Response to "Teacher's classroom strategies..." by Deborah Tannen

In the article, author Deborah Tannen discussed how men are usually participating more actively in classroom environment than women. Women prefer to talk in small group, and build relationship through the process. Meanwhile, men have learned to use language in a way that favor debate and discussion. Besides, the fact that most classes have debate-like format also favors men's nature.

Deborah Tannen also proposed a solution to increase women's participation in class. Her solution was to divide the class into smaller, similar group. This way it would create a safer and more private environment, which encourage women to discuss more actively. She was quite successful with this solution in her class.

The article discussed a very interesting problem that I was not aware of. From my experience, both boys and girls in my classes usually do not very actively or willingly to participate during class. It is heavily due to the culture though. I can relate it with a minor idea in the article: Japanese men and women are less active than other western friends. I also see this problem in class in NUS: foreign students are much less willing to raise hand and talk in class. Still, even in these case, I find her observation applicable: boys are more active in class room than girls.

Another thing I want to comment on the article is the way the author articulating her ideas. When she proposed the problem, she not only used her own research but also referenced to various researcg to strengthen her argument. It is necessary in writing academic article; the actual interesting thing is the way she proposed her solution. It was in a form of an informal conversation. She mentioned it as her personal attempt to solve the problem, and she succeed with it, so she was bringing it to discussion. Though she suggested that others should integrate it to their teaching, she never says it in a formal, demanding way. This way of approaching made the idea more acceptable, especially to her audience -- other teachers with high, respectable level of education. By the way, they are mostly male, so this approach will be more applicable (than telling them what to do)? And perhaps it's also her woman nature as well?