Abstract. This action research looks for help my eleventh grade students understand English is not a feminine language and to engage all students with this new language through different strategies and interventions in order to promote spoken English. The group of students in which this project was developed is around the ages of 16 and 17 years old. The set of strategies used were chosen carefully according to students‘ needs and interests. Key word: Gender roles – Spoken English – Teaching English - Strategies Resumen. Este proyecto de investigación busca ayudar a mis estudiantes de tercero medio a entender que el inglés no es un lenguaje femenino y motivar a todos los estudiantes con esta nueva lengua a través de diferentes estrategias e intervenciones para promover el inglés hablado. El grupo de estudiantes bordea los 16 y 17 años de edad. El conjunto de estrategias usadas fueron elegidas cuidadosamente de acuerdo a las necesidades e intereses de los estudiantes..

(6) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 5. Acknowledgment. I would like to thank to all people who constantly helped and supported me during this process. All of you have been an important contribution, not only for the development of this Action Research, but also for me, as a future teacher and as the first professional in my family. My mother Gladys Becerra, My father Luis Navea, My sister Valentina Navea and my brother Lucas Navea. Navea Trujillo, Becerra Gaete and Palma Serrano‘s families Simona, Lautaro and Samanta My friends Daniela Prado, Carolina Andrade and Carol Soto All teachers I had at university, especially José Callado, Priscilla Echeverría, Salomé Villa, Loreto Aliaga, Pablo Silva, Carmen Montes, Carmen Muñoz, Olguita Mella, Ester López, Mabel Díaz, Normita, my host teacher Diego Mendoza and my tutor Carola Pinto My students at Antares school and all the Antares community Finally, my family Yerko Palma, Salvador Palma and Eloísa..

(7) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 6. Introduction Action research is a process of systematic inquiry that enables people to find effective solutions to real problems encountered in daily life (Ferrance, 2000; Lewin, 1938; 1946; Stringer, 2007). Historically, the term action research has been long associated with the work of Kurt Lewin, who viewed this research methodology as cyclical, dynamic, and collaborative in nature (Mills, 2013). Through repeated cycles of planning, observing, and reflecting, individuals and groups engaged in action research can implement changes required for social improvement (Hine, 2013). Implementing action research is an amazing possibility to discover different and innovative strategies in order to improve our own methodologies. An action researcher is not just simple researcher. She or he is a viewer, a spectator, an onlooker, an observer of her/his own teaching/learning process. This project is carrying out in an eleventh grade from Antares school where students do not want to speak English since most of them think English is a feminine language. This action research aims to help me solve specific problems related to gender and roles that I have noticed in my practicum, which I regard as essential ones, since they interfere with an effective learning inside the English lesson. One of the greatest advantages of this action research is to find out that teaching English is more than just teaching grammar and different sounds. As a matter of fact, this language is a very useful tool which we can utilize to help students see the world with new eyes. In this respect, by conducting this project I intend to discover how I could use my English teaching practice in order to avoid the preconception that English is a feminine language..

(8) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 7. At its heart, action research involves the careful monitoring of planned change in practice. To begin with, I am going to disclose the context where I have been working during my action research experience so as to introduce the relevance that my problem and my research question have. Secondly, I am going to explicate the relevance that my problem has in my particular context and the contributions and impact that my action research could have on my students related to their teaching/learning process and on myself regarding my own practice. Thirdly, by adding a literature review I will support my research question, some key concepts and conceptual framework, which are going to be essential to understand the relevance of my action research and its development. Then, I am going to explain the methodology that is going to be employed during this action research, the data collection instruments that are going to be used, the procedures of this data collection which are going to be analyzed later in order to draw conclusions and future improvements. Finally, I am going to analyze the methodology and data I applied during this action research in order to get conclusions and discover if my process was successful or it was not..

(9) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 8.

(10) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 9. Context This action research is going to be carried out at a school called ―Antares,‖ which has around 105 high school students between fourteen and twenty-one years old. This school is subsidized, but students do not have to contribute money in order to study there. Furthermore, it is important to point out that 94% of them are at social risk. Most of the students at Antares school have problems within their families and some of them do not live with their parents. I have the opportunity to focus my research on eleventh grade, which is a class with seventeen students. Thirteen of them are men and four are women. I have been teaching there since April, 2015. Regarding sitting arrangement, it is distributed in the traditional way, in which one student is behind another one. Desks are divided into three rows: first row has seven boys, second row has four boys, and third row has two boys and four girls. Teaching in eleventh grade is not a simple task as students were not used to follow instructions. For instance, at the beginning of my practicum it was difficult for me to help them understand that greeting people when starting a class is a sign of respect. Moreover, they did not show willingness to take part in the lesson. This is why teachers have to be patient and dedicated at this school. After one semester, my students started to participate and follow the routine of my class. For example, they liked to sing or translate their favorite songs, they enjoyed watching English videos, they followed my English instructions, and they were good at writing stories..

