Innovation in Language Learning

Despite the constant call for the use of gender-fair language in various contexts, the educational settings, where inclusive teaching practices are an integral part, has been notably slow towards the adoption of GFL. A notable gap in the existing studies has shown that WCF as a method was not yet explored to view the cognition of pre-service teachers towards GFL. The current study bridged the gap by exploring the cognition of pre-service English teachers toward gender-fair language (GFL) through the lens of Written Corrective Feedback (WCF). A purely qualitative design, particularly descriptive discourse analysis was utilized in this study. Using the collected ESL student essays, ten (10) third-year students enrolled in Bachelor of Secondary Education major in English were asked to provide written corrective feedback in the corpus essays to view how they respond to GFL through written corrective feedback practices. A semi-structured interview was also followed to explore the factors affecting their WCF practices. The findings revealed that the majority of participants provided corrections to the generic use of the pronouns ‘he,’ his,’ and ‘him.’ Few provided corrections to the generic use of ‘man.’ However, none of the participants provided corrections to language that reinforce sexist-role stereotyping and sexist terms in quoted materials. The findings also revealed that formal instruction/training, perceived cultural acceptability of the language, and the perceived legal constraint were factors affecting the responses of pre-service teachers. Enhanced language practices are also proposed based on the findings to promote GFL practices among the pre-service English teachers.

Keywords: gender-fair language, teacher cognition, written corrective feedback, pre-service teachers

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