I have been an English teacher for twelve years now. I have taught on a wide range of levels: from schools to a university and from second-graders to adults and teachers. I firmly believe that our profession needs constant reflection and research naturally allows you to do that. Thus, both as an undergraduate and graduate student, I embarked on research and it took me along interesting paths. I have always been interested in gender, probably because I was raised in a family mostly made up of women. I remember undertaking my first study as a high school senior; it was in my Master’s program that I began to inquire into the role of gender in teaching English.

In 2009, when I was told that the school where I was going to work followed a model with a gender perspective, I got really excited because I thought it would understand the need for inclusion and gender equality. However, I became a little doubtful about that “fancy term” when I realized that although it was a coeducational school, the boys and girls studied in separate classrooms. As a teacher, I realized this was more of an experiment than a model, but it turned out to be an ideal opportunity to analyze the relation between gender and ELT. (...)