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In Scotland, educational inclusion seeks to accommodate the diversity of the individuality of pupils and presumes that the vast majority will be educated in mainstream primary and secondary day schools. The focus of this investigation was the concept of the capable teacher, in the specific context of supporting children whose behaviour is considered inappropriate for a standard mainstream primary school. The study examines government recommendations and initiatives for the inclusion of such pupils appear not to be working. It also tries to understand the concept of capable teachers as perceived by teachers themselves. The study was conducted through emergent approaches which evolved from literature and empirical data. The opinions of primary teachers and head teachers were surveyed and these results shaped further data gathering from the reflective diaries of practitioners and literature. There are two main theoretical outcomes from this work. First is the recognition of a radically different lens through which to view indiscipline in schools. Conduct is seen as an issue of communication, and the teacher's communication in the first instance. This lens provides a framework for teachers to consider how classroom interactions may contribute to instances of inappropriate behaviour. The second theoretical outcome is concerned with emotional competence. The area of emotional competence defined as relationship management was shown to articulate closely with communicative pragmatics. This alliance with a body of theoretical knowledge that is already influential in other areas of educational support gives the concept of emotional competence much more credence in education. Three practical issues also arise from this study. Teacher educators should perhaps consider developing a framework within which they could address aspects of communicative pragmatics and their importance to graduating teachers. Second, there could be consideration of alternative ways in which government priorities for education can be achieved. Rather than targeting only the teacher, this study suggests considering a range of issues, which together, or independently, may be factors in causing disaffection and indiscipline in classrooms. Third, this study suggests a change in teaching on behaviour management, in both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. This study has taken the whole issue of teacher response to issues of inappropriate conduct in the context of school and classroom and embedded it within the area of pragmatics, providing a different lens through which to view behaviour.

The focus of this study is the use of communication strategies in teacher talk in ESL/EFL classrooms. Communication strategies consist of adjustments made by speakers to the formulation of their talk in order to facilitate communication, and these are clearly a potentially important aspect of teacher talk. Limiting communication strategies to those adaptations evident in the details of the interaction, the study uses a mixed method design to investigates firstly the type and frequency of communication strategies and their patterns of relationship across teachers grouped in terms of language background and teaching institution; and secondly the type and frequency of strategy use in relation to the focus of talk across the different phases of a standard lesson. The participants were three native speaker and six non-native speaker teachers, across three different ESL/EFL instructional settings. The data consist of a total of twenty seven recordings, made up of three lessons with each teacher. The study reports results from three phases of analysis. The categonsation phase leads to an operational definition of communication strategies which integrates conversational modifications with lexical -compensatory strategies. The quantification phase of the analysis shows that the two types of strategy occur with different frequencies and functions. No important differences were found between NS and NNS teachers. However, significant taskrelated differences were detected. Finally a case study of three teachers revealed a relationship between the focus of talk and the incidence of communication strategies across the phases of the analysed lesson. The implications of these results are firstly that communication strategies are indeed a central element of teacher talk; secondly, that lexical compensatory strategies and meaning negotiation strategies both contribute significantly to the construct; thirdly, that their use is important for both native speaker and non-native speaker teachers; fourthly, that they are used with significantly different frequencies and functions; and finally, that their use is influenced by teaching focus and activity type. It is also likely to be affected by factors such as teaching style. The thesis argues that, on the basis of the findings, further research into the use of communication strategies in teacher talk could make a significant contribution to teacher education.

The study focuses on 9 teachers teaching pupils aged between 12 and 18 years of age at the turn of the twenty first century in three schools; a Technology College for boys, a Rudolf Steiner-Waldorf School, and an Islamic School for girls. Starting from the premise that teachers may express different views to what they do in practice, qualitative methods of close examination (through interviews and observations) were used to explore the influence of ethos of the different schools on the teachers' expressed knowledge and behaviour, and sought to identify relationships between the models of learning and the models of moral learning teachers expressed in interviews, and implied in their interactions with children. The methodology highlights the qualitative perspective of 'the researcher as an instrument of the research', and 'gaining closeness' to the subjects and the data; and demonstrates how closeness and triangulation ensures the trustworthiness of qualitative research of this nature. The analysis is grounded in the research through themes arising from the data; and three fields of knowledge (e.g. theory and research on learning processes, philosophical perspectives of morality, and theory and research of moral development) inform the models of teachers' understanding identified from the implicit values or philosophical perspectives that they expressed verbally or implied by their behaviour. In general teachers expressed more eclectic views of learning processes and moral learning than they appeared to use in practice. Furthermore, some teachers may have been influenced towards mainly behaviourist perspectives by the ethos of their schools, and their perceptions of respect for their roles. However, unique characteristics and personal tacit knowledge of how children learn and learn morally dominated teachers' actions in the way that they imparted knowledge and guided children morally. Finally, the thesis acknowledges the personal journey of the researcher moving from positivist values and analytical methods involving quantifying qualitative data, to postmodern, constructivist and feminist values that emphasise the relationship between knowledge and context; and the validity of subjectivity and 'lived experience' as exploratory tools in research.

