A Difficult Relationship

Boys and Foreign Language Education

Jo Carr teaches in the areas of TESOL and LOTE (Languages Other than English) education at the School of Cultural and Language Studies in Education at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. She is currently writing a book on the issue of boys and foreign language study. She may be contacted on j.carr@qut.edu.au.

In educational circles around the English-speaking world there is currently great concern about boys' relationship with language and literacy. Boys are seen to be in crisis and performing poorly in comparison with girls. This is a simplified account of what is clearly a complex set of circumstances, but one which has gathered momentum in some unexpected places. Popular media - from daytime chat shows to editorials across a range of newspapers - are talking crisis, exhorting schools and teachers to be more 'boy-friendly', and blaming feminism for the kinds of affirmative action which is interpreted as having disadvantaged the boys. Yet in all this talk of crisis there is a remarkable silence about a relationship which has concerned many of us for a long time: the relationship between boys and the study of foreign languages.

The facts are familiar. Throughout the English-speaking world, post-compulsory language classes in schools are peopled primarily by girls; modern languages departments in universities are also peopled by women; language teachers in both sectors tend to be women. When teaching French at high-school level, I was regularly disheartened when boys who were doing well and appeared to be enjoying French disappeared en masse at the end of Year 8 into what were clearly perceived to be more suitable curriculum areas. As a pre-service language teacher educator now, I scan the lists of incoming students each year, hoping to see a more balanced gender representation - and am always disappointed. At best, there will be 5 - 10% of male students. This is discouraging. In this era of globalisation and internationalisation, with much talk of multiliteracies and intercultural competencies, one of the core components of such competence - the ability to communicate with people who don't speak English - appears to be of no interest to the majority of boys.

Over the last two years I have been researching this problematic and perplexing relationship, gathering data from boys themselves, as well as from teachers of boys and from girls who work alongside boys. I have interviewed approximately two hundred boys from around Australia, talking with them about their attitudes to language learning, their experience in language classrooms, trying to piece together the components of the puzzle.

I have also recently spent time in the U.K., working with colleagues who have been engaged in similar research. What has been interesting for me has been the extent to which our respective data align. We are gradually assembling an account by boys themselves which is beginning to look coherent. It's a discouraging account in many respects, and one which poses some real challenges; but it's gradually becoming clearer. In this paper I provide a brief summary of the main findings of my research, which I combine with some of the findings from the studies conducted recently in the U.K. I present first the comments of boys themselves, then what language teachers had to say about the boys (and girls) they work with.

Boys' accounts

The first point that needs to be made is that there is clearly no such thing as 'generic boy'. Gender is never a free-floating variable, and any discussion of boys' relationship with languages must always be contextualised. I spoke with boys across a wide range of contexts and school situations. Some were studying in very privileged places, within a school culture in which the ethos of academic study was uncontested; others were very differently located - in terms of both material circumstances and resourcing, and in terms of attitudes to/expectations of the processes and practices of formal schooling and language learning. The different commentaries, therefore, emerged from some quite different cultural scripts and repertoires. There were broad shared characteristics - the most significant being the need for boys to distinguish themselves from girls; but in other respects they were quite differently shaped by variables other than gender, such as class, ethnicity and socio-economic status.

The boys varied considerably in terms of how they talked: some were confident and strong, assured in their opinions, apparently used to speaking out and being listened to. Others were more tentative and diffident, approaching issues sideways-on, sometimes contradicting themselves, drawing on the full-range of boy-group strategies for defending against vulnerability (jokes, teasing each other, ridicule, exaggeration). Some seemed rather surprised themselves at how they talked, others surprised that I should be interested in their opinions. I too sometimes found myself surprised by the turn the conversation took. Any preconceptions I took into the project about boys being difficult to communicate with were thoroughly unsettled.

My research questions were the following:

• How do boys regard the foreign languages curriculum option? What do they see to be its relevance?
  
• Does it sit within a gendered sense of curriculum choice/appropriacy, and what are the effects of such a positioning?
  
• How do boys experience the FL option? What are their opinions about how languages are taught, what they experience in the classroom?
  
• What do boys see as ways in which languages could be made more attractive?
  
• What insights can be gained from talking with boys to the constraints and possibilities associated with the discourses through which they 'perform' their masculinities in school?

