Gender Differences in English Language Teachers’ Professional Development in Pakistan

Abstract

This research article is a sequel to my paper published in Volume 15 Issue 1 of The Dialogue and aims at exploring variations in the professional development (henceforth PD) practices of male and female English language teachers of universities in the federal capital of Pakistan. Data for the study come from a total of 109 teachers of 8 universities. The research tools used for the collection of this data were a combination of survey questionnaire and interviews. The data thus acquired lends itself to two primary conclusions: firstly, there are clearly identifiable patterns in the PD choices made by male and female teachers; and secondly, while there are teachers in the selected universities who often engage in PD related activities, the number that does not do so is large enough to be a cause for some concern. Three issues, however, further complicate this and should be kept in mind before engaging in any form of remedial action: firstly, the data collected does not reveal anything about the causes behind these differences, and the only hints one may gather are from the questions related to the environment and support provided by the university; secondly, the fact that different people are interested in different things and as such would be interested in a different set of PD activities makes intervention a somewhat risky process. Finally, one must remember that even after studying the PD activities of teachers and the potential causes behind the patterns revealed, one needs to work separately on the issue of motivating and encouraging change, something which, one might note, is a different issue altogether.
Keywords: English Language Teaching, Gender, Teacher/Professional Development, Professional development practices/approaches