Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods (MJLTM)

THE EFFECT OF PARTNERS' GENDER DURING PEER

INTERACTION ACTIVITIES ON LISTENING IN EFL CLASSES
Hamed Mahsefat(Corresponding author)
English teacher, Iran Language Institute, Langrood Branch, Iran
Hamed.mahsefat@gmail.com
Roghayeh Amooyi
MA in TEFL at the University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran.
Roghayeamooyi@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Language learning encapsulates the identities of learners (Coates 1998, cited in Zao, 2011). Since gender is
viewed as a social identity. The view of gender varies across and within the cultures (Pavlenko and Piller, 2001,
ibid). This study investigated the merits of pairing learners into different genders in peer interaction activates,
here the listening activities, in EFL classes in Iran. The participants were twelve pre-intermediate EFL students
learning English in a Foreign Language Institute. During two 10 sessions, students worked together on listening
activities. To diminish the effect of peer interaction activities done during the course, first learners were paired
in different sexes for 10 sessions and for the last ten sessions they were put in to same sex pairs. They were given
a pretest and a posttest in the tenth and twentieth session to find out the impact of gender in peer interaction
activities. The results revealed that the learners, who had participation with a partner of different sex during the
pair and small group activities, demonstrated improved production of target forms and their overall their
performance significantly improved when they worked with a heterogeneous gender partner.
KEYWORDS: Peer interaction activities, Gender effect, Interaction, Listening activities
1. Introduction
In recent years, interactionism research, propelled by Long's interaction hypothesis (1983, 1985, 1996), has
become one of the most exciting topics of exploration for second language acquisition (SLA) researchers. Several
theoretical approaches to L2 acquisition state that pair and small group activities generate learning opportunities
through various interactional features that occur when learners engage in the communication of meaning. In
recent years, a number of studies have been conducted to investigate the merits of learner-learner interaction on
various aspects of language learning (see Swain, Brooks & Tocalli-Beller, 2002 for a comprehensive review).
There are a number of studies which have investigated the effect of pair work on grammar tasks (Baleghizadeh,
2009; Storch, 1999, 2007). Storch (1999) found that pair work had a positive effect on overal grammatical
accuracy when ESL students in Australia completed a series of grammar-focused exercises (a cloze exercise, a
text reconstruction, and a short composition). Regarding this issue, other small-scale studies explored
instructors' and learners' perceptions about the use of pair and small group activities in different EFL context,
and examined whether the learning opportunities theoretically attributed to pair and small group activities
occurred in an intact classroom. Apart from all the studies done in this regard, the important factors in how pair
the students is neglected. Significant factors such as age, gender, proficiency and personality of learners in
groups can determine the efficiency of pair work. Having worked as a teacher in the English institutes for
several years, I became familiar with my colleagues' concerns about using pair and small group activities in their
EFL classes. My assigned teaching duties included a course that incorporated pair and small group activities
into the syllabus, so I decided to analyze whether the learning opportunities attributed to pair and small group
interaction occurred when learners carried them out. I observed how important the way that teachers make the
groups or pairs is. The age and gender of each pair were found out to be concerned as the significant criteria in
pairing learners. So, this research is to find the effects of peer interaction and gender of peers specifically in cloze
activities used as logical models that elicit what students are doing in classrooms.
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2. Literature Review
According to Bourdieu (1977, cited in Harmer, 2001) learners speaking is accompanied with not just the
exchanging information with their interlocutors but engaging in identity and negotiation through (re)organizing
a sense of their social identity and social world pair group activities involving interactions between learners are
often used in second language (L2) classrooms and supported theoretically and pedagogically. A variety of
theoretical approaches to L2 acquisition provide a rationale for the use of pair and small group activities.
Pedagogical reasons for using pair and small group activities in L2 classrooms also have been offered. Pair and
small group activities provide learners with more time to speak the target language than teacher-fronted
activities, promote learner autonomy and self-directed learning, and give instructors opportunities to work with
individual learners (Brown, 2001; Crookes and Bourdieu (1977) learners speaking is accompanied with not just
the exchanging information; Harmer, 2001; Long and Porter, 1985). In addition, learners may feel less anxious
and more confident when interacting with peers during pair or small group activities than during whole-class
discussions (Brown, 2001; Davis, 1997; Willis, 1996). Even though theoretical and pedagogical arguments in
favor of pair and small group activities have been advanced, L2 practitioners may hav e reservations about their
use. More recently and in an EFL setting, Baleghizadeh (2009) compared Iranian intermediate learners'
performance on a conversational cloze task under two conditions: individually versus collaboratively. The given
cloze task consisted of three types of gaps, namely articles, prepositions, and coordinating conjunctions. The
findings revealed that the learners' overall performance in the collaborative mode was significantly better than
their performance in the individual mode. Now, there are many factors in case of how to make pairs during the
class activities. Such factors of peer interaction in small groups include students' ability, gender, personality, age
and the others. Hypotheses about important, but neglected, aspects of peer interaction that may predict learning
have been discussed but not in a large amount. (Noreen M. Web. University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
Thus, this research is almost new because in addition to discovering the effects of peer interaction, it is to
investigate how learners' gender in pair groups influences on their learning process.
3. Method
3.1 Participants
The study was carried out in Kooshyar Higher Education Institute located in, Rasht, Guilan, Iran. Twenty four
students participated in the study. They were from both genders, male and female. The numbers of male and
female students were 12 and 12 respectively. To control the level of the participants, Oxford Placement Test
(2007) was administered to make sure that they are unanimously at pre-intermediate level. After that, they were
assigned to two equal groups randomly. The students were all in their courses of English for general purpose,
aged from 18 to 27. They were majoring in non-English field, accounting. To determine the homogeneity of the
participants in terms of their language proficiency, they were given a written test and also interviewed orally,
manifesting that their proficiency level is almost pre-intermediate. They were selected in the same range of age
to reduce the gender effect in pair groups' activities. The students were not aware of pairing trends (pairs in
same sex and pairing in different sex) in the research process.
3.2 Materials
Oxford Placement test (OPT) consisted of 50 multiple choice questions which assess students knowledge of
key grammar and vocabulary from elementary to intermediate levels. A reading text with 10 graded
comprehension questions and also an optional writing task that assesses students ability to produce the
language. The time allotted for this test was 65 minutes. The task used in this study was cloze tests used as
logical models that elicit what students are doing in classrooms. The texts, adapted from Stanton and Morris
(1999), were a leaflet and a newsletter with 15-18 numbered gaps and 15-18 given words. The participants were
required to fill in the gaps with the correct form of the given words. Besides, the researcher, the instructor, was
observing the class during the activities to determine the best trend of making pairs.
3.3 Procedure
Before collecting the students data in the classroom, it was observed that two of colleagues' classes who
taught the same course in order to obtain insight into their perceptions about the use of pair and small group
activities in that course. As an instructor, the participants have been divided the class into two-nine-sessions
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during a semester in the institute. In the first period (first nine sessions), they have been paired in the different
gender to reduce the effect of practicing on the cloze tests instead of gender effect. Six pairs, each one consisted
of three boys and three girls. Every session they have been given each pair one cloze test of 15 -18 gaps and they
were supposed to complete it in 20-25 minutes and after finishing we all review the answers. By getting help
from what is done in previous researches regarding peer interaction, before starting the task, the students were
not only taught the Think-Pair-Share technique but also made aware of basic collaborative skills such as asking
for clarification, listening attentively, giving reasons, etc. In short, they were informed that they have to:
*think about each item individually
* pair up with their partner, explain their answer, and listen to their
partner's comments carefully
* share their ideas and come up with a joint answer for each item.
In the 10th session, we gave them a cloze test to be done by the same partner as a posttest. For the next 9
sessions, they were paired to the same sex, 3 pairs of girls and 3 pairs of boys. Again every session, they were
assigned a listening test and the researcher monitored them to make sure that they would speak in English. At
the last session they were given a listening test to be done by the same partner to find out the results.
4. Results
This section presents the results from the analysis of the obtained data. As the scoring was objective, one
rater (researcher) scored the listening tests which were given to students to be done in pairs. The mean score for
each listening test was calculated to see how each pair performed on its pretest (different sex pairs) and posttest
(same sex pairs). The result of the participants' pretest and posttest was compared through Paired Sample TTest. Paired Sample T-Test used to see students' performance on two different tests. Table 1 presents the result of
each pair's pretest and posttest. As indicated in the table below, the mean score of the learner's on their pretest
was 15.05 which show a higher achievement compared to posttest in which the mean score of the pair's was
12.19.