(11) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 10. All in all, during my teaching practice in eleventh grade, I have realized that they are motivated to learn English as they ask many questions about it. However, they tend to use Spanish in order to do so. At the beginning of my practicum, I decided to work on different projects so as to help them improve their levels of English. They had the opportunity to write their own short stories and create an anthology with them. My students‘ achievement in those writing tasks was outstanding, but the situation was not the same when they had to speak. Actually, when students had to take a written test in July, they got an average of 5.7. On the other hand, when they had to present in front of the class, they got an average of 4.9. When I realized speaking was a weak point for my students, I began to create activities targeting the four skills, focusing on speaking, since I was convinced that it was essential for them to learn English in an integrated way without feeling afraid of making mistakes when pronouncing. After several days trying to discover why my students did not want to speak in English, I came to the conclusion that there was an important issue which needs analyzing and that this particular issue was affecting only my male students, since girls did not have any problems when they had to express themselves orally. As a matter of fact, on a particular oral test three out of my four eleventh-grade female students reached the maximum score in pronunciation whereas just one of my male students achieved the maximum score and nine of them did not achieve the fifty percent of the total score. When I asked my students why they did not want to pronounce, they gave me the following answers:.

(12) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 11 . ―It is ridiculous‖. . ―It sounds stupid‖. . ―It is homosexual‖. . ―Miss, that is like porno‖. . ―Miss, if you do not know how to pronounce and you try, you look like a stupid person, and I look gay!‖. Consequently, I conclude that male students were not willing to speak in English because they did not feel comfortable with its pronunciation. Additionally, I noticed that on all those different projects girls tended to work with girls and boys with boys. Therefore, group work was an extremely determined area since boys and girls separated themselves almost automatically when they had to work with this method. I had the opportunity to talk to the psychologist who is in charge of the school environment and she told me about some important factors which influence those kind of attitudes such as the type of music that they liked and their families‘ environments; actually, some of them did not even live with their parents and others were victims of domestic violence. Finally, I understood that not wanting to speak in English was not the cause, but the consequence of the gender issues that were affecting my male students as they felt that this language was a feminine one, which was not something positive for them, since they associated the term ‗feminine‘ with ‗weak.‘.

(13) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 12. Research Question Under the aforementioned circumstances, I became aware of the fact that my problem was not about helping my students with pronunciation or helping them feel motived to express themselves orally only, but it was something that was deeply rooted in their lives, which is sexism. Clearly, this was interfering with my English teaching as some boys did not want to speak in English because they thought it was a ―feminine language.‖ Thus, taking all these aspects into consideration, the most important question which needs to be answered is: How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language?.


(15) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 14. Rationale Gender and language began to be linked before the second wave of the Women‘s Movement which started in the late 1960s. English educational programs which are used at Antares school include ―sexism in language‖ as a topic for eleventh-grade students in module eight. This module is composed by five pedagogical hours and it is focused on reading comprehension. By conducting this action research I aim to improve my English lessons in my eleventh-grade class at Antares school. In fact, I strongly believe that teachers need to be well-prepared to cope with topics such as gender issues, which is my particular case, while maintaining a positive dynamic in the classroom. Indeed, they may do best by being proactive as EFL and ESL classrooms represent unique spaces where different linguistic and cultural worlds come into contact. ―Such classrooms offer unparalleled opportunities for teachers to engage with cross-cultural differences and the social construction of gender and sexuality, and thus to help students develop linguistic and intercultural competence, or multivoiced consciousness‖ (Kramsch & von Hoene, 2001). This action research gives me the opportunity to help my students understand that spoken English is utilized by both men and women without distinction and it helps me work on my students‘ motivation and participation during my English lessons. By experiencing this process, I would learn how to teach transversal topics during my English classes using the four skills as a means, not as an objective by themselves. This action research helps me improve my ability to teach and learn about the relationship between language and gender..

(16) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 15. Besides, this project gives me the opportunity to contribute to my students‘ English development and I have the possibility to prevent my students from reproducing gender stereotypes. On the other hand this action research helps me to carry out my teaching practice internalizing that language and gender are connected. Thanks to this realization, I will have the possibility to improve my teaching performance inside the classroom, since girls and boys will understand that they do not have different roles because of their genders and by doing so, I hope male students will participate more actively in my class in a cooperative way, not feeling ridiculous when speaking in English. In addition, through this process I will have the opportunity to enrich my students‘ learning by using a new way to acquire English which includes the possibility to promote a critical thinking related to gender and language, becoming cognizant of the fact that language is what we say, what we say is what we think, and what we think is what we are. To conclude, my expectations regarding this research are to make a positive contribution to my students‘ English learning and tackling challenging topics. If I manage to help my students understand and internalize that the world should not be divided into masculine and feminine and if they change their ideas about gender stereotypes, most of them are not going to have problems to express themselves in English, since they no longer are going to think that English pronunciation is associated to women. Therefore, girls and boys are not going to have problems when sharing ideas and opinions in group works. This way, my students are going to be prepared to play their own roles in society. Hence, my students can benefited by this research project because they are going to be able to respect themselves in class, leaving detrimental preconceptions behind, and they are going to be able to employ English as an essential tool inside and outside the classroom..

(17) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 16. Literature review Mind Map. For the purpose of building a theoretical framework to support and delimit the analysis, I will explain main concepts and fundamental ideas related to the problem. I strongly believe that it is absolutely essential to strengthen the validity of the action research through different points of view. We appraise diverse theories that will support our approaches for the sake of outcomes of this research. First and foremost, to go further with this fundamental step in the whole process we are going to put forward the following concepts: Teaching English, speaking activities, gender, gender roles..

