The Language Teacher as Seen by Japanese Female and Male University Students

Many teachers have observed that female and male students often behave differently in class (Flood, 1995, p. 305). In many cultures, males and females have their own systems of values, symbols, and communication norms that vary from nation to nation (Sunderland, 1994, p. 2). They employ different communication strategies, and their attitudes toward certain behaviour can be different (Suzuki, 1997). Some researchers even adopt a "gender as culture" approach (Maltz & Borker, 1982; Mulac & Bradac, 1995; Tannen, 1990), in which males and females within one nation are studied as carriers of distinctive cultures.

In the classroom, there are interactions between the gender-specific cultures of the students, between gender and other social and personality factors among the students, and between the gender-specific cultures and personalities of the students and their teacher. Gender becomes a particularly important factor in a foreign language class (Graham & Rees, 1995; Sunderland, 1994) when the focus is on verbal communication, an area where gender differences are particularly striking (Azuma & Ogura, 1984; Flood, 1995; Sunderland, 1994; Wareing, 1994).

The present study investigates to what extent Japanese students' perception of a language teacher is determined by gender. Teachers' understanding of gender-specific behaviour and expectations of the students can contribute to the establishment of student confidence, interest, and motivation in class, and help the teacher make adjustments to fit learners' needs (Strevens, 1977).

Rationales for the Study

Our study focuses on Japanese university students' perception of the language teacher. The following three considerations have prompted this choice: (a) both the teacher and the student are of utmost importance in learning; (b) knowledge of students' opinions can help the teacher achieve better interaction between the teacher and the students; and (c) data that would reveal gender-specific features of students' perception of their teacher have been so far insufficient.

Although the teacher has been shown to play an "obvious and central role in creating effective environments for language teaching and learning" (Flood, 1995, p. 549), modern teaching methods also require a shift towards the learner (Nunan, 1988). The teacher is seen as a facilitator of learning, who establishes an interpersonal relationship with the learner. Recently, more and more research has appeared which focuses on the student and considers the role and qualities of the teacher from the student's viewpoint.

The available studies of Japanese students' expectations of their teachers, however, typically include male and female subjects in the sample but do not account for gender differences in the analysis (Durham & Ryan, 1992; Hadley & Yoshioka Hadley, 1996; Makarova & Ryan, 1997; Shimizu, 1995). This study uses a questionnaire to trace the differences between female and male university English majors' expectations about teachers of English. We targeted language majors because we hypothesized that these students would have more to say about university English teachers and language teaching/learning problems than students from other disciplines.

Materials and Methods

Questionnaires

The present survey is part of a larger cross-cultural study of students' expectations of language teachers held by Russian and Japanese students (for the full study, see Makarova & Ryan, 1997). The data was obtained in the course of a two-stage survey conducted through two successive questionnaires.

The original open-ended questionnaire contained questions about the essential qualities of a good foreign language teacher at a university, student descriptions of appropriate and inappropriate actions of a foreign language teacher in class, and their preferences regarding teacher attitudes towards students. The questionnaire was originally constructed in English, then translated into Russian and Japanese using the Werner & Campbell back-tanslation method (1970). Japanese and Russian university students answered the questions in their native languages. The questions at the first stage were open-ended to allow students to freely express themselves, allowing us to collect a pool of items used by university students in the two countries to talk about their expectations of language teachers.

The results of a content analysis of the responses were used to construct the second forced-choice 93-item questionnaire, which included the most frequent responses from both countries in the original study grouped under seven major headings: (a) the teacherﾕs attitude to students, (b) the teacher's personality, (c) the teacher's skills, (d) the teacher's knowledge, (e) what the teacher should teach, (f) the teacher's actions in class, and (g) the teacher's experience. Respondents indicated on a 5-point Likert scale how important they thought each of the factors were in a good university foreign language teacher. The aim of this research design was to create an instrument which would be valid in both Japanese and Russian settings.

From the original study, we present here only the analysis of the Japanese English majors' responses, since their sample was balanced according to gender.

Subjects

The sample discussed in this paper was taken from a mid-ranking medium-sized university in the Kanto area. We included only the responses of second, third and fourth-year students (since we believed that their opinions of a university English teacher would be better informed than those of first-year students), between the ages of 19 and 23 (typical university age). Responses of students who had studied abroad for longer than two months were excluded to avoid the influence of foreign attitudes. The total number of respondents was 259: 121 males (46.7%) and 138 females (53.3%).