I will comment on the first two of these questions together, as one of the strongest motifs to emerge from all the data was the strongly gendered sense of languages being 'unsuitable' for boys; an inappropriate choice and irrelevant to boys' interests, natures and directions. This was explained to me partly in terms of boys themselves and partly in terms of languages themselves: how they are taught, the sorts of activities that are associated with them in boys' minds. There were variations in terms of how this 'unsuitability' was understood, and this is where the social and class differences were most discernible. Through all this section of the data, however, there was a strong sense of a gendered curriculum; an understanding of what are seen to be 'girls' subjects' and what are 'boys' subjects'. And languages, very definitely, are girls' subjects.

Many boys provided what could be described as a biological account of why they don't do languages. Boys' brains, it seems, are not language-friendly: as one young boy commented: "It's in your brain" … although the point he was arguing was that in fact 'it' was in girls' brains and not in boys'. The belief that girls' brains are hard-wired for language, while boys' are hard-wired for the kinds of cognitive activities which predispose them to do well in maths and science is alive and well, especially among the more academically-oriented boys. I was repeatedly told that girls are much better communicators, can 'do' languages better than boys. Among the boys described by British sociologists Archer & Macrae (1991) as 'the lads' - working class boys, more likely to be resistant to the official ethos of schooling - the biological account was anchored rather in the whole body than in the brain: boys, by this account, are programmed to be on the move, engaged in physical activity, unable to sit still for sustained periods of time - something they see as a prerequisite for effective language learning; unable to memorise lists of words, to concentrate, to do more than one thing at a time. Girls, on the other hand, are believed to be good at all these things. There was a lot of talk about what boys "can" and "can't" do, the understanding being that these are fixed, innate un-negotiable attributes. Boys are good at sport; they're good at making things and doing things. They're busy and active - unlike girls, who they describe as 'just' sitting and talking, never 'doing' anything. These boys presented what they saw as girls' stronger relationship with language very much in default terms. As one 13 year old concluded: "They (girls) don't do anything; they might as well study languages". Talk - and by extension language study - is seen as girls' business. The collective sense of boys embodied masculinity (physical, active) which came through the data is very similar to that tracked by Martino in Western Australia, in his research around boys and the study of English (1995), and also to that presented by Archer & Macrae (1991) and Mac an Ghaill (1996) in the U.K. All these studies, like my own, demonstrate the close connection between curriculum options and gender; in particular the way boys are committed to conforming to dominant versions of young masculinity (Frosh et al, 2002).

There were boys who suggested that this 'gendering' of the curriculum is as much to do with socialisation as it is to do with biology. One year 12 boy continuing with French commented critically on the way boys are influenced in their curriculum choice along gendered lines not only by their peers but also by their parents:

... those kinds of opinions are instilled in boys by their parents - the older generation, ideologies emerge, beliefs that you have your girls' subjects and your boys' subjects, and they continue to believe that and carry it through. One of my friends wanted to do French and his mum and dad pressured him into doing physics. There's certainly a strong belief about what boys should do - it's a problem.

But this kind of comment was relatively rare. Far more boys appear to think in terms of biology rather than socialisation. The repeated use of 'can' and 'can't' shows how this works.

One difference between gender perceptions of the 'lads' and the more middle-class boys related to the issue of innate intelligence. The more academic boys certainly saw themselves as every bit as able or intelligent as girls: it wasn't a case of not being able to do languages, it was more a case of not choosing to - for various reasons. The 'lads', on the other hand, repeatedly talked about girls as being 'smarter' than they are, and therefore more able to study a foreign language. They talked about girls being 'cleverer', having better memories, being able to 'think better'. One boy reported that "scientists say that girls learn stuff better than boys. Because of the size of something in their brains". I collected many similar comments from boys when talking about girls and languages. There was no apparent resentment or concern about this perceived difference in intelligence; just a matter-of-fact sense of this is how things are.

I asked boys to talk more specifically about language learning, and why they consider it so difficult and unsuitable. These are some of the most frequently offered explanations:

• Boys find it hard to concentrate - language learning involves great concentration.
  
• Boys (unlike girls) find it hard to do more than one thing at once, e.g. talk and write; write and take in what they're writing.
  
• Boys need more time to think - can't get the answers as quickly as the girls
  
• Boys don't like to talk - especially about the kind of things usually talked about in language classrooms (seen as appropriate girls' topics: families, clothes, food, pets)
  
• Boys don't see themselves as 'social' - therefore don't like working in groups.
  
• Boys won't ask for help: they like to be what one boy described as 'heroes': if they can't do their homework, they won't phone a friend, ask the teacher or be seen to be needing help.
  
• Boys don't 'get on' as well as girls with teachers
  
• Boys like to 'muck around' - which makes it difficult to learn.