(18) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 17. Teaching English I begin with ―what is teaching English?‖ According to Diane Larsen-Fereeman (2005) there are three different answers to this question; . First of all it is characterized as a ―knowledge transmission‖ where teachers are responsible for transmitting the language knowledge they have.. . In second place, we can talk about student-centered which is part of constructivism, making allusion what Freire wrote, teaching has to be constructed and meaningful.. . Finally, there is a sociocultural theory inspired by Russian psychology Vigotsky who talks about the importance of social interaction in communication.. Regarding this Action Research, those three answers confer different roles on language teachers. The first answer has relationship with the knowledge that a teacher has to have to teach a new language, rules, sounds and so one. The second answer is related to the importance that context has in order to teach English engaging students with interesting topics, understanding English as a way to communicate opinions, likes and dislikes. The third answer is related with the ability to communicate and here, speaking has an important role. Spoken English Spoken English, says linguist David Crystal, is "the more natural and widespread mode of transmission, though ironically the one which most people find much less familiar-presumably because it is so much more difficult to 'see' what is happening in speech than in writing" (The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2nd ed., 2003)..

(19) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 18. Taking into account the ―common assumptions of language teaching‖ that Alan Davies wrote in 1991 ―the importance of speech has been reinforced by many linguists who claim that speaking is the primary form of language, and that writing depends on speech‖ one of the keynotes of the nineteenth-century revolution in teaching was the emphasis on the spoken language, partly because many of its advocates where phoneticians. The English curriculum in Cuba, for example, insists on ―The principle of the primacy of spoken language‖ (Cuban ministry of education 1999). Specialists in language learning argue that people acquire language by using in a more meaningful and natural context. Consequently, I understand spoken English as the way in which the English language is transmitted through a conventional system of sounds. I personally think four skills are important when teaching a new language, nevertheless, the most natural way to learn a second language is through listening and speaking. Hence, as my students do not want to speak the first step is to make them to speak and, in order to achieve that important goal, it is important to make them feel comfortable when speaking English. Understanding. In order to develop a clear definition about ―understanding‖ I describe the differences that knowledge and understanding have. Design series, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe discuss the evasiveness of the term "understanding" by referencing Harold Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Cognitive Domain, a book project finished in 1956 by Dr. Benjamin Bloom and colleagues..

(20) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 19. Quoted by Wiggins and McTighe, Dr. Bloom explains: " . . . some teachers believe their students should 'really understand,' others desire their students to 'internalize knowledge,' still others want their students to 'grasp the core or essence.' Do they all mean the same thing? Specifically, what does a student do who 'really understands' which he does not do when he does not understand? Through reference to the Taxonomy . . . teachers should be able to define such nebulous terms." … ―… Two generations of curriculum writers have been warned to avoid the term 'understand' in their frameworks as a result of the cautions in the taxonomy." Bob James (2005) was a bit confused about ―understandings.‖ His confusion turns out to be a fairly common problem. When we ask designers in workshops to identify desired understandings and thus to distinguish between desired ―knowledge‖ and ―understanding,‖ they are often puzzled. Yet the idea of understanding is surely distinct from the idea of knowing something. We frequently say things like, ―Well, he knows a lot of math, but he doesn't really understand its basis,‖ or, ―She knows the meaning of the words but doesn't understand the sentence.‖ John Dewey (1933) summarized the idea most clearly in How We Think. Understanding is the result of facts acquiring meaning for the learner: ―To grasp the meaning of a thing, an event, or a situation is to see it in its relations to other things: to see how it operates or functions, what consequences follow from it, what causes it, what uses it can be put to. In contrast, what we have called the brute thing, the thing without meaning to us, is something whose relations are not grasped. . . . The relation of means-consequence is the center Understanding is about transfer, in other words. To be truly able requires the ability to transfer what we have learned to new and sometimes confusing settings. The.

(21) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 20. ability to transfer our knowledge and skill effectively involves the capacity to take what we know and use it creatively, flexibly, fluently, in different settings or problems, on our own. Transferability is not mere plugging in of previously learned knowledge and skill. In Bruner's famous phrase, understanding is about ―going beyond the information given‖; we can create new knowledge and arrive at further understandings if we have learned with understanding some key ideas and strategies‘ and heart of all understanding.‖ (pp. 137, 146) Note again that the word understand(ing) has a verb meaning and a noun meaning. To understand a topic or subject is to be able to use (or ―apply,‖ in Bloom's sense) knowledge and skill wisely and effectively. An understanding is the successful result of trying to understand—the resultant grasp of an unobvious idea, an inference that makes meaning of many discrete (and perhaps seemingly insignificant) elements of knowledge. Finally, it is not about teaching facts, it is about teaching meanings of those facts, students have to be able to internalize and understand that spoken English can be utilized by both men and women without distinction. Gender roles (What do we mean by feminine?) Research variables— ―sex‖ polarized as ―females‖ and ―males,‖ ―sexuality‖ polarized as ―homosexuals‖ and ―heterosexuals,‖ and ―gender‖ polarized as ―women‖ and ―men — reflect unnuanced series that conventionalize bodies, sexuality, and social location. Such research designs cannot include the experiences of hermaphrodites, pseudohermaphrodites, transsexuals, transvestites, bisexuals, third genders, and gender rebels as lovers, friends, parents, workers, and sports participants. Even if the research sample is restricted to.

