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Volume 14. Issue 4
Article 9

Title
Shattering the hierarchical education system:
The creation of a poststructural feminist English classroom

Author
Ya-huei Wang
Department of Applied Foreign Languages,
Chung-Shan Medical University, Taiwan;
Department of Medical Education,
Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, Taiwan
yhuei@csmu.edu.tw

Bio Data
Ya-huei Wang is an Associate Professor at Chung-Shan Medical University. She received her PhD in education from National Changhwa University of Education, Taiwan. Her research interests include learning strategies and applying effective motivational strategies to class instruction. Her papers have been published by Expert Systems with Applications, the British Journal of Educational Technology, the Asian EFL Journal Quarterly, etc.

Abstract
The study aims to examine the effectiveness of the poststructural feminist pedagogical model developed by the author in 2006 and apply the model to the English classroom to investigate whether it has any potential to increase Taiwanese students’ English learning achievement, critical thinking ability, and satisfaction with their class. The quantitative methods used in the study are an English achievement test, a critical thinking ability test, and a student satisfaction questionnaire. The qualitative methods are a semi-structured questionnaires and interviews. An independent sample t-test was used to determine if there were any statistically significant differences in the means between the students in the traditional classroom and the students in the poststructural feminist classroom. The research results show that the poststructural feminist pedagogical model has positive effects upon the participants in the experimental group. Several conclusions are elicited from the study. First, in the English language achievement, the students instructed according to the poststructural feminist pedagogical model significantly outperform those receiving the traditional banking instruction. Second, they are equipped with significantly better critical thinking ability. Third, they express significantly greater satisfaction than those receiving traditional banking instruction.

Keywords: Poststructural feminist pedagogy, Banking education, Resistance, Silence