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Gender in the EFL classroom Jane Sunderland

The following article is an overview of issues and research in three areas in which gender manifests itself in the EFL classroom: the English language, materials (grammars, textbooks, dictionaries, and teachers guides), and processes (learning sty/es and strategies, and teacher-learner and learnerlearner interaction). The article also briefly examines some implications of gender in materials and classroom interaction for language acquisition.

Genderclosely
observed

Gender in the EFL classroom is a phrase which may conjure up in teachers minds no more than complaints about the use of he, or about textbooks being sexist. Closer examination, however, suggests that gender operates at more than the level of materials. Other levels include the English language itself; and classroom processes, including learning processes, teacher-learner interaction, and learner-learner interaction. These levels interact, always within a particular political, sociolinguistic, and educational context (see Figure 1). One feature of the workforce in this context is that it tends to be characterized by gendered division, what Pennycook (1989: 610) describes as a hierarchically organized division between male conceptualizers and female practitioners. Also pertinent to gender is proficiency - does ability to learn foreign languages? one gender have a superior

The following, then, is an overview of the areas in which gender operates in the world of EFL, and of arguments and research associated with them. (In all except the section on The English language, I am using gender to mean culturally- (though not deterministically-) influenced characteristics of each sex; sex to mean whether a person is biologically female or male. And though I will be referring throughout to English as a foreign language, much may apply to the teaching and learning of other foreign, and second languages. It may also have implications for, inter alia, ethnicity and race in the language classroom).
The English language

Gender tends to be seen as unimportant in English, and as natural, i.e. corresponding to sex. Yet the traditional, prescriptive rule of using he, him, etc., after sex-indefinite pronouns and to refer to a person of unknown sex illustrates that it can also be grammatical. That this may be changing is relevant to both learners and teachers of English. Much has been written over the last two decades about sexism in the English language (e.g. Kramer, 1975; Cameron, 1985), and about nonsexist language change (e.g. Bate, 1978; Cooper, 1984). Linguistic sexism at code level has been identified in the pronoun system (generic he, him, his, himself); generic man; masculine and feminine
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Figure 1: Gender in the EFL classroom

CONTEXT

sociolinguistic

The English Language

political

educational

equivalents, which through semantic derogation (Schulz, 1975) are not so now, the feminine being often less prestigious and/or having sexual connotations (e.g. master/mistress, manager/manageress); underlexicalization (*husband-swapping party); over-lexicalization (e.g. the number of verbs used disparagingly for women talking and of nouns referring to sexually active women), and male firstness (men and women). Discussions of change focus on, inter alia, the use of s/he, singular they (which is not new), Ms, -person words, and alternative, more familiar neutral forms: e.g. flight attendant. There is evidence of change in written English: androcentric generics may be disappearing, for example (Cooper, 1984), and though there is less evidence for change in spoken English, personal observation indicates this is happening in some contexts. What does this mean for the teacher, one of whose roles is promoting competence, overtly or otherwise, in English grammar, and who is often seen as a model of the target language her/himself? Students living in an environment which includes little or no English may come across new gendered items in school reading or listening texts; they may ask the teacher to explain and judge them. Yet the teacher may not be aware of the changes, or of the sociolinguistic context in which they have occurred. There are implications for both teacher education and materials here.
Materials

a. Pedagogic (and other) grammars How do pedagogic grammars represent and evaluate gendered English, and its changes? I am referring particularly to the portrayal of alternatives to the generic he, etc., nouns which are gender-neutral (e.g. chairperson, firefighter), and Ms.

