Job Discussion Forums

[Cdaniels]

Is there a noticeable difference between males and females? In New England, especially northern New England (I think among Newfies and PEIers too) Being the "strong and silent type" is considered a very masculine trait, and chattiness is a feminine characteristic. You can see this played out in children's classrooms, that girls tend to be more talkative. But I've heard that in Mexico its generally the boys who are the talkative ones. And I know boys can be very talkative, especially when they want attention. Is there less of a difference between males and females in Asia? Maybe more of a difference?

[jfurgers]

cdaniels.

I haven't really noticed a difference between the guys and gals. In my pronunciation class there are more women. There are only three guys and one of them never shows. All the rest are women. The women who seem to speak pretty good talk more than the ones who aren't as good at speaking.
There's one lady who has an extra hard time with pronunciation so she keeps quiet most of the time. I speak with her after class for a little and she seems fine with that. Perhaps it's because she isn't speaking while the whole class is listening.
My interrmediate conversation class is 95% asian and it's different. This class is mostly men and they need an extra push before that speak and even then it's only to make a point and no more.
The one exception to this is a guy from South Korea. He seems to have no problem speaking during class. The others sound pretty good when they speak but they just don't seem to want to as much as the ones in my other class who aren't asian.
The women in the conversation class are even more quiet.

[gringanic]

I've taught in Thailand, and I never noticed a difference between guys and girls. The biggest difference between them and "western" students is that most asian cultures expect to sit and listen to a teacher lecture them, as they see the teacher as having all the knowledge and them being sponges. In my experience, with Chinese and Thai students, they can't seem to break this even in the language classroom, where interaction is essential. It's very hard to get them to think on their own, they HATE taking risks without knowing all the rules, and they seem very shy, even if they aren't quiet in their first language. With Thai students, I managed to get around it by joking with them a lot (they LOVE to laugh and goof off) but it was difficult to balance that with learning, since they never bothered to study or do their homework (another cultural thing). My Chinese students, however, were extremely quiet in class but would study their butts off at home to memorize vocab and grammar rules. Since they were so quiet in class, though, they still had a hard time with conversation. I'm looking forward to having students who want to talk in class!!

[gringanic]

I think my last post got a lot off topic from Mexico, so I'll clarify that all that was in comparison to teaching immigrants in the states. Even when they were shy, you could tell it was a personality thing and could be broken through with patience. Although it's pretty much a given that immigrants hearing English constantly will be better at conversation than people learning EFL, I think they still would have done better than the Asian students because of the way they approach learning and interact with teachers.

[jfurgers]

Gringanic,

It's interesting how you said that the asians want the teacher to lecture. In my intermediate conversation class this morning, a student from South Korea wanted to know if I was going to be teaching advanced conversation in January and also if that class would be more lecture.
He said that he likes it when the teacher lectures and they listen, but he also said that he realizes that that approach wouldn't help him with speaking.
He was taught to believe that way. Most of my students this morning want to get together with me sometimes and just talk. They say that the hardest thing to do is find a native speaker who will talk with you for long periods of time.
Are you teaching in Mexico now gringanic? I'm heading that way sometime early next year or whenever my house sells.

John