Gender Differences in Communication Styles: Implications for Classroom Teaching In Nigerian Schools

Understanding brings about the realization of goals and objectives of the schools which can be achieved through effective communication. In the teaching-learning situation, mutual interaction must occur between the teacher and the students in form of meaningful communication. However, teachers are faced with a lot of barriers which affect the process of imparting the necessary skills, ideas, attitudes, knowledge and the right values in the students. Gender factor is seen in this paper as one of the barriers affecting effective communication in the school and this has to do with the unequal treatments of boys and girls by their teachers in the classroom teaching, which teachers at times are not aware of. Gender differences in communication styles need to be checked for teaching-learning process to achieve its purposes. This paper therefore focuses on communication in the classroom, communication barriers affecting classroom teaching, comparisons between male and female students' communication styles, and finally, steps in promoting communication effectiveness in teaching.