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In my own study (Sunderland, 1986) I looked at twenty-two recent English grammars, including twenty pedagogic grammars, to find out if (i) the above items were included, and, if so, (ii) what was said about them. In principle, pedagogic grammars have an obligation to describe new forms which are in reasonably common usage and do not flout the rules of English syntax. However, they must also be selective, and whether a given item is selected, as well as what is said about it, will depend very much on the individual author. Examples of generic he still appear in grammars. However, even though it is no longer acceptable to many speakers in many contexts (Purnell, 1978; Bate, 1978; Cooper, 1984; Cameron, 1985), the alternatives of his or her, etc., and s/he are often deemed stylistically inferior, described variously as pedantic, unwieldly, cumbersome, heavy, and awkward. They after an indefinite pronoun (Everyone brought their own lunch) may be approved as an informal alternative in speaking, but students may be discouraged from using it in writing. For example: The use of plural pro-forms to refer to singular nouns premodified by each or every is not uncommon but often avoided by careful writers. (Van Ek and Robat, 1984: 3. 32) The most recent of the twenty-two grammars, An A-Z of English Grammar and Usage (Leech et al, 1989: 424-5), and a new grammar, Using English Grammar: Meaning and Form (Woods and McLeod, 1990: 174) are, however, positive about he and she and singular they, the latter providing an accurate explanation and description, and useful advice:
. . . [generic] his is considered by many people to be offensive since it has a gender bias. There is a general tendency in English today to avoid sexist language. Two ways of avoiding it are either to use both the feminine and the masculine (her or his, or his/her) or to use the plural (their). In informal speech and writing, the second alternative, the use of their, is the most usual way to deal with the problem. In formal writing, the first alternative is more common.

The -ess decline (in, e.g. poetess) was mentioned Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language - not grammar but a book often available to teachers:

only in A a pedagogic

Some optional forms (poetess, authoress) are no longer in normal use, being replaced by the dual gender forms (poet, author, etc.). In order to avoid sexual bias in language, efforts have been made (esp. in AmE) to introduce sex-neutral forms . . . (Quirk et al. 1985: 315) -person words were mentioned more in the more recent of the twenty-two grammars, but were often portrayed as somewhat deviant. Illustrative here is the change over editions of Practical English Grammar (Thomson and Martinet, 1980). In the third edition (p. 9) we read:
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Recently there has been an attempt to desex [salesman, saleswoman, chairman, chairwoman, etc.] by using -person instead of -man. This fashion may not last. (my italics) The fourth edition (1986), however, referring to nouns which do not have the same form for masculine and feminine, includes the straightforward Also salesman, saleswoman, etc., but sometimes -person is used instead of -man, -woman: salesperson, spokesperson. (Thomson and Martinet, 1986: 2) Ms was likewise mentioned more in the newer grammar - though, again, some comments were not encouraging. Practical English Usage (Swan, 1980: 212), reads Ms is used to refer to women who do not wish to have to say whether they are married or not. One reading of this is that there is something a little strange about these women, even that they are being deliberately evasive or coy. Janet Holmes (personal communication) observes that the sentence is also misleading, since Ms is used at least as often to address women (especially in writing) as to refer to them. Grammars also, of course, portray the two sexes - something normally associated with course books (see below). The examples in University Grammar of English (1973) have been found to under-represent females numerically, to have females as the subject of dynamic verbs only rarely, to use well-worn stereotypes and to present a disturbing and sometimes sinister picture of female objectification and passivity (Stephens, 1990: 92,98). The examples in more recent grammars may be less stereotypical without improving much as far as numbers of females are concerned. b. Dictionaries Dictionaries are of interest not only for the extent to which, like grammars, they encode non-sexist changes, and how, but also for other definitions and examples. Cameron (1985: 83) cites problematic dictionary definitions of woman, unfeminine, and clitoris; Kaye criticizes the examples in the otherwise praiseworthy Collins COBUILD English Dictionary which build up a picture showing women in a poor light (1989: 192) - that it is women rather than men who are used in examples illustrating muddle(d), for example. In particular, she notes: Perhaps the most amusing (or upsetting) portrayal is of woman as an alcoholic and a drug addict . . . [This] emerges insidiously, often in extra information which could have been omitted, or in examples of words with little connection with drugs or alcohol. A more general concern is that Dictionaries . . . foster the illusion that words have a limited number of meanings which can be listed out of context - which may hinder understanding of masculine and feminine pairs and subtleties of connotation. This may be especially so for those
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EFL learners who place great reliance on and trust in their dictionaries, often very small ones! Pedagogic grammars and dictionaries play an important role in language awareness as far as English gender is concerned. Non-sexist reforms provide a reminder that language is constantly changing, as well as an actual example of modem language change, and individuals and groups use of new items and avoidance of others illustrates the existence of language variation among native speakers of English. Also important is understanding why gendered English is changing. Class discussion of the relevant sections of pedagogic grammars can promote an understanding that there are relationships between language and society, and that changes in gender in one are related to changes in gender in the other. The actual items are also important. More advanced students need to understand that in some contexts male and female equivalents are not equivalent at all - in number of meanings, status, connotation, or even denotation. And students need to recognize both Ms as a legitimate honorific, the denotative equivalent of Mr, and singular they as an alternative to he or she - because they are likely to encounter them. Productively, we do not want students who are coming to an Englishspeaking country speaking in a markedly old-fashioned way: generic he can easily sound out of date: in some contexts (e.g. in the ELT Journal) it is actually outlawed. New uses thus need to be reflected in grammars and dictionaries with their traditional variants in an accurate and helpful way.2 c. Course books Discussion of course books has focused not so much on sexist language as on the more subtle image questions of(i) relative invisibility of female characters; (ii) stereotypes in gender roles greater than stereotyping in society in occupations, relationships, actions, and age, shown by visuals as well as text; and (iii) language as discourse: What is the gender composition of the dialogues? Who speaks most in a mixed-sex dialogue? Who speaks first? What language functions do the males/the females exemplify? Females tend to be relatively rare, of lower-status occupations, younger, more often defined in relationship to the opposite sex, and relatively inactive, and quieter, speaking proportionately less, and being responders in rather than initiators of conversation (Ethel, 1980; Porecca, 1984; Talansky, 1986; Zografou, 1990; Gupta and Yin, 1990).3 Can these concerns be prioritized? In a recent international questionnaire study of male and female EFL teachers, in which respondents graded sexist features of EFL course books according to their (non-) offensiveness, gender stereotyping was rated worse than both invisibility of female characters and exclusive vocabulary in the form of masculine generics - though course books were criticized for the use of generic he in the rubric, for example.4 The prioritizing of course book stereotypes may be because stereotypes are seen by both sexes as restricting Gender in the EFL classroom 85