(22) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 21. putative ―normals,‖ the use of unexamined categories of sex, sexuality, and gender will miss complex combinations of status and identity, as well as differently gendered sexual continuities and discontinuities. (Lorber, 1996, p.144) Since years ago, researchers and authors have been reconsidering the concept of gender. Through this action research we are going to take in consideration two important aspects when we talk about gender; on one hand, we are going to reconsider how we have conceptualized the differences between feminine/ masculine and male/female. On the other hand we are going to make a difference between sex and gender. We will understand sex as a biological term and gender as a strictly social term. When people think about gender, they immediately think about masculine males and feminine females as a fact, however, making allusion what Joy Johnson says (2012) girls, for example, have to be feminine because it is a role that society imposed. Before proceeding, it is important to reflect on research as a gendered practice. Science is a social enterprise, not created in a vacuum but influenced by societal opinions and politics. Scholars have investigated the ways that science has changed over the years, drawing attention to women‘s involvement in the scientific enterprise and detailing how societal shifts in (Schiebinger, 1999). In fact, gender role is going to be understood as a dynamic and multidimensional construct which refers to the different responsibilities, limitations and roles that a person has; According to Johnson E. (2005) the concept of gender could be institutionalized depending on the religion, politics and beliefs and it refers to the values, roles, expectations that society has given to individuals according to their sex..

(23) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 22. Gender roles can be described as social norms, or rules and standards that dictate different interests, responsibilities, opportunities, limitations, and behaviors for men and women for instance, when students think about speaking English as a feminine attitude, they are institutionalizing an specific gender role; ―English speaking is not for man‖ it is the appropriate behavior. I do not want to make my male students talk because English is ―so masculine‖. They have to understand English is neither masculine nor feminine, English is English. Strategies I understand strategies as different possible activities that may serve as a positive contribution, in order to serve as evidence for the research question. According to Hess (2001) some of the strategies that help students to collaborate are: • Groupwork in which students complete a task together. • Pairwork in which students share ideas or quiz and drill each other. • Peer review in which students analyze and comment on one another‘s written work. Group work According what Linda Darling- Hammond said in 2005 about group-work it is a small number of students working together so that everyone can participate in a clearly assigned learning task. It should be clear that there is more to group work than sitting students in groups and asking them to work together. There may be talk between pupils of course but this can be relatively low level and not about the work in hand, and rarely in service of a joint activity..

(24) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 23. By group work we mean pupils working together as a group or team. The teacher may be involved at various stages but the particular feature of group work—perhaps its defining characteristic—is that the balance of ownership and control of the work shifts toward the pupils themselves. Group work should involve children as co-learners (Zajac & Hartup, 1997) it means it is not just a student helping another .We have an inclusive view of group work—and would include what is sometimes called cooperative group work—but see the group basis for classroom learning extending beyond this particular approach. Whereas cooperative group work is often associated with particularly structured groups, often with a heterogeneous mixture of ability, gender and ethnicity, and particular learning tasks, pupils may, during their everyday classroom activities, be asked to undertake group work for a variety of tasks and in a variety of groupings. For group work to be effective, pupils and teachers must be adaptable to normal classroom conditions, which will involve a classroom populated by many other children. (Peter Blatchford, 2003) In addition, groupwork promotes a cooperative language learning and according to Richards and Rodgers (2001)―It is an approach to teaching that makes maximum use of cooperative activities involving pair and small groups of learners in the classroom‖ The authors stated that promote communicative interaction and provides a variety of activities with a clear attention to particular lexical items, structure, and functions through interactive tasks. Finally, the reason I have made the decision to work on groupwork is because it is an effective technique for achieving certain kinds of social and intellectual learning goals. Interaction is one of the most important factors to learn a new language in a communicative way, I mean, to learn the possibility to express ideas and opinions in order to communicate where active practice is essential..


(26) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 25. Methodology Goodson and Walker (1991) reveal that ‗the task of research is to make sense of what we know‘ (p.107) and the sense we make is determined by the selection and politics of our approach. Making allusion what Anne Burns says there are two ways to collect our data; qualitative and quantitative. Under my own point of view, both of them are appropriate in order to carry out this educational action research. I have decided to collect qualitative data through recordings and transcriptions, journal and descriptions, interviews and focus group. At the same time I am going to use questionnaires as a quantitative tool in order to make graphs and measures. Notwithstanding, those quantitative methods are going to have a qualitative interpretations.. Surveys before, during and after interventions Surveys will be used as a way to conduct my research. As I wrote before, my class is composed by 17 students. Fortunately the number of students is not a problem. I apply surveys before during and after some interventions in order to compare, recognize, identify, and analyze my intervention findings. Interviews Indeed, Burgess (1984, p. 102) has described them as ―conversation with a purpose‖ I am going to interview teachers and people from the community in order to have a general idea about the grade. Journal (descriptions and reflections).

(27) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 26. Journal is an extremely important instrument during this research; it helps me to remember particular situations through descriptions and my feelings, interpretations and findings. The most important role that journal have is to capture my students reactions, what they feel or think during my interventions I write in my journal every relevant situation and I add my reflections on Fridays Recordings and transcriptions Making allusion what Anne Burns wrote in 2010, recording the situation you want to observe has the advantage of capturing oral interactions exactly as they were said. I will record three of my lessons. Recordings are going to be useful to support my journals writings and to check my own teaching performance and my student‘s attitudes and behavior. I hope this instrument help me to analyze my performance inside the classroom and my action research approach. Additionally, recordings help me to compare the possible progress that my interventions have. Photographs According to my personal point of view, people images are more powerful than words. Photos help me to capture specific moments, events, non-verbal expressions, body language, places we use inside the classroom, sitting arrangement and particular behaviors. Focus group Focus group, as a qualitative technique, helps me to inquire trough my students‘ opinions, reactions and perceptions..