****

Table1. Descriptive Statistics

Means of N pairs
Standard deviation(SD)

Pre-test

15.05

2.03343

Standard
error
measurement
0.35946

Post-test

12.19

2.44207

0.43170

of

As it was mentioned before, this test was performed to discover the possible gender effect in peer interaction
activities, here in the cloze tests. The mean difference between the two tests was equal to -2.86. To see if the
gender had a considerable impact on pair work activities, confidence interval of difference and significance
value of the test has been provided. Confidence interval of difference does not contain zero. (Upper =2.63, lower
=-3.09) and significance value of the test is much less than alpha level of the test. This is shown in Table 2 below:

Mean(M)

Table2. Paired Samples T Test

2.85938

Standard Deviation(SD)

0.63797

Standard Error of Mean

0.11278

Confidence interval of df for upper level 0.95

Confidence interval of df for lower level 0.95
t pre-test(df2tailed)

3.09
2.63
25.33

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t posttest(df2tailed)

33.00

So, we can conclude pairing students in different gender is more effective than in the same gender in peer
interaction activities.
5. Discussion
The current study examined the effect of gender of pairs in the peer interaction activities on listening during
two types of pairing learners: different and same sex pairs. The data analysis revealed that learners who had
involvement with their different gender partners during pair and small group activities demonstrated improved
production and worked better on listening activities as logical models that elicit what students do in classroom.
The mean score of the learner's on their pretest was 15.05 which shows a higher achievement compared to
posttest in which the mean score of the pair's was 12.19. In this study the mean in the posttest is less than in the
pretest. As mentioned earlier, since the purpose of the study is not to consider the improvement of students as
the impacts of more involvement in peer interaction activities rather than the merits of different sex pairs,
intentionally they have been paired in different genders in the first 10 sessions. The findings of this study
suggest that urging EFL teachers to pair learners in different genders in peer-interaction activities especially for
grammatical activities.
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