Hi, there! I've never heard of such approach before. But now I am so interested that I'll definitely do some research. Thanks for sharing!!!

I work mostly with adults and I find groups consisting of male and female students most comfortable to teach. Sometimes I have to teach  female groups,which I find hard at times as such groups tend to be hysterical. I don't take gender into account when I prepare lessons,though I try to choose genral discussion topics so that they might be of interest to both genders.

I notce that women are more hard-working,while men tend to be more rational,though not as hard-working.

Regards,

Maryana (Ukraine)

I personally feel the English Language is unnecessarily being used as an experimental tool to come out with various findings, as in the medical field. The sad part is other trainers also try to incorporate these findings in their delivery system, which leads to a huge deviation.

Down here, I have been training over 8 years, across all age groups. Coming to your concern about the teenage crowd, I find both sexes to be very forthcoming and receptive. Whenever I get a teenage crowd, which happens frequently, I make it a point to mix them up, for all activities which I do. Coming to the seating arrangement, I ensure that both boys and girls sit together, instead of sitting separately. The upbringing of children is quite conventional down here. Initially for a certain period of time, they do feel uncomfortable. But they quickly get adjusted and also gain in confidence. The shyness goes away and I have also seen the discussions taking place in a very mature way. The students also develop a healthy respect for each other.  

This is where the type of culture that you set for the class plays a very critical role.

I agree that the nature based approach brings around a very technical, scientific and clarifying view of the learning process. If you have taught girls and boys between 10-12 you might have faced the necessity o introducing a lot of different activities apart from those normally suggested and printed in your book in order to create a more positive teaching atmosphere. Probably, you have also planned your teaching strategies according to the group behaviour. Normally, boys need movement and more space and they benefit from activities with balls, competitions and games while girls prefer getting together and discussing, also producing great writings and achieving excellent results in tasks that involve listening skills.Although the nature based approach sees the separation of genders as a solution to obtain better results it doesn t seem very sensitive or realistic nowadays since learning is not just the storage of information but it also involves the development of social skills and interaction that boys and girls, men and women have to experience together. Nevertheless, these observations should be understood as a valuable tool to achieve thebest results posible delivering a variety of activities and tasks tht might keep the whole class motivated.

As an educator my personal goal is not just to help people to "speak English"  but happy people that can communicate in English as well. Easy???? 

Hi Daniel

I'm interesting in finding out more, but the only result that comes up in a Google search is your original post!

If you could supply the name of the speaker, that might help. Did she give you any references to published papers or articles?

There have always been supporters of single-sex education; nowadays, though, every idea needs some scientific "breakthrough" to back it up. I suppose it was only a matter of time until someone came up with this.

I suspect that the evidence is, at best, flimsy. The physical brain and the electrical activity within is one thing; how we learn is something else entirely. Have any proper research trials been carried out? I doubt it.

Anyway, interesting to discover that we don't, in fact, in a "post-methods" age! By the way, i blog from time to time about this sort of thing over at http://markcbain.com

Oh wow! Let's make things even more complicated!

Males' and females' brains are not the same? Hardly news. In fact I've just been at a conference where a French researcher and oncologist described the different affects that cancer therapy can have on males' and females' cycladian cycles.

So - we're different but are we really so different that we can't get our heads round learning things that are presented in a common way? There are so many ways that people can be different - and if we try to focus on these we'll be distracted to the point where getting on with teaching becomes almost impossible.

We have to be responsive to individuals ofcourse if we want to make a real impact in what we teach and I'm sure that's what all good intutive teachers do. But learners are not so handicapped by their 'differences' that they can't learn in a modality that is not designed only to fit them - let's not belittle their mental skills and resilience.

This kind of research is interesting - but to what extent it has a direct effect in a practical classroom situation, I don't know.