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opportunities for both sexes. The most criticized books were Streamline English (the British more than the American series) and the Kernel series.5 Why does sexism in EFL materials matter? Convincing reasons must be offered to publishers, administrators, and teachers if change is to occur. Saying I and some other teachers dont like the sexism in these books only invites the responses most teachers dont care and the students are not complaining and objections are likely to be perceived as trivial, irrelevant, and lacking in professionalism.6 The most convincing reason would be that course books (and dictionaries and grammars) representations of gender potentially affect students as language learners and users. This could happen in three ways. Firstly, if TV, films, videos, computer games, newspapers, and childrens books can have an unconscious influence on audiences as agents of socialization, so presumably, can EFL materials. And any unconscious influence of female characters who play restricted social, behavioural, and linguistic roles does not suggest cognitive and communicative empowerment for female learners. Secondly, if female learners are conscious of the female characters in their course book as relatively few, with limited roles, and are offended, alienated, or made to feel marginalized by this and subsequently demotivated, this is more likely to hinder than facilitate their learning. There is need and scope for research into such affective influences. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, models of language can become classroom practice. Functions of English (Jones, 1977), for example, was found to have a male initiating each mixed-sex dialogue (ETHEL, 1980). Used in a mixed class, it is likely that both in any demonstration of the dialogue and in pairwork practice male students would speak first, not only giving them more practice in initiating a conversation, but also giving the whole class a model of conversational discourse characterized by male firstness. Again, research might establish the extent to which course book models actually do become classroom practice. The above possibilities have to be addressed in relation to questions of credibility and cultural appropriacy, and I would also like to make three points here. Firstly, western course books used by students coming to an Englishspeaking country should presumably be some sort of reflection of life in that country - however incredible and unpalatable this may be. Locallyproduced course books for students who are unlikely to work or study abroad are another matter. Secondly, a non-credible text does not automatically hinder language learning - it depends what is done with it. Such a text can be used for discussion, for example, or as the stimulus for written argument. Thirdly, may there not be shades of racism in the claim that [Group X] students wouldnt like this book?7 86 Jane Sunderland

