Poststructural feminist pedagogy in English instruction of vocational-and-technical education

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a poststructural feminist pedagogical model and to investigate whether vocational-and-technical college students receiving poststructural feminist instruction would exhibit better learning achievement and critical thinking ability, and express greater satisfaction with their classes than those receiving traditional instruction. In applying a poststructural feminist model, the researchers intended to help both the teacher and students work together to overcome the estrangement and alienation that have long been the norm in the contemporary Chinese education system. The research results show that the poststructural feminist pedagogy had a positive effect upon the participants in the experimental group. Several conclusions are elicited from the study. First, in the English language achievement post-test, the participants receiving the poststructural feminist instruction significantly outperformed those receiving the traditional banking instruction in terms of listening, vocabulary, grammar, and reading. Second, in the critical thinking ability post-test, the participants significantly outperformed those receiving the traditional banking instruction in terms of length, focus, content, organization, and style. Third, in regard to the students` satisfaction, it was clearly shown that the students who received the instruction informed by poststructural feminist pedagogy expressed significantly greater satisfaction than those who had received traditional banking instruction in terms of instructional objective, teaching method/materials, teacher quality, class environment, and assessment.