Gender Equity in EFL Classroom Teacher-Pupil Interactions in a Public School System in Addis Ababa

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers‟ attention in mixed-sex EFL classrooms focusing on the frequency and length of utterances in academic and non-academic moves, display and referential questions, student responding moves, etc. through textual analysis of video recorded lessons. The subjects were grade 10 Bole Senior Secondary School regular students. The study employed the textual analysis approach based on the application of Sinclair and Coulthard IRF model. Six EFL lessons taught by three female and three male teachers were transcribed, analyzed and the basic questions were coded into the adapted model. There were 276 (150 female and 126 male) students, aged 16-17 in the classrooms observed. The observation data were described both quantitatively and qualitatively, and were described in terms of the amount of share male/female students received. This means that attempts were made to determine whether male or female students received as much teacher attention as or more or less attention than the share they deserved. These figures were further statistically analyzed using chi-square and the t-test methods. The chi-square test was used to determine the differential significance level of male and/or female teachers‟ attention to male and female students. The t-test was employed to examine the significance difference in interaction in length of utterances and the teacher‟s wait time with male or female students. The findings indicated that male teachers paid more attention to male students in the instances of academic moves. Female teachers, however, paid more attention to male students only in the amount of non-academic moves. In all other cases, female teachers paid equal attention to male and female students.