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It is noteworthy that gender as a topic has not been ignored in textbooks, but has in the past rather been singled out for special treatment, for example in the units A Womans Place in Viewpoints (ONeill and Scott, 1974) and Womens Lib in Communicate in Writing (Johnson, 1981). Streamline English Directions (Viney, 1985) has a unit on equal opportunities, which includes a rather confusing exercise on non-sexist language change. These attempts to include the female sex and contemporary gender-related issues may be well-meaning, but they are no substitute for a realistic distribution and qualitatively fair representation of female characters throughout the book. The topic can, of course, be with warmth and humour - see, for presented unselfconsciously, example, the more recent Writing Games (Hadfield and Hadfield, 1990) in which male and female perceptions of the same historical events are explored. d. Teachers guides It would be hard to make a case for teachers guides being discriminatory. However, writers and publishers could perhaps aim not for a genderblind policy, but rather promote with due sensitivity equal male-female participation, raise awareness of the likelihood of teachers paying more attention to male students (see Processes) and, where the input of the course book reflects sexist practices or attitudes, if culturally appropriate, comment on this. Critical reading and listening may thus become a regular part of the suggested pedagogy. And if there is a picture of, say, a man changing a nappy (an image which some EFL teachers claim would be unsuitable in a book for students from certain cultures), this could be glossed for the benefit of the teacher.

Processes

Processes here refers to what happens in the classroom because of peoples gender. Here I look at learning processes, and teacher-learner and learner-learner interaction. a. Learning processes There may be gender (or even sex) differences in language learning styles and strategies. When I asked thirty non-native speaker teachers of English on an in-service course for their opinions about gender differences in language learning and teaching, fourteen thought their male and female students had different styles and strategies. (Other gender differences were seen as less important).8 Willing, investigating learning style (any individual learners natural, habitual, and preferred way of learning (1988: 1)) in adult migrants in Australia, found that liking to learn many new words, learning words by seeing, learning words by doing something, and learning by talking to friends in English were all rated highly by both sexes, but significantly more highly by women. And Oxford, Nyikos, and Ehrman, reviewing studies of strategies (the steps or actions taken by students to improve their own language learning) found
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significant sex differences . . . reflecting greater use of language learning strategies by females . . . In three . . . studies . . . frequency and variety of strategy use was significantly greater for women . . . In Study 1, the primary difference was in womens greater use of social behaviors for language learning . . . In Study 3, women [showed] significantly more frequent use of conversation/input elicitation strategies . . . Study 4, . . . showed sex differences in authentic language use and in searching for and communicating meaning . . . (1988: 321, 326) If these results are generalizable, pedagogical questions are whether different styles and strategies are or can be catered for, and whether training in strategies is feasible and beneficial (see, e.g. Wenden and Rubin, 1987; Skehan, 1989). b. Teacher-learner interaction Lesson transcripts made from tapes have shown secondary- and tertiarylevel teachers of mixed classes to pay more attention to male students (Spender, 1982: 56; Stanworth, 1982: 22) - even when the teachers are committed not to doing so and even when they think they are distributing their attention equally. Insidiously, what seems like equal time for the girls, or even perceived as the girls getting more can actually be less: . . . sometimes I have . . . thought I have gone too far and have spent more time with the girls than the boys. But the tapes have proved otherwise. Out of ten taped lessons . . . the maximum time I spent interacting with girls was 42 per cent and on average 38 per cent, and the minimum time with boys 58 per cent . . . It is nothing short of a substantial shock to appreciate the discrepancy between what I thought I was doing and what I actually was doing (Spender 1982: 56). This false perception is not only experienced by the teacher. One teacher who had spent 34 per cent of her time with the girls, reported that the boys . . . were complaining about me talking to the girls all the time. (Spender 1982: 56). It is of considerable concern that more time for the boys can become naturalized. For though not all boys will get more attention than all girls, this tendency can cut down on the time available for all girls. Applied to the EFL classroom, these findings might mean that males get more speaking practice and more feedback on their utterances-and this can be the case. Holmes (1989), analysing data from ESL classrooms in Australia and New Zealand, found that the adult male students both responded more to the teachers questions and asked more questions themselves - thus getting more speaking practice, presumably answers to their own questions (i.e. feedback), quite possibly feedback in response to their answers, and more practice in question-related language functions. Underlying all these lies a model of discourse of males both speaking and initiating more. There are, of course, many further ways teachers can treat female and 88 Jane Sunderland

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male students differently, including selection (who asks/answers a question? who demonstrates?), varying the level of difficulty of questions by gender, and employing double standards for, for example, error identification and treatment, presentation of written work, and acceptable classroom behaviour. These may be neither intentional nor recognized, by either teacher or students. c. Learner-learner interaction