Analysis procedure

The responses of the subjects were tabulated and analyzed using SPSS software. To mitigate the possibility of a response set, we converted each respondentﾕs answers to z scores (mean = 0; SD = 1). The mean and standard deviation were calculated for each item for male and female respondents separately. The means were compared using t-tests. Only items that show a significant difference (p< 0.05) between the male and female respondents are discussed in this paper.

Limitations of the study

1. The sample is limited in number of subjects surveyed (259) and is restricted to only one university.
2. The statistical procedure employed enables us to draw reliable conclusions about the differences in the opinions of both groups of subjects, but does not allow us to discuss similarities in their opinions with any certainty.
3. The questionnaire includes items introduced by Russian students, which may have influenced the Japanese respondents in ways that we have not accounted for.

Results

Attributes of a good teacher

There is, on the whole, agreement between male and female subjects about the qualities that are relatively important or unimportant in a good language teacher. The most important qualities for all subjects (in descending order of importance) are that teachers: (a) teach useful English, (b) explain understandably, (c) teach real/living English, (d) be good at explaining things, (e) be easy to understand, (f) make the lessons interesting, (g) be good at interesting students in the subject, (h) know how to teach, (i) not be difficult to understand, (j) be knowledgeable, (k) teach daily conversation, (l) have good pronunciation, and (m) be interested in the subject.

The qualities that are least important for both groups of subjects (beginning with the least important) are teachers who: (a) are not familiar with students, (b) do not teach grammar, (c) do not speak L1, (d) do not teach grammar, (e) do not talk about personal life, (f) are a foreign teacher, (g) do not get side-tracked, (h) are strict, (i) use L2 only, (j) are demanding, (k) read foreign literature, (l) teach literature, (m) do not scold students, (n) do not force students to study, and (o) have universal knowledge.

Differences in student perceptions

We did not find any cases where a quality considered highly important by males was considered unimportant by females, or vice versa. There is, however, statistically significant variation (at p<0.05) in the relative importance of some items. Table 1 shows the means and standard deviations for items that were significantly different. The probability level (p < 0.05) is the same for all the given values and the order of qualities in the table is the same as the order in the questionnaire.

Table 1: Qualities of an English Language Teacher With Significantly Different Ranking Between Female and Male Japanese University English Majors

Japanese male and female students regard qualities 8-12, 14, 15, and 19 as relatively important, and qualities 3, 16, 17, and 18 as relatively unimportant for an English language teacher (see Table 1). There is significant difference (at p<0.05), however, in the relative importance of each of these items between female and male subjects.

Discussion

The above data suggest three tendencies.

Tendency 1: While female respondents are more interested in qualities referring to teacher's skills such as, be easy to understand, be good at explaining things, and what the teacher should teach such as, teach real/living English, and teach useful English, males are more interested in the teacher's attitude to students and the teacher's personality such as, be polite, be respectful, be strict, and be kind.

Other studies have reported that Japanese university students want to be understood, be listened to, and be treated kindly and politely by their teachers (Makarova & Ryan, 1997; Shimizu, 1995). We were, however, surprised to find that in our data, the desire for empathy is stronger for Japanese males than females, since women have been reported elsewhere to be more emotional, more right-brain dominant global thinkers than left-brain dominant analytical thinking males (Sunderland, 1994). Women supposedly express and expect to receive sympathy more than men (Sunderland,1994). They are believed to rely more on subjectivity (feelings, cultural sensitivity, and empathy) than men, who tend to favour objectivity (rules, facts, and logic) and are associated with "a vision of reason and self-control, not emotional bursts" (Seidler, 1994, p.29). Our results suggest the opposite.

What factors could account for such results? To answer this question, we must venture into a delicate and culturally loaded area. The following are possible explanations.

1. Male students may expect more attention in class. Studies of teacher attention in classes other than foreign language have found teachers giving boys more attention than girls (Sunderland,1994), usually due to boys causing more discipline problems.

2. Social and family role differences require Japanese women to be emotionally strong while Japanese males rely on emotional support. This difference is also manifested in the classroom. It has been reported that Japanese women often pamper their children giving them unlimited gratification, and thus instill in them formidable dependency needs (Smith, 1983). This behaviour is sometimes explained as a way of strengthening family ties (Kondo, 1990). For example, the eldest son who is to inherit the property and care for the parents in their old age may get more attention from his mother (Hamabata, 1990).

