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Teens and pre-teens
Although there are usually some gender-based differences in interests and attitudes to study at this age too, mixing with the other sex tends to be by far the biggest issue. I once did a mingling in a class of thirty Japanese nineteen to twenty-three year olds in which the boys somehow managed to only mingle with boys, while the girls also got on with the activity in their corner of the room.
These kinds of problems are common with teenagers, and are likely to be worse in countries where different sexes of the same age rarely mix outside your class, e.g. where single sex schools are common and/or opposite sex friends are rare or even taboo. It is difficult to know what to do, as no classroom activities can make their hormones go away! It might be worth the effort to do something about it, however, if: A limited number of one or the other gender in your class means that they always work with the same people Always working with someone of the same gender means that their partners don’t match them very well in other ways, e.g. work rate, attitude to being in class, different levels, or personality clashes
Never becoming comfortable working together severely limiting the range of activities that you can do in class (e.g. no mingles, whole class speaking or rotating roleplays)
They are planning on studying or travelling in a country where they will be expected to mix naturally with the other sex A reluctance to speak out in class means they really never share their ideas with people they aren’t sitting with
Possible solutions include:
Let them sit with whoever they like at the beginning of the class, but always have an activity where they have to move to a completely different part of the classroom and work with someone elseMake some of the seating changes random, e.g. picking a number out of a bag
Make some of the mixes between sexes a natural part of the activity, e.g. the boys arguing that women already have equal rights and women arguing that they don’t in pairs (after preparing their arguments with someone of their own gender), or a roleplay with a mother and father and a kid and/or the kid’s teacher.Ask them to discuss the topic of mixing with other sexes and varying attitudes in other countries, starting in same sex groups and then comparing ideas with the other sex.Start by putting them in bigger groups with at least two people of each gender before expecting them to work in mixed-gender pairs.When mixing genders, avoid all possibly uncomfortable topics and asking very personal questions. This can be done by asking them to take on particular roles (e.g. a shopkeeper and customer) rather than giving their own opinions
Although you have to be careful about embarrassing people or giving them ammunition to tease each other with, there are topics connected to gender that can be popular at this age. One is to ask the girls to list the most important positive attributes of men in order of importance (perhaps avoiding physical attributes if they are likely to go too far) and then to predict what the boys will write in the top ten list about girls. The boys also get together separately to make their own list about girls and to make predictions of what the girls will decide. The two groups then compare their predictions with what the other group wrote, perhaps challenging them if they think they aren’t being honest (e.g. claiming not to be interested in money or looks).Another topic that works well with teens and adults is to give them a list of behaviours, appearance etc (e.g. “Smoking in public”, “Holding hands with someone of the same sex”, or “Using moisturiser on their face every night”) and ask them to decide on how acceptable or desirable those things are for each gender. They can then compare their ideas with other groups. At this age you will need to design your worksheet and the activities carefully so that it is not likely to lead to teasing of or embarrassment by someone who one of the sentences is true about.Debates on the roles of men and women can also work very well with teenagers, often making a student who feels strongly about it contribute even in a class that they are usually too shy to speak out in.Another good topic is how unacceptable certain sexist things are, with people who think they are for completely equal rights surprising themselves that they actually don’t think it is okay for a woman to ask a man out and a person who thinks of themselves as a total male chauvinist admitting that women at work is better than men having to work in underwear shops.
There are also other lessons that work well, but only if you ask them to take on roles, e.g. doing a version of the television show Blind Date.
Adults
In some cultures there are also issues with adult females mixing with male non-family members, but these people tend to take single sex classes. In mixed-culture classes, even if women are happy to work with men, there might be issues with misunderstanding eye contact, bodily contact (e.g. touching someone on the forearm when talking to them) and compliments. There is also the chance, of course, that these things do represent over the top flirting that someone might not be comfortable with, or which might make the other classmates feel like gooseberries if they are comfortable with it! It might be worth having a discussion on cultural differences about these kinds of things.
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