This study explores the meanings that participants in a British ELT setting give to teachers' non-verbal behaviours. It is a qualitative, descriptive study of the perceived functions that gestures and other non-verbal behaviours perform in the foreign language classroom, viewed mainly from the language learners' perspective. The thesis presents the stages of the research process, from the initial development of the research questions to the discussion of the research findings that summarise and discuss the participants' views. There are two distinct research phases presented in the thesis. The pilot study explores the perceptions of 18 experienced language learners of teachers' non-verbal behaviours. The data is collected in interviews based on videotaped extracts of classroom interaction, presented to the participants in two experimental conditions, with and without sound. The findings of this initial study justify the later change of method from the experimental design to a more exploratory framework. In the main study, 22 learners explain, in interviews based on stimulated recall, their perceptions on their teachers' verbal and non-verbal behaviours as occurring within the immediate classroom context. Finally, learners' views are complemented by 20 trainee teachers' written reports of classroom observation and their opinions expressed in focus group interviews. The data for the main study were thus collected through a combination of methods, ranging from classroom direct observations and videotaped recordings, to semi-structured interviews with language learners. The research findings indicate that participants generally believe that gestures and other non-verbal behaviours playa key role in the language learning and teaching process. Learners identify three types of functions that non-verbal behaviours play in the classroom interaction: (i) cognitive, i.e. non-verbal behaviours which work as enhancers of the learning processes, (ii) emotional, i.e. non-verbal behaviours that function as reliable communicative devices of teachers' emotions and attitudes and (iii) organisational, i.e. non-verbal behaviours which serve as tools of classroom management and control. The findings suggest that learners interpret teachers' non-verbal behaviours in a functional manner and use these messages and cues in their learning and social interaction with the teacher. The trainee teachers value in a similar manner the roles that non-verbal behaviours play in the language teaching and learning. However, they seem to prioritise the cognitive and managerial functions of teachers' non-verbal behaviours over the emotional ones and do not consider the latter as important as the learners did. This study is original in relation to previous studies of language classroom interaction in that it: • describes the kinds of teachers' behaviours which all teachers and learners are familiar with, but which have seldom been foregrounded in classroom-based research; • unlike previous studies of non-verbal behaviour, investigates the perceiver's view of the others' non-verbal behaviour rather than its production; • documents these processes of perception through an innovative methodology of data collection and analysis; • explores the teachers' non-verbal behaviours as perceived by the learners themselves, suggesting that their viewpoint can be one window on the reality of language classrooms; • provides explanations and functional interpretations for the many spontaneous and apparently unimportant actions that teachers use on a routine basis; • identifies a new area which needs consideration in any future research and pedagogy of language teaching and learning.

This research was carried out in three villages in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, and looked at the ways in which Ngaju Dayak Christian women passed on their skills, beliefs and values to their children. It was an educational, ethnographic, collective case-study which was both descriptive and interpretive. The main data collecting methods were participant observation and ethnographic interviews, undertaken over a two year period from 2007 to 2008. The motivation for carrying out the study was to try to find more effective ways of delivering Christian Education to rural Christian women, based on their traditional ways of teaching and learning. The research reveals that traditional Ngaju Dayak teaching and learning fits into a situated learning model. I claim that educational practices based upon that model are not necessarily in conflict with a Christian worldview. While this study confirms many of the findings of studies which have been carried out amongst indigenous people in other parts of the world it broke new ground in that it looked for the first time at traditional education methods among the Ngaju Dayak women. It found that the mothers especially, played the dominant role in passing on skills, beliefs and values to their children. Their methods were almost totally informal, frequently modelling or demonstrating in situations where children were present and included. The younger generation learned through observation, participation and imitation and by listening and experimenting. The context for the teaching and learning was the real and meaningful environment of the village, fields and/or family and was almost always connected to ‘real-life’ situations. Skills, beliefs and values were passed on orally. Also much was visually transmitted especially through the use of artefacts used in ceremonies. With the advent of local or personal electricity supplies, skills, beliefs and particularly values were also being transmitted via the mass media. Although there were some gender specific roles and mothers were dominant in passing on the skills, beliefs and values, overall there was minimal gender differentiation among the recipients. The study showed that these Ngaju Dayak women are ‘functionally illiterate’. They are able to read and write but their main ways of learning are oral. Story telling, has always played an important role in the lives of the Ngaju Dayak people. Further, it is evident that they prefer visual, kinesthetic, modes of learning to passive, formal ones. Cultural transmission from parents to children clearly takes place, but with certain modifications. Even though culture was transmitted by the parents and the wider family, motivation and relevance were important reasons for passing on the skills, beliefs and values. In summary, learning and teaching remains strongly influenced by the traditional Dayak worldview.

Thesis (Ph.D.(African languages)) --University of Limpopo, 2019 / This thesis investigated the use of African languages as media of teaching and learning in public schools in Mopani District of Limpopo Province. The study was guided by a qualitative approach. A total of 30 educators from five primary schools participated in the study. Purposive sampling was used to select the participants. Interviews were used as a tool for data collection. Data from the interviews was analysed by means of thematic method of data analysis, and was presented in the form of themes. The results revealed that African languages are admired by most educators. The findings of this study revealed that it is possible to introduce African languages as media of teaching and learning in South Africa, but it will require an extensive preparation, which involves effective training of teachers and the acquisition of teaching and learning materials in African languages. The study also revealed that the current use of English and Afrikaans as media of teaching and learning contributes to poor academic performance of learners. The findings of the study have important implications for both learners and educators. The study will provide the National Department of Education with information it might need to review its language policy with regard to instructional languages. The study will also contribute towards knowledge of African languages as media of instruction, and will help school administrators and policy makers to understand challenges associated with the current medium of instruction and learner performance in schools in South Africa. All education stakeholders might be able to identify the causal factors of language failure rate in grade 12