This last comment was typical of many similar comments about boys' ways of 'doing school'. As one boy explained: "Mucking up is what we do! You have to muck up if you're a boy!" His friend took up the comment, with great enthusiasm: "We choose to muck around! We choose to be this way - it's more fun! We get the enjoyment out of mucking up, and giving the teacher the hardest time we can!" Mucking up is a large component of the less academically-oriented boys' response to school. It appears to be a key feature of 'belonging' as a boy, of being one of the dominant group, and conforming to the expected version of 'boy'. Very disparaging comments were made about boys who don't muck up, who - like girls - are seen to actually work. An older boy talked about how he'd managed to weather the first years of secondary school, when - as a boy - it was really required of you not to work and to mess around, and of how difficult it had been to manage to work 'invisibly', to do the amount needed to be able to continue with his study of language into senior level. He explained the tension: "Boys muck up because they want to be cool; you can't get on in school unless you belong". And because of the perception that languages are 'girls' business', language classrooms appear to a prime site for mucking up.

Many of the boys I talked to who had chosen to continue with their language talked about the high cost socially of this decision. They were often categorised as 'nerds' and 'uncool'; and it was interesting to see the ways in which boys 'redeemed' some friends who were language learners - who were considered uncool for choosing to continue with their language, but had saving graces (e.g. 'He's doing Chinese - but he's cool, cos he's from England and his accent is cool". "He's doing French, but he's really confident, doesn't care what people think, so he's cool".)

Boys' views of language lessons

The combined evidence from the U.K. data (Jones & Jones, 2002) and the Australian data provide clear accounts of what boys find difficult or alienating about language programs. The key issues appear to be:

• the main focus of learning being the language itself - as opposed to what boys typically think of as 'content'.
  
• the central role of the teacher, as the person who 'has' the language, and therefore the knowledge - and the power. Boys report feeling dependent and passive, and unable to manage their own learning in the same way they can in other curriculum areas.
  
• the sense of frustration that comes from reverting to 'linguistic infancy': not being able to express complex ideas or even simple messages; not being able to 'be' who they are, but only a simplified version of that. Boys find this destabilising.
  
• the requirement to memorise lists of words: something boys see as difficult, and unconnected to 'real' tasks. A perception of learning things in discrete sets - 'food', 'furniture' - disembodied vocabulary.
  
• a particular dislike of listening tasks; boys report finding these particularly difficult and dislike the feeling of being 'locked out' of the meaning making.
  
• the emphasis on producing accurate forms of the target language, which is seen as an impediment to the exploration of ideas or any more familiar kind of 'real' communication.
  
• what boys perceive to be the alienating nature of a lot of what they are expected to do in language classrooms: talking about themselves, their feelings - the kinds of activities seen as 'girls' work', gender-appropriate behaviour for girls but not for boys.
  
• The complex and cumulative nature of language development, of having to persevere, keep on track, with higher and more intense levels of concentration. The impossibility of selectively 'tuning out' from time to time.
  
• The perceived lack of 'reality' and authenticity of experience.
  
• The segmentation of language skills into listening, speaking, reading and writing - perceived by boys as an un-natural approach to communication.

This constitutes a daunting list of 'negatives'; and one which leads us to think seriously about pedagogy. It has to be said that many of the comments I collected from boys about how they experienced their language programs suggested a very traditional, grammar-translation, text-based approach to teaching, where language was learned as a system of discrete linguistic items or functions. I asked for suggestions about different kinds of ways of teaching and learning, which might be more attractive to them, and what emerged from their suggestions was a list of characteristics which more or less constituted a definition of current 'best practice' methodology: learner-centred, task-based, communicatively-oriented, contextualised learning - which involved 'real' tasks as opposed to what boys described as the artificial and 'unreal' tasks often associated with L2 learning.

Teachers talking about boys

Unsurprisingly, teachers' commentaries came through rather different discourses, reflecting different concerns, investments and understandings. Yet there are some surprisingly similar comments. The teachers I talked with varied considerably - some were recent graduates, others were nearing retirement. Some had always taught in boys-only schools, others had taught in a variety of schools. All had an identified interest in the gender-languages issue. Their views varied considerably, some appearing to subscribe quite comfortably to an essentialist, biological view about sex differences and learning, while others were concerned about what they saw to be socialisation processes which position both boys and girls in ways that are both enabling and constraining.

One of the first questions I asked was whether teachers are conscious of teaching male and female students differently and whether they think of them as being in any sense different as learners. Only one teacher in the entire data set gave a straight categorically negative response to this question, insisting that she teaches in exactly the same way, regardless of the sex of her students; in fact makes it a point of principle not to differentiate in any way.