(28) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 27. Charts Charts are going to help me to create a clear picture about the result of my survey and they are going to be a facilitator for my analysis. Procedures for data collection. First of all I observed my context and students writing the most important issues in my journal. After each week I wrote some reflections about those important situations. After two weeks I discovered my first preliminary problem and I started to think in my first preliminary question taking into account it could change. After a month I had a particular problem and my final Research Question. I read my own observations and reflections in order to identify the methodology to be applied through this Action Research. I was not able to let my students understand spoken English is not a feminine language and this situation was impacting the communication inside my English lessons since my male students did not want to speak. As I said before my instruments were my journal since the beginning of this project, recordings and transcriptions, surveys, photographs and focus groups. I started my intervention on September, 21st showing them some advertisements which establish and empower gender roles in the society in order to have their first reactions. I used my journal in order to capture those reactions..

(29) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 28. During my intervention time, students faced the sexist reality through different data, spots or readings and of course we debated momentous topics about sexism trying to use English speaking. Then, students had to answer a particular survey in order to recognize their preliminary point of view about gender roles and English. This survey had the objective to support the hypothesis that my male students did not want to speak because they thought ―English is a feminine language.‖ My second intervention was on September 23th where my students had the possibility to watch the movie ―Brave Boys Wear Black‖ using ―modeling‖ as a strategy. First of all I know Chuck Norris is a popular character in my country. This movie just had the intention to engage my students with English and to express that English does not have gender. Finally, my students had to create a play inventing a different ending; in this opportunity I created the groups and there was one girl in each group. This activity helped me to assess the development of my student‘s speaking English process. Finally, my students had to answer the same survey they answered at the beginning of my intervention. This first cycle finished on October 5th. My third intervention started on October 19th. My eleventh grade was divided into four groups again; three groups of four people and one of five people, each group had a girl. They had to prepare a debate following the topic ―Men are stronger than women‖.

(30) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 29. The following class two groups had the opportunity to debate and at the end of the class we could share opinions. Then, we watched a video about ―la crespa Rodriguez‖. Then, we could enjoy the two final groups and we shared opinions again. All this information was written on my journal. Finally, they had to answer the survey they did at the beginning, they received both interviews and they had to perform their own process. Students had the possibility to answer and explain the following questions; are my answers different in both interviews? Why do my answers changed? Or why not? How do I feel today speaking English? In summary I divided my data collection on three cycles which are part of a big one.. Journals and surveys 1, 2 and 3. Modeling Survey 1 and 2. Debate and focus group. Selfreflection Survey 1 and 3.

(31) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 30. Action Plan timeline. August. Activities Journal Defining Context Diagnose. Doing Observations Discussing Problems. X X X. Problem. X X X X X X X X. Sellecting data collection instruments. X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X. X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X. Applying focous group. X X. Transcribing tapes X. Analyzing first data collection Planning new strategies Interventi on Applaying strategies Analyzing new results Evaluatio. 1 °. X X X X X X X X X X X X X. Defining methodology. Recording audio / video from a class. 1 2 3 4 ° ° ° °. X X. Writing Outline Correction. Writing on the journal. November. X X X X X X X X X X X X X. Narrowing Problems Writing Outline. October. 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °. Defining Problems. Plan. September. Decembe r. X. X X X X X X X X X X X X. 2 °.

(32) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 31 n. Reflectioning about results Making decisions for further strategies. X X X X X X. X X X. Final presentation. Interventions These are the interventions with their corresponding description, which I performed during the semester. September 21th “Destroying advertisements”: Students has the possibility to watch some old and sexist spots. Then, the class has the opportunity to watch advertisement that we can find in TV every day. Later, we can share opinions to create an approach about what I need to discover at the end of this research. Before to express student´s opinions they can write it in a sheet of paper since I know they do not want to talk spontaneously. Finally they have to make groups and to choose a kind of discrimination in order to perform the topic they chose in front of the class Number of students inside the classroom: 15 Materials: Projector, Computer, Internet, Marker, Board. September 23th “Brave Boys Wear Black” (Modeling): The first goal of this action research is that my students understand English is not a feminine language. Of course this goal has transversal objectives; nevertheless, the first point is to promote communicative lessons between girls.

(33) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 32. and boys. For this reason my first step is to engage all my students with this foreign language. In this intervention my students have to identify the main character as a very masculine man talking in English in order to let them understand that languages (English in particular) can be used in different contexts and in different ways. We have two lessons to watch this movie and to analyze each character. Number of students inside the classroom: 17 Materials: Projector, Computer, Internet, Marker, Board. September 30th “Role Play” (Modeling): Students have to work in groups of four and five, the teacher makes the groups and each group has to create a name so my students feel identified with their respective groups. Each group receives a sheet of paper and they have to create a new end to the movie we watched. Each student has to speak at least ten times during the play. They have to perform their dialogs in front of the class and acting as the character they watched in the movie. Finally, each group has to choose a reporter who has to explain why they think it should be the end of the movie. Number of students inside the classroom: 17 Materials: Worksheet, Marker, Board. October 19th “Men are stronger than women”: I write this statement on the board and I observe my students body language; ―Men are stronger than women‖. Then (in the same groups they have been working) they have to formulate a debate. Each group has two people against.

