Male and Female EFL Teachers ’ Politeness Strategies in Oral Discourse and their Effects on the Learning Process and Teacher-Student Interaction

Abstract: The objective of the present study is to explore the effect of gender and use of politeness strategies by teachers on the patterns of classroom interaction between teachers and students and learning process in Iranian EFL classrooms. Ten classes in one term lasting 90 minutes each were observed and recorded and transcripts were worked out. Frequency and percentage of discourse acts produced by 5 male and 5 female teachers who were all MA holders in TEFL were computed and compared. As a result, students were seen to be positively influenced by the use of more polite strategies in the EFL context, while also the use of more polite strategies by female teachers had a positive effect on the teacher-student interaction and learning process. Although male and female teachers shared some features in their oral discourse from the point of view of using politeness strategies, the patterns of teacher student interaction were gender related and there were some differences between them. At the end of the survey, it was found that female teachers were more interactive, supportive and acted more patiently with their student’s mistakes. They asked more referential questions, gave more compliments and used fewer directive forms, but, on the other hand, male teachers used a more competitive style in their classes, more display questions, and one could see more evaluation on their part, while they also used fewer acknowledgement forms than female teachers. It was also found that there is a direct relationship between using polite strategies an