Learner-learner interaction here refers to pair work or group work involving all the students in the class at the same time. It is intended to increase opportunities for classroom communication in general, spoken interaction in particular, and, hopefully, develop proficiency. Yet in pair and group work male students have been found to speak more frequently and take longer turns than the females, who provide more feedback echoing findings with mixed-sex groups of native speakers of English (Holmes, 1989; Edelsky, 1981). These female students were providng a good supportive environment for the males language practice, but getting little conversational encouragement themselves.9 One message both teacher-learner and learner-learner interaction can carry, then, is that women and girls are discoursally if not socially marginal. Yet these classroom gender differences also beg questions. How much do they reflect gender roles in the students background cultures? How much do they reflect power rather than gender? Does what seems like disadvantage perhaps represent female students letting the males do all the work, even encouraging them, and learning from it? - for we cannot assume that classroom oral production is the most effective path to proficiency. And what would a non-discriminating classroom look like? Not one in which each student got an equal amount of teacher attention, surely, since individual needs and other differences must be catered for.
Proficiency

I will conclude by returning to the question of foreign language learning proficiency and gender - how does this relate to gender in the English language, in materials and in learning processes? There is an apparent contradiction here: while some educational folklore claims that females are the better learners, and a little research supports this in some respects (e.g. Burstall, 1974), research into classroom processes, materials, and the English language itself suggests females to be at least potentially disadvantaged. There are, of course, other questions. What does the claim that females are better language learners really mean, and on what is it based? If correct, is this partly because of neurological differences (and thus a matter of sex rather than gender)? Reference must also be made to possible more general cognitive gender differences: do males and females learn differently? and to what extent is foreign language learning a special form of learning? This in turn raises the questions of the relationship between first and subsequent language learning, the roles of intelligence and aptitude, and formal (classroom) versus informal routes to proficiency. Gender in the EFL classroom 89

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Any claims involving innate sex differences would have to be assessed against the different environmental influences on gender: attitudes, expectations, societal norms (Loulidi, 1990), and career opportunities. Attempts to assess the superiority of one gender over the other in foreign language learning proficiency may not be productive, and it may rather be the existence of possible gender differences in language learning styles and strategies which represents a more productive direction for research. Stemming as these differences are likely to do from configurations of factors, this would allow for the complexity anything to do with gender, in or out of foreign language learning, must have. Received February 1991

Notes

1 Teachers own models of both gendered and nongendered English may in fact not only vary with their accuracy and fluency, but also with their own gender. It has been suggested (Ruth Brend, 1975) intonation may be that female teachers inappropriate for their male students, but teachers gender may also affect their choice of individual linguistic items. My own study, for example, found female native and non-native speaker teachers of English more willing to use chairperson than males from the same group (Sunderland, 1986) there may be variation in teachers choice of other gendered and non-gendered items. 2 It is presumably because non-native speakers of English respect their grammars so much that they seem to take happily to his or her, but express horror and amazement at the discovery of singular they which goes against all they have learned about number concord. My own questionnaire study suggests the preferences of native speakers of English to be the other way round (Sunderland, 1986). 3 Possible reasons for this gender inbalance are: (a) the concept of male as norm in conjunction with the fact that most textbook writers are male; (b) (an expectation that) male students are unwilling to read about female characters, whereas the reverse is not true; (c) male textbook writers are unaware of the phenomenon and are simply accepting a genre norm (Gupta and Yin, 1990: 41). It would be very valuable to have a study of (say) post-1985 ELT course books to see if the situation of stereotyping and female invisibility has improved. 4 This survey has undertaken by Women in EFL Materials (Convenor Annemarie Young, ELT Department, Cambridge University Press). The results were presented, with suggested Guidelines for Inclusive Language, to the Publishers Association ELT Committee. 90 Jane Sunderland

5 This must be partly - though not entirely because these books are so widely used throughout the world. 6 Significantly, Large Classes is also of concern to teachers rather than learners - and no-one would claim it is not an important issue. 7 I am grateful to Jenny Glynn for this observation. 8 Eleven perceived gender differences in the proficiency of their learners, ten in the way they treated their male and female students, and only five felt that being male or female had made any difference to their own foreign language learning. 9 They may of course have benefited from the larger amount of input thus available to them.

