Classroom discourse analysis: gender in Algerian EFL classroom interaction

This thesis investigates the role of gender in Algerian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom interaction. Its main foci are twofold. First, it investigates gender patterns in both teacher- student discourse and student- teacher discourse to explore the potential effect of teacher differential treatment and gender differences in classroom language interaction. Second, it examines the gendered classroom discourses and their relation to the wider social context.

Based on a broad qualitative research design, the data was obtained through a broad ethnographic approach to classroom observation along with transcripts of audio recordings of the classroom observation, semi structured interviews with the students, and field notes. The study took place in two EFL classrooms consisting of 23 women and man students along with their woman and man teachers of two different subjects (Oral Expression and Phonology, respectively) at the university level. The data was analysed based on different approaches namely, an adopted version of Tsui (1994) framework, and CDA.

The main conclusions drawn from the study is that woman students interacted more with both teachers while the man students rarely contributed to the interaction. This is argued to be related to power relation and gendered ideologies in the society. For the teachers’ discourse, the discourse acts used by both teachers demonstrated that the woman teacher enacted power overtly while the man teacher enacted power covertly during the classroom sessions. The analysis also demonstrated that the classroom was a site for constructing and perpetuating gendered discourses such as ‘gender differences discourse’, ‘back-row students’, and ‘diligent women students discourse’.