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The purpose of this research is to discover different ways of understanding what needs to be done to improve a school, with particular reference to secondary school head teachers. The variation within those understandings, and how the understandings are logically and hierarchically related, are also of interest. Contributions of theory and knowledge to the quality of head teachers' thinking, in terms of negotiating personal and collective meanings, and implying interventions based on interpretations, are suggested. It is argued that the place of thinking (feeling and awareness) within school improvement is supreme, as thinking determines action, and we can only act in relation to how we perceive, experience, or understand a situation. The relevant literature offers indicators of effective schools, helpful descriptors for aspects of the school improvement processes, suggestions for leadership actions, examples of expert practitioners, and a wide spectrum of theories of organisations and education management. What it does not consider is how this knowledge might combine and interact with experience to form different ways of understanding what needs to be done to improve a school. This research addresses the identified gap in the literature, and deepens our knowledge of the inner aspects of school improvement for both theorist and reflective practitioner. The distinct understandings are derived from two sources, a range of literature that can be related to school improvement, and some empirical research consisting of a simulation exercise undertaken by 18 secondary school head teachers. A particular type of critical analysis is applied to the literature, and a phenomenographical approach is adopted for the scrutiny of the empirical data. Phenomenographic principles are utilised throughout the research, as they represent the only approach concerned directly with the different ways of understanding a phenomenon, and the relationships between understandings. From a range of literature, four abstracted understandings of what needs to be done to improve a school are discovered. They are based on reflecting on excellence, adapting leadership, interpreting the organisation, and developing the inter-dependence of active learning. Each understanding offers a framework through which specific aspects of the relevant literature can be interpreted, applied and integrated, within a given context. From the empirical research, five ways of understanding what needs to be done to improve a school are discovered. They consist of increasing knowledge diagnostically, encouraging a dynamic environment, involving stakeholders in the re-establishment of priorