Women all over the world are questioning the roles, lifestyles, and values by which they and their female ancestors have lived for centuries. Addressing gender issues is becoming more common in many cultures and in the foreign language classroom (Vandrick, 1995). Reporting on an innovative university workshop course, this article will show how course content, student action logs (Murphey, 1992, 1993), and active learning (through an interview project) helped participants increase their awareness of issues affecting women.
Women's Studies: A Thematic Content-Based Workshop Course
The Women's Studies workshop was part of a series of courses developed for second-year university English majors. Four teachers were each assigned a different content area, and the subjects for 1997 were American Music, South African Studies, the World Wide Web, and Women's Studies (Murphey, 1997). The students were at an advanced English level, and the majority of the group were female. Each course ran for six weeks (one 90-minute class per week) and the students took all four courses in one academic year (two semesters). The Women's Studies workshop, along with the others, was designed to provide students with an experiential learning environment while incorporating all four language skills. Brinton, Snow, & Wesche (1989) presented the basic rationale underlining such content-based language instruction: "Many would claim that a second language is learned most effectively when used as the medium to convey informational content of interest and relevance to the learner" (p. vii). Feedback from students enrolled in the Women's Studies workshop has consistently shown that the majority did in fact find the topic extremely interesting and relevant both to their daily lives and to their growing consciousness of global issues. By the end of the workshop, many students could express their ideas with greater clarity in both their written and oral work, were better able to comprehend lesson material, and were enthusiastic about pursuing the topics further in English.
Selecting Topics
The Women's Studies workshop has included a wide range of topics, such as working women, women's portrayal by the media, eating disorders, prominent international women, sexual harassment, and injustices suffered by women in other parts of the world, with a strong focus on China, Africa, and India. I selected the topics myself for the first workshop, but relied on student feedback thereafter. With only six weeks to complete each workshop, there were limitations as to how much could be included, but students indicated that they preferred a wide selection of topics. A typical lesson began with a short introduction to the topic by the teacher which led to discussions, group work, and role plays. My role was to facilitate student activities, to answer questions, and explain unfamiliar vocabulary.
Resources
There was no set text for the Women's Studies workshop. An ongoing collection of both newspaper and magazine articles provided useful material. In particular, I found the English version of the monthly women's magazine Marie Claire to be an invaluable source of information. Each issue dedicates a section to reports about women from around the world, with numerous colour illustrations that make excellent visual aids. I have also used short sections from a variety of videos including Women's Issues (1981), which poses topical vignettes for discussion. Wild Swans (1993) highlights life in China through three generations of women. Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women (1993) is a powerful documentary co-produced by Alice Walker. Excerpts from cinematic films are also useful aids: City of Joy (1992) highlights the Indian dowry system and Little Women (1994) is popular with the students when discussing women in a historical context. Although some of the videos were subtitled in Japanese this was not a problem because their purpose was mainly to promote discussion. Excerpts from the following books were also used: Anorexia & Bulimia: Your Questions Answered (1996), Asian Women in Transition (1980), An Introduction to Women's Studies (1996), and Talking from 9 to 5 (1995).
Action Logs: Students Reflecting on Their Learning
Each student's action log (a B5-size notebook) served not only as a journal in which they responded to the course content but also as a forum for discussion. Students were encouraged to write in their action logs shortly after each class to record their general reaction to the lesson and to assess the individual activities (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Sample Action Log Comment Page
|
Today's Topics |
Interesting |
Useful |
|
Handout and discussion on housework. 3-minute video clip on housework and discussion. Husband/wife role-play. Group work. Sharing information from research on prominent women. |
. | . |
| Your comment on today's lesson: |
￢he students evaluated each activity according to the two criteria, Interesting and Useful as follows: A+ (highly interesting/very useful), A (interesting/useful), B (fairly interesting/fairly useful), or C (not interesting/not useful). They also wrote one or two paragraphs in the comment section. The action logs were turned in for marking a few days after each workshop session and returned to the students in the following class.
One of the many positive aspects of the action log was that students often felt more comfortable writing about personal experiences or expressing their viewpoints to the teacher in private rather than before a class of over 40 students. Although checking the action logs was a lot of work for the teacher, they helped make the class more student-centered, and helped the teacher monitor students' comprehension and enjoyment of each lesson. In addition, the students' action logs were an essential component of the students' grades.
In the next section, I will outline a few of the topics that were covered and give examples from student action logs.
Workshop Topics
Prominent women
In groups of four, students chose a prominent female figure to research for discussion in the next class. The groups came up with such people as Aung San Suu Kyi, Mother Teresa, Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Doi Takako, Princess Masako, and Princess Diana. The students were encouraged to use library resources or the Internet for their research. They wrote the results of their research in their action logs and each student later reported back to a different group, so that they learned about four women while doing research on only one.
Housework
With the aid of handouts and video clips, we discussed housework, who does it, and whose responsibility the students feel it is, especially in the case of married couples where the wife has a full or part-time job. Students performed "husband" and "wife" role-plays. Although the subject matter is often a source of conflict in real life, the students enjoyed play-acting and got into some quite heated debates with their "spouses." One student wrote in her action log (this and subsequent action log entries appear in their original, uncorrected versions):
It was fun to pretend to be a wife and a hasband. I was given the role of hasband and put on airs like my father at first. But we (with my partner) came to an happy end. My mother doesn't work outside and she do all the housework by herself. I sometimes help her but my father never do. Even if my mother worked outside, he would not help her. Because he takes it for granted that women do housework. Probably my grandfather had the same idea. I will talk about sex roles with my future hasband before I get married!
