Abstract:

There is an emotional debate over the gender gap in almost all aspects of education. This has attracted a huge part of literature in various disciplines to detect the potential and in-action differences. Some, like Harvard president, Lawrence Summers, have fueled the flame by blaming women to be biologically weaker in reasoning which is rooted in the issue of “intrinsic aptitude”(cited in Glazer, 2005, p.445). Some have academically concluded that age-related differences do exist in some specific areas under investigation (Li, 2004). In the context of English language teaching, the differences Tercanlioglu (2006), for example, believed that there is no significant difference between male and female teachers. This difference can be more serious when we consider the list of possible sources for teachers’ beliefs, like their life and professional experience, educational background, cultural background, personality traits, … The purpose of this study is to investigate the differences in teachers’ beliefs among male and female in the Iranian context. It also attempts to figure out the priorities of the male and female teachers in underlying themes of the belief according to Horwitz Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory - foreign language aptitude, difficulty of language learning, nature of language learning, appropriate language learning strategies. Furthermore, the paper aims at studying whether gender gap has any impact on the students’ success. 10 teachers are randomly selected from some English language institutes in Tehran. Mixed method approach was adopted to collect data. Three instruments are used: BALLI’s teacher’s version, semi-structured interview, and class observation. The questionnaire explores the teachers’ underlying beliefs. They are, then, invited to attend a follow-up semi-structured interview session. To provide insights into the teachers’ classroom practices, their classes are also observed for a three month time. Any teacher’s class is observed four times according to a designed scaled paper which is prepared by the researchers. The data collected from the questionnaire are categorized under five underlying themes proposed by Horwitz (1987). Then comparisons are made between male and female teachers regarding these five themes to see the hypothetical differences. Also, an investigation is made to check their action in class and identify which sex is more successful in matching their stated beliefs and what they actually do in their classes what believed under action theory which .