(34) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 33. and two people in favor of the statement. After two groups the class enjoys a video about ―Crespa Rodriguez‖ in order to understand that a girl can be as strong as a man is and then we continue with the debates. Number of students inside the classroom: 17 Materials: Projector, Computer, Internet, Marker, Board. November 2nd “Self-reflection”: Students answer the interview they have answered twice before, then they receive the interview they answered on September 21th and they have 30 minutes to answer a couple of questions about the possible differences their answers have. They explain those questions in front of the class. This moment is extremely crucial since here we have an approach about a successful or unsuccessful process to this project. Number of students inside the classroom: 17 Materials: Interviews, Marker, Board..

(35) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 34. Data Analysis To address the problem of helping my students understand spoken English is not a feminine language I chose a determinate number of instruments and strategies aforementioned. Those interventions are implemented in my eleventh grade at Antares school during September, October, November and December, 2015. The data analysis rigorously examines both the qualitative and quantitative data that I collected in this study and adheres to action research methodology. In this section I will draw a summary of the evidence from both qualitative and quantitative data. Journals summary Reflections I wrote in my journal show me the development of a hard process that I followed in order to help my eleventh grade students to understand English is not a feminine language. Before my first intervention I was not able to motivate my students to participate in my English class, they did not want to speak and they usually said English was ―feminine‖. For this reason I made the decision to watch some spots about sexism, nevertheless my students told me sexism was not amiss. Students’ reaction after the first Bored intervention Teacher´s reaction after the first Tired intervention.

(36) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 35. Since my second intervention, some male students started to speak during my lessons. Consequently, I carried out more participative classes; the number of students spoke voluntarily during my class increase since 4 students (3 girls and 1 boy) to 10 (4 girls and 6 boys). It could mean some male students did not feel uncomfortable speaking English but I needed to improve my interventions, it was not enough. After all my interventions the situation was better since just 2 boys did not want to participate voluntarily last November 2nd. Students’ reaction after the last Participative intervention Teacher´s reaction after the last Motivated intervention. Journals let me the opportunity to remember my own reflection and descriptions about different situations. Taking into account what I wrote I can say that apparently my interventions were successful since most of my male and female students spoke during my class. Nevertheless it is not a concrete instrument to answer my question, since I do not know if my students still think English is a feminine language..

(37) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 36. Surveys It is important to remember I applied three surveys to each student during this action research process. The first one was taken on September 21st, the second one was taken on October 5th and the last one was taken on November 2nd.. I will break down this surveys question by question in order to have a clear picture about the evolution and perception that my students had about English and gender. I am going to analyze particularly statements number 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7..

(38) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 37. Statement 1: I like English. October 5th. September 21st Strongly agree. Strongly agree. Agree. Agree. Disagree. Disagree. Strongly disagree. Strongly disagree. November 2nd Strongly agree Agree Disagree. Strongly disagree. As you see from these graphs there was an overall increase in the number of students who likes English. In addition, the number of students strongly dislikes English decrease during those months. It is not coincidence that 4 of my 4 feminine students like or strongly like English while just 1 boy liked it and 4 male students strongly dislike English at the beginning..

(39) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 38. Statement 4: I feel comfortable when I have to talk in English. September 21st. October 5th. Strongly agree. Strongly agree. Agree. Agree. Disagree. Disagree. Strongly disagree. Strongly disagree. November 2nd Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree. As you see from these graphs there was an overall increase in the number of students feel comfortable speaking in English. In addition the last chart shows that one student feels strongly comfortable speaking in English. Nevertheless the number of students does not feel comfortable speaking English was the same between second and third survey which means I have some details to improve as a teacher in order to help my students feel comfortable with their speaking. In addition, at the end of my interventions my eleventh grader students did not feel strongly uncomfortable when they have to speak in English..

(40) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 39. Statement 5: Girls speak better than boys. September 21st. October 5th. Strongly agree. Strongly agree. Agree. Agree. Disagree. Disagree. Strongly disagree. Strongly disagree. November 2nd Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree. This is one of the most important results in my surveys, as there is seen from the first chart more than a 70% of the eleventh grader students thought girls speak English better than boys and in the second chart we can observe that there was not a huge difference. In addition, in the last graph we can observe a slight increase in the number of student do not think girls speak better than boys..

(41) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 40. On one hand those graphs could show that the interventions between first and second survey were not as meaningful as I thought. On the other hand the interventions between second and third survey was successful. Statement 6: English is a feminine language. September 21st. October 5th. Strongly agree. Strongly agree. Agree. Agree. Disagree. Disagree. Strongly disagree. Strongly disagree. November 2nd Strongly agree Agree. Disagree Strongly disagree. I was really shocked by the results between the first and second graph since the number of students that strongly think English is a feminine language did not have any fluctuation, this situation could be related to the intervention I used between the first and second survey..