As the class was predominantly female, the male students sat with female partners at all times and these pairs were frequently asked to take the roles of the opposite gender. A male student commented:
Through this class, I learn women has been discriminated. Probably I also have discriminated women unconsciously because my parents' thought is old-fashioned such as men have only to work outside and women have to do all of the housework. I'll change my thought toward women and want to be kind and considerate man.
Global issues
The suffering of women around the world, past and present, covers such a vast area that two of the six weeks were spent learning about and discussing conditions that many women are subjected to in various cultures and countries. One student commented on raising student consciousness of these issues:
Today's lesson upset me very much. I didn't know about F.G.M. [female genital mutilation]. I was very, very, very shocked. I couldn't believe this and almost crying. After getting home I looked up in the dictionary and I read your hand-out again. Please, please continue this lesson and make many more students aware of it. I will never forget todays lesson.
The Interview Project: Experiential Learning
Two weeks before the end of the course students, again in groups of four, conducted interviews for a class survey. Each group was given a specific category of people to interview. For example, one group interviewed senior female university students who were job-hunting. Other groups were assigned young mothers, female office workers, their mothers or grandmothers and women of their ages, their fathers or grandfathers and men of their ages, male university students, salary men, foreign men, and foreign women.
The groups made up their own questions based on topics covered in class. They had two weeks to carry out the interviews individually outside of class and document them in their action logs: the interview questions, the responses from the interviewees (usually four or five people), and one or two final paragraphs reporting their own conclusions and feelings about the interview. In the sixth and final class, the students discussed their survey results with their group. Then, they split up and joined different groups to share their findings with others.
Students often reported that they found the interview the most relevant part of the course. Many were quite amazed to discover that the majority of men, even the younger generation, still believed that women should stay at home to take care of children and household duties. Other students were completely unaware of the reality of sexual harassment at work, the embarrassing personal questions that females are often asked at job interviews, and the gender-based inequality of working conditions. Most females taking this course had high hopes for future careers and were surprised to learn that many working women, once they realized that women were highly unlikely to get promoted, often gave up their career dream and quit their jobs when they got married or started a family. As one student wrote:
Some women want to quit and other doesn't when they get married. I think this is one of the reason why fixed idea never go away. I think some people in a company treat women badly because they think (somewhere in their heart) "it's all right because women will quit the job when they marry", which is not fair for women who want to continue work.
In some cases, the interview had a positive effect on students' relationships with family members. Upon discovering that their mothers or grandmothers were often secretly dissatisfied with having to do all the housework unaided, some students reported that they took action by sharing the workload. Grandparents, in particular, seemed to enjoy the interviews for the pleasure of reminiscing and were a valuable source of information regarding social changes concerning Japanese women.
Although students who interviewed Japanese people conducted their interviews in Japanese (translating them into English later), those who interviewed foreigners used English throughout the process. One student wrote:
At first I was really nervous because I did not have any foreign friends and I seldom talk to people that I never know. But I talked to foreign students and they were so nice and kind. Talking to people from another country is really fun and good English practice for me.
The interviews provided students with an invaluable experience. Not only did their informants provide them with rich information, which they eagerly discussed with their classmates, but they were also active participants in the process. In addition, through discovering that many women feel disadvantaged, students began to think more seriously of initiating change in their own daily lives.
Conclusion
When I first began the Women's Studies workshop, I was somewhat apprehensive about the students' reactions. Would they, especially the male students, be receptive to the subjects we covered? My thoughts were echoed in various action logs with comments such as, "At first women's issues sounded a little difficult for me," and, "To be honest, I had not been very interested in women study." However, by the end of the six weeks most students were much more interested in the subject, and so far have been unanimously positive in their evaluation of the activities. For some, the workshop generated a keen interest in gender issues, and they decided to learn more about it through future seminars or private study.
Although the workshop could easily be extended into a full semester or even a year-long course, the six-week time frame was ideal for introducing the students to a broad spectrum of womenﾕs issues. The workshop used English for a valuable communicative purpose--to expand students' knowledge about themselves and their world in order that they might initiate change and improve the quality of their lives.
References
Brinton, D., Snow, M., & Wesche, M. (1989). Content-based second language instruction. New York: Newbury House.
Buckroyd, J. (1996). Anorexia & bulimia: Your questions answered. Dorset, UK: Element Books Limited.
Chipp, S., & Green, J. (Eds.). (1980). Asian women in transition. Philadelphia: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Di Novi, D. (Producer). (1994). Little women [videotape]. Los Angeles: Columbia Pictures.
Eberts, J., & Joffee, R. (Producers). (1992). City of joy [videotape]. London: Pinewood Studios.
Felt, H., & Hodin, M. (Producers). (1981). Women's issues [videotape]. Boston: Human Services Development.
Hauer, D., & Walker, A. (Producers). (1993). Warrior marks: Female genital mutilation and the sexual blinding of women [videotape]. New York: Women Make Movies.
Madoc-Jones, B., & Coates, J. (Eds.). (1996). An introduction to women's studies. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Murphey, T. (1992). Action logging: Letting the students in on teacher reflection processes. The Teacher Trainer, 6(2), 20-21.
Murphey, T. (1993, January). Why don't teachers learn what learners learn? Taking the guesswork out with action logging. English Teaching Forum, 6-10.
Murphey, T. (1997). A CBI curriculum innovation: Nanzan's revolving six-week workshops. The Language Teacher, 21(6), 25-29.
Scorer, A. (Producer). (1993). Wild swans [videotape]. London: BBC Television.
Tannen, D. (1995). Talking from 9 to 5. London: Virago Press.
Vandrick, S. (1995). Teaching and practicing feminism in the university