After marriage, Japanese men tend to turn to their wives for emotional support and are often ﾒmotheredﾓ by their wives (Hamabata, 1990, p. 16). Japanese women, for their part, seem to play a very important role in running the family (Imamura, 1987). The Japanese wife is usually in charge of finances, maintaining ties with relatives, neighbours and benefactors, and building up her husbandﾕs image (Imamura, 1987). This requires a great deal of emotional strength and independence and might already be evident at college age.

3. Communicative strategies are less friendly and cooperative for men than for women; men are therefore disadvantaged at communicative tasks common in the language class, and may actually need more help and attention from the teacher. There is a universal distinction between female and male communicative strategies. In a conversation, men tend to dominate the talking time, interrupt more often than women, and focus on the content of interaction and the task in hand, at the expense of attention to their addressees (Holmes, 1994). Such attitudes may lead to communication failure, leaving men alone and friendless (Seidler, 1994).

Women, on the other hand, easily build up understanding and connection with each other (Seidler, 1994); they appear to be cooperative, facilitative participants in a conversation, and demonstrate in a variety of ways their concern for their conversation partners (Holmes, 1994). Holmes straightforwardly advises us to "focus on the inadequacies in male studentsﾕ discourse skills" and ﾒteach men how to be good conversationalistsﾓ (Holmes, 1994, p. 161). If it is true that men are disadvantaged at communicative tasks, their bids for attention might be rightful pleas for help.

4. Possible changes in the male image. In the 1980s, there was a "softening" of the Western image of men and the appropriation by men of certain qualities traditionally associated with women (Seidler, 1994). Men "began to recognize the injuries done to themselves in the cultural separation enforced between them and their emotional lives," and they became aware of the "necessity of mastering an emotional language that would allow them to identify and articulate their experience" (Seidler, 1994, p. 104). Our findings showing emotional attitudes of Japanese male students might be a sign of a similar tendency in Japan.

Tendency 2: Male students do not want homework; female students want interesting classes.

It was quite predictable even before the questionnaire distribution that the "fun" element would be important for Japanese students, since it is widely known that for them "college is a place for enjoyment, 'a leisure land'" (Nozaki, 1992, p. 28). It is nevertheless interesting to notice that the "fun/no hard work" element seems to manifest itself in a slightly different way in male (not give much homework) and female (make the lessons interesting) responses. It should be also pointed out that although neither group of subjects wants a strict teacher, for females this is an even less desirable characteristic than for men.

Tendency 3: Pronunciation is more important for female students.

Many studies have shown that women generally are more concerned with their pronunciation than men, and tend to be closer in their pronunciation to the socially prestigious form in a native language. It has been recently demonstrated that gender differences in pronunciation appear to be connected with employment patterns and life within the community: the gender that tends to be mostly unemployed and has looser social structures (women in the majority of cases) prefers a more prestigious pronunciation form (see Wareing, 1994, for a full discussion of different interpretations of this phenomenon). The higher estimation by females than males in our data of pronunciation teaching and having a teacher with good pronunciation may be a sign of this tendency.

Conclusion

The progress of learners is very sensitive to their relationships with the teacher. For successful teaching we need to establish confidence, trust, interest and motivation in our students, and we need to continually adjust our teaching to fit the learner's needs (Strevens, 1977). We cannot accomplish this goal without a full awareness of studentsﾕ expectations of us. It has so far been unknown whether, or to what extent, these expectations are affected by gender.

We compared Japanese female and male students' expectations of their language teachers and found some significant diferences among the responses of the two subject groups. Our findings fall within the "gender as culture" approach. They support the idea that gender-specific cultures affect Japanese studentsﾕ expectations of their teachers. We considered the main three areas these differences seem to be falling into: (a) male students desire more empathy while females are more interested in practical skills, (b) females want an interesting class while males want less homework, and (c) females students show higher interest in pronunciation.

We believe that teachers should consider these differences to better meet the needs of all their students, both males and females. Our findings do not suggest that male and female students should be treated differently. However, information about gender-based differences in expectations should be helpful to teachers in making decisions about classroom procedures.

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