Gender differences engrained in the Japanese language can be one of the sources of challenges that Japanese language professionals face in the classroom settings. This paper examines linguistic gender differences in Japanese from a pedagogical perspective by directly asking a sample of Japanese language professionals their experiences, concerns, and comments. The data for this study were collected from a total of twenty Japanese women ranging from 26 to 68 years of age. They are native speakers of Japanese and currently teach at high schools and colleges in the United States.
One of the concerns among these language professionals is the stereotypical description of female speech and male speech both in textbooks and in audio-visual teaching materials. Many recent studies suggest that an increasing number of Japanese women, particularly those of the younger generation, use neutral speech forms, or in some cases, male speech forms. However, it is pointed out that this trend is not reflected in textbooks as well as in audio-visual materials, which may not be helpful for learners to acquire adequate sociolinguistic competence.