The document discusses challenges that English teachers in India and Sri Lanka face in promoting gender equality in the classroom. Some challenges identified include women having low confidence, beliefs that women deserve fewer opportunities, men not being open to feedback from women or willing to participate in household tasks. The document then provides strategies for teachers, such as reflecting on seating arrangements and mixed group work. Teachers are given a questionnaire to evaluate participation between male and female students. Suggested activities include role-plays on topics like objecting to a woman pilot to promote discussion of gender issues.
5. Teachers from Srilanka and India say that they
face the following challenges -
• Women/Girls with low confidence
• Women/Girls not convinced they deserve the same
opportunities as the men/boys in their family
• Turn-taking
• Men not open to feedback from women peers and trainers
• Men unwilling to participate in house-keeping activities
• Parents willing to spend more on male child’s education
• Parents anxious that they may not find a suitable partner for
an educated girl child.
7. Reflect on your own classes
Please fill this questionnaire from
Equal Opportunity and Diversity: The Handbook
for Teachers of English
(page 89)
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/transform/books/
8.
9. Whole class seating arrangements
• Who decides where your students sit? You or
your students?
• If your students decide, how do they organize
themselves?
• If you, how do you decide who sits where?
13. If mixed groups or pairs, who does
most of the following -
Skill Girls/Women Boys/Men
Speaking
Listening
Note-taking and collating
Presenting back to the group
14. Skills results -
0 5 10 15 20 25
Speaking
Listening
Note-takingandcollating
Presenting back to the group
Females
Males
15. Reflection
• Was the questionnaire useful as a reflection
tool?
• Would you use it to plan further lessons?
16. Listen to this poem …
http://www.pitara.com/talespin/poems/online.asp?
17. Questions -
1.Guess the name of the poem.
2. If we rename the street, what do you think
we should call it?
3.What kind of neighbourhood do you think the
author dislikes?
19. Passenger objects to woman
piloting plane
• New Delhi – A Mumbai bound flight (IndiGo 6E
179) was delayed by more than one and a half
hours first due to fog and then by a passenger
Pramod Ambalekar, who refused to fly on a plane
piloted by a woman. He relented only after he
was told that he would be taken off the plane.
(‘The Hindu’ Saturday Feb 26, 2011)
20. Role play Cards
• Card 1 : You are the passenger. You refuse to fly
because the plane is piloted by a woman.
• Card 2 : You are a crew member. You are trying to
convince the passenger to fly and resort to
threatening the passenger.
• Card3 : You are a co-passenger who intervenes
because you feel you can convince the passenger
without threatening him/her.
21. Reflection
• Can you do this activity in your class?
• What could be the advantages of doing this
activity in class?
• What challenges would you face?
23. Definition - Heterosexism
Heterosexism is typically defined as the
process by which an individual assumes that
everyone is, or should be, heterosexual.
From Youth Safe.net, 2008
24. Role play cards -
• Card 1 : You are the employer who wants to employ
only male candidates for the job.
• Card 2: You are the lady candidate who is arguing
that she is capable of doing the job well.
• Card 3: You are the lady candidate’s friend who
intervenes to convince the employer to employ her
without using heterosexist language.
25. Reflection
• Can you do this activity in your class?
• What could be the advantages of doing this
activity in class?
• What challenges would you face?