References

language use in Bate, B. 1978. Non-sexist transition. Journal of Communication 28: 139149. Brend, R. 1975. Male-female intonation patterns in American English. In Thome, B. and Henley, N. (eds.) Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance, Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Burstall, C. et al. 1974. Primary French in the Balance. Windsor: NFER. Cameron, D. 1985. Feminism and Linguistic Theory. London: Macmillan. Edelsky, C. 1981. Whos got the floor? Language in Society 10: 383-421. ETHEL. 1980. Ethel in genderland 5. [A newsletter for feminist teachers of EFL: no longer in publication.] Cooper, R. 1984. The avoidance of androcentric International Journal of Social generics. Language. 50: 5-20. Gupta, A. F. and A. L. S. Yin, 1990. Language and Education 4/1: 29-52. Hadfield, C. and J. Hadfield. 1990. Writing Games. Walton-on-Thames: Nelson.

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Holmes, J. 1989. Stirring up the dust: the importance of sex as a variable in the ESLclassroom. Proceedings of the ATESOL 6th Summer School, Sydney. 1/4: 4-39. Johnson, K. 1981. Communicate in Writing. Harlow: Longman. Jones, L. 1977. Functions of English. Cambridge: Kaye, P. 1989. Women are alcoholics and drug addicts, says dictionary. ELT Journal 43/3: 192195. Kirkby, J. 1971 [1746]. A New English Grammar. Menston: The Scholar Press. Kramer, C. 1975. Womens speech: separate but unequal? In Thome, B. and Henley, N. (eds.) Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Leech, G. et al. 1989. An A-Z of English Grammar and Usage. London: Edward Arnold. Loulidi, R. 1990. Is language learning really a female business? Language Learning Journal 1:
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Miller, C. and K. Swift. 1989. The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing. London: The Womens Press. ONeill, R. and R. Scott. 1974. Viewpoints. London: Longman. Oxford, R., M. Nyikos, and M. Ehrman. 1988. Vive la difference? Reflections on sex differences in use of language learning strategies. Foreign Language Annals 21/4: 321-329. Pennycook, A. 1989. The concept of method, interested knowledge, and the politics of language teaching. TESOL Quarterly 23/4: 589-617. Porecca, K. 1984. Sexism in current ESL textbooks. TESOL Quarterly 18/4: 705-724. Purnell, S. 1978. Politically speaking, do women exist? Journal of Communication, Winter: 150155. Quirk, R. S. and S. Greenbaum. 1973. A University Grammar of English. London: Longman. Quirk, R. S., S. Greenhaum, G. Leech, and J. Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman: London. Schulz, M. 1975. The semantic derogation of women. In Thome, B. and Henley, N. (eds.) Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.

Skehan, P. 1989. Individual Differences in Second Language Learning. London: Edward Arnold. Spender, D. 1982. Invisible Women. London: The Womens Press. Stanworth, M. 1983. Gender and Schooling. London: Hutchinson. Stephens, K. 1990. The world of John and Mary Smith: a study of Quirk and Greenbaums University Grammar of English. CLE Working Papers 1: 91-107. Sunderland, J. 1986. The grammar book and the invisible woman. MA dissertation (unpublished). Lancaster University. Swan, M. 1980. Practical English Usage. Oxford: OUP Talansky, S. 1986. Sex role stereotyping in TEFL teaching materials. Perspectives XI/3: 32-42. Thomson, A. J. and A. V. Martinet. 1980 (3rd edition) and 1986 (4th edition). A Practical English Grammar. Oxford: OUP. Viney, P. 1985. Streamline English Directions. Oxford: OUP Wenden, A. and R. J. Rubin. 1987. Learner Strategies in Language Learning. London: Prentice-Hall. Willing, K. 1988. Learning Styles in Adult migrant Education. Adelaide: NCRC. Woods, E. and N. McLeod. 1990. Using English Grammar: Meaning and Form. London: Prentice Hall. Van Ek, J. and N. Robat. 1984. The Students Grammar of English. Oxford: Blackwell. Zografou, A. 1990. Explore the way language supports and generates sexist values, concepts and models in the ELT textbook Turning Point. Unpublished essay, Lancaster University.

The author

Jane Sunderland works in teacher training at the Institute for English Language Education, Lancaster University. She is also working for a PhD on the topic of The Social Construction of Gender in the Foreign Language Classroom and Implications for Foreign Language Acquisition.

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