Most teachers talked about differences in attitudes, motivation and levels of engagement between boys and girls. Girls were repeatedly described as more self-motivated, more involved in the learning process; boys as needing more extrinsic motivation, more scaffolding, more managing and support. The question of whether these differences relate to innate predispositions or are the result of socialisation into gendered ways - not only of being 'boy' but also of being 'student' - was a difficult one for most teachers. Many positioned themselves on the side of nurture rather than nature, especially younger teachers who had more recently gone through teacher education programs which explore the educational implications of gender socialisation. There seemed to be an element of political correctness involved in rejecting the biological argument, yet I was amazed at how often teachers stated a socialisation position then moved on to talk about how boys 'are' more physically active, 'need' to be challenged more than girls, 'have' a shorter attention span. Any commitment to believe that conditioning is a large part of the gender problem seems to float above a solidly entrenched cultural common sense view about how girls and boys respectively 'are'. It would seem that essentialist theories of innate sex differences are as alive and well in teachers' minds as they are in the minds of boys themselves.

As indicated above, motivation was identified as a key gender difference. Teachers described girls as 'wanting to please and work hard'; 'being more involved in the learning process'; 'going beyond what you set them to do'; 'they'll take risks - have a go'. They described boys, on the other hand, as 'not seeing the point unless there's some immediate, tangible, visible benefit'; 'not caring about pleasing you'; 'not wanting to take risks and get laughed at by other boys'. They also talked about the social dimension of gendered behaviour, and of how this impacts on outcomes. They see girls as being prepared to support each other through difficulty or embarrassment, able to work collaboratively and co-operatively; whereas boys are more likely to 'rib' each other - laugh at discomfort or embarrassment; and more comfortable competing against each other than helping each other out. The reluctance to be seen to be working, or achieving, especially among the 'lads', was also identified by teachers as a significant impediment to doing well in languages.

Summary

There is no room in this paper to address in detail the many factors identified by teachers as contributing to the poor relationship between boys and language learning. There was much talk about 'differences' in learning styles, in socialisation patterns, and in motivation and attitudes. There was continuous slippage between socialisation and biological accounts - and this is possibly where the greatest confusion lies. Some teachers are putting careful thought into how to teach in a more 'boy-friendly' way: talking about incorporating more 'challenge' into their pedagogy; building more upon boys' interests and experiences; using more technology; allowing for more learner autonomy.

Others resist this approach, and contest the assumptions which lie within it - that boys and girls are essentially different in ways which we need to take into account. They argue for an alternative response: to scrutinise the assumptions which currently frame the languages-gender 'problem', and to critically examine ways in which common-sense understandings about male and female learners have less to do with biology than with social and cultural practices and processes which actually constitute the 'problems' we are now responding to. And schooling is clearly a key site for the enactment of such practices. Some teachers -often working in all-boys schools - reject very energetically biological accounts of what boys 'can' and 'can't' do. One Italian teacher in a boys' college in Melbourne commented: 'These kinds of stereotypes are a cop-out! It makes me so mad when I hear teachers and parents saying: "Boys are like this … boys do this … boys can't do that" … the 'problem' is that we don't encourage them to be any other way!' She described this process as 'selling boys short'.

Reviewing the huge body of data I have collected, I am finding myself caught between the two debates. We have to listen to what the boys are saying about teaching and learning, about content and courses, and about relationships in the classroom. Pedagogy is clearly a key issue here. But we also have to look more closely at the versions of themselves that boys are presenting - or 'performing' in relation to language learning; and to look critically at the way learning styles are talked about. I feel very uncomfortable when teachers tell me that boys 'need' different kinds of learning experience than girls; especially when words like 'challenge' and 'autonomy' are in play. One teacher commented that girls are more prepared to do 'boring things like worksheets' than boys; because they want to please. The implications of this kind of framing of gendered educational engagement worry me.

I think we need to look more closely at the notions of masculinity and femininity - moving the analysis away from biology and back to culture. Changes in the politics of girls' identities in school over the last decades have proved the effectiveness of this kind of critical thinking. We know that language learning is a social and affective challenge as well as a cognitive one; and we know that for a whole complex of historical and cultural reasons, boys are less well positioned to respond to this challenge. I think we need to be engaging in what Judith Butler described as 'gender trouble' (1990); and working out ways of encouraging boys (and girls) to expand their possible repertoires of ways of 'doing school' and 'doing boy'. This might help shift their attitudes to languages, and encourage them to join the girls in developing what are core skills for contemporary 'global citizenship'.

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