(42) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 41. However, the number of students strongly disagrees with statement 6 increases between the first and third chart. Statement 7: English is a masculine language. September 21st. October 5th. Strongly Agree. Strongly agree. Agree. Agree. Disagree. Disagree. Strongly disagree. Strongly disagree. November 2nd Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree. As you saw from the first chart 0% of my students strongly though English is a masculine language, while just 11% of my students thought English is a masculine language. We can realize in the second graph that 17% strongly thought English is a masculine language. It is an important fact since it reveals that my students were starting to think English was not a feminine language, but a masculine one. This chart is crucial to think that it was time to start to develop a neutral idea about English..

(43) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 42. Reflection and Analysis. Surveys were extremely important to carry out this action research, I can realize that at the end of this process the most of my students started to enjoy English and they feel comfortable with their speaking. In addition I realized that I had to improve my strategies after the second intervention since though modeling my eleventh grader students understood English is not a feminine language but they started to think it was a masculine one. This situation had some pros and cons since my idea was that my students could speak English far from the idea that English is related to gender roles. On the other hand it was a good strategy to engage my male students with the spoken English. Helping my students to speak English is my responsibility as an English teacher, the first step was to engage my students, when they were ready to communicate their ideas and opinions in this foreign language, and I was able to conduct my English lessons in order to promote a critical thinking. If we compare the last chart about statement number 6 and the last chart about statement number 7 we are going to realize the most of my students do not think English is neither a feminine language nor a masculine one. It means they understood language does not have any gender..

(44) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 43. Conclusion and implications. All in all, the project finished with the expected results. Most of the interventions where successful and those helped me to help my students understand English is neither a feminine nor a masculine language. Hence, his action research gave me the opportunity to help my students understand that spoken English is utilized by both men and women without distinction and it helps me work on my students‘ motivation and participation during my English lessons. I am proud to say that I achieved my students speak English in a communicative way and finally they understood English is as neutral as Spanish, French or Turkish. Nevertheless, I have to improve the way I engage my male and female students in order to engage my complete classroom with English. I think my second intervention was successful to help my male students understand that English is not a feminine language but a masculine one. In the future, it is necessary to think in a new strategy in order to include girls and boys in this ―modeling‖ process as a neutral language. Consequently, I have to learn to work on motivational strategies regardless of the problem I would have in order to be prepared to motivate each different student during my life as a teacher. During this period I faced some limitations to carry out my project. Firstly, I had just three months to engage my students since they had a lack of knowledge about English; it was also a short period to develop an introduction about critical thinking, particularly, gender roles. Secondly, my students were embedded in a sexist society then, to pretend to change all their beliefs in three months is almost impossible, for this reason I decided to use.

(45) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 44. English as means and to focus my huge topic in ―spoken English‖. Thirdly, standardized test students had to take to follow the traditional plan that my school has. To conclude with, I know I have a lot of strategies and methodologies to learn, I have to improve timing in order to get more organized lessons. I have to learn about my own praxis and, as a teacher; I have to learn all my life. Action research is a process of systematic inquiry that enables people to find effective solutions to real problems encountered in daily life (Ferrance, 2000; Lewin, 1938; 1946; Stringer, 2007). This project helped me to understand that doing an Action Research is an extremely important job during our life as teachers. Finally, I learned English is not a limitation to work on a critical thinking but, it is a useful tool to get it; an English teacher does not have to separate communication from English. An English teacher does not need to speak in Spanish to talk about values or to elicit opinions, an English teacher has to plan integral lessons taking into account what students think, what students live and what students believe about English and, it will be just in this moment that he or she is going to finish her or his non-communicative lessons, to achieve more elaborated and meaningful lessons not only on English learning, but also human development. I learned how to teach transversal topics during my English classes using the four skills as a means, not as an objective by themselves. This action research helped me improve my ability to teach and learn about the relationship between language and gender. Besides, This Action Research helped me to understand how to contextualize topics in order to promote a real English knowledge. ..

(46) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 45. References. - Ako, O. O. (1998). Language and feminism: Sexism in the slang expressions of Obafemi Awolowo University students. B.A. Long Essay, Obafemi Awolowo University. - Anton, R. J. (1990). Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) Research Centre (2002). Facts sheets – What is Pronunciation? Combining singing and psychology. Hispania, 73, 1166-1170 -Burns, A. (2009) Doing Action Research in English Language Teaching: A Guide for Practitioners (ESL & Applied Linguistics Professional Series). New York, NY: Routledge. - Bygate, M. (2001). Speaking. In The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages. (Retrieved from http://search.credoreference.com.ezproxy.sju.edu/content/entry/cupteacheng/speaking/0 on December 7th, 2014) - Crystal, D. (2003). The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press. - Dewey, J. (1933). Human nature and conduct: An introduction to social psychology. New York: Modern library. - Hammond, L. (2010). Preparing principals for a changing world lessons from effective school leadership programs. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. - Hormell, S. J. (1976). Speaking of people: Teaching about sexism in language. In D. Dieterich, (Ed.), Teaching about doublespeak (pp. 166-171). Urbana, Illinois: National.

(47) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 46. Council of Teachers of English. - Lapp, D. (2011) Handbook of Research on teaching the English Language Arts. New York, NY. Taylor & Francis. (Retrieved from CREDOreference.com on October 27th, 2014) - Larsen-Freeman, D. (2005). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. Oxford, O; Oxford University Press - Mackey, A., Gass, M.S. (2005). Second Language research. Methodology and Design, New Jersey. Lawrence Erlbaum associates. - Wallace, C. (2001). Reading. In The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages. Retrieved from http://search.credoreference.com.ezproxy.sju.edu/content/entry/cupteacheng/reading/0 on December 5th, 2014) - Yusuf, Y. K. (1997). `To propose is human': Eliminating sexist language from English proverbs. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, XXXII, 169-178.

(48) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 47. Appendix. Appendix A Teacher‘s interviews. Interview 1. Head Teacher; David González, Physical Education Place; Schools playground Date; September 14th, 2015 Time;09:45 PM. What do you think about the eleventh grader performance at school? Well, they are very good children, they are just 17 students and I think they really like to come to school since they have good marks and they enjoy during the classes. I have good comments about my students in general; I think my opinion is not different form my colleagues. It is simple to teach this grade? Yes, it is. What do you think about the number of girls that there are in the eleventh grade? They are just four girls and I like it because boys protect their girls. Do you think there is sexism in the eleventh grade?.

(49) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 48. I do not think so, girls and boys are extremely respectful and kind, they are a good complement. Interview 2. Principal; Juan Fuentes Place; Principal office Date; September 14th, 2015 Time;13:30 PM. What do you think about the eleven grader performance at school? They are an amazing grade; I think the number of students is helpful. The problem inside this grade is a typical teen problem, they do not feel motivated with all subjects, and it is the role of the teacher to engage his or her students. It is simple to teach this grade? I really do not know, I am the principal, but I think it depends on a lot of factors, as any grade in the world. What do you think about the number of girls that there are in the eleventh grade? Well, it was not our decision; I would like to have more girls in this grade because boys there are so brutes, but nice. Do you think there is sexism in the eleventh grade?.

(50) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 49. I have listened to different teachers to talk about that in this grade; in addition we are working on it in ―proyecto de vida‖ which is an especial workshop for them. We are responsible about their education, they have ideas and beliefs and we have to work on it.. Interview 3 Psychologist; Macarena Macaya Place; Macarena´s office Date; September 16th, 2015 Time;11:45 PM. What do you think about the eleven grader performance at school? They are very good students, and they need a lot of support and patient from us, since they have different realities and issues but they are here, studying because they want to progress. I really appreciate our eleventh grade. It is simple to teach this grade? Well, I think it is not so simple if you are a woman, eleventh grader students are a little disruptive when a girl is in front of the classroom. It does not mean you cannot teach there, you can, you must know it, but they have a different perception. What do you think about the number of girls that there are in the eleventh grade? I think the number of girls is not a topic, there are male schools and those men have to learn to respect girls and understand girls and boys are equal..

(51) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 50. Do you think there is sexism in the eleventh grade? I knew that was the topic, I think everybody can realize that sexism in this grade is a big problem, but is has relationship with the student‘s environment, the music they like, family valorous. If you want to engage eleventh grade with English, before to teach them girls and boys are equal, you have to show them English as a masculine language, then, after to engage them with the language you could teach them, in English, that feminine is not a ―bad adjective‖. Interview 4 Language teacher; Samantha Kairan Place; Schools playground Date; September 16th, 2015 Time; 13:45 PM. What do you think about the eleven grader performance at school? I really do not like to teach there, they do not want to participate in plays; I am really tired trying to motivate them. It is simple to teach this grade? It is simple to teach here but it is not simple to improve their participation and motivation during my lessons.. Appendix B. Journal.








(59) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 58. Appendix C. Recording and transcription Debate, focus group. Focus group: Group 3 Students: Paula – Orlando - Christopher – Stephanie Paula:. Christopher and I strongly disagree with the statement that men are stronger than women because we think men and women are equal and they are strong or weak depending on the situation.. Orlando:. Ok, pucha me pongo nervioso.. Stephanie:. Ya po, dale. Orlando:. I disagree because I think the role of a good man is to protect his women. Paula:. [>Pero mira el argumento del siglo pasado<]. Teacher:. English please. Cristopher:. I see your point but let me say that today men and women are exactly equal, women today are professional and they do not need men to take care about them.. Stephany:. Biologically girls and boys are different; men are faster and stronger, you can see my point every day, I can compete with Christopher and he probably wins..

(60) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 59. Paula:. Yes, you say, probably… but if we talk biology… ¿cómo digo parto?. Mario:. Parteichon!. Teacher:. you can say childbirth. Paula:. What about childbirth, what about your mother, she is very stronger, isn´t it?. Teacher:. What do you think class?. Seigi:. I think men and women are equal, de echo ojalá en unos años esto ya no sea tema, es como la homosexuality. Danko:. Uy! Se puso feminazi. Belén:. [>Danko, you are not funny at all<]. Seigi:. To talk about girsla like an objeto, note hace más chuck Norris. Danko:. No miss, it was a broma!.

(61) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 60. Appendix D Photographs September 21th ―Destroying advertisements‖:.



(64) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 63. September 30th ―Role Play‖ (Modeling):.


(66) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 65. October 19th ―Men are stronger than women‖:.




(70) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 69. November 2nd ―Self-reflection‖:.


(72) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 71. Apendix E Survey.

(73) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 72. Appendix F Students surveys September 21st.


(75) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 74. October 5th.




(79) How can I help my eleventh grader students understand English is not a feminine language? 78. November 2nd.




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