Teaching modern foreign languages in single-sex classes in a co-educational context — review of a project in a North Yorkshire comprehensive school

Abstract

A co-educational comprehensive school in North Yorkshire, concemed at the gap between boys' and girls' performance in French and German at GCSE, opted to teach Year 8 languages classes as single-sex groups. 2003–04 was to be a pilot year, at the end of which pupils' performance, motivation and attitude, as well as the experiences and views of teachers would be reviewed. The outcome of this review would determine whether or not the teaching of French and German in single-sex groups would continue. It was felt by the Head of Languages that the review of the pilot should be informed by an on-going evaluation of the learning and teaching experiences of pupils and teachers throughout the year. The review could be the first of a number, depending on the outcome of the pilot and on decisions made about how long the single-sex teaching should continue. This article places the pilot in the context of other research conducted in the area of single-sex teaching in co-educational contexts and offers some tentative suggestions about the value of this approach and the lessons which can be learned from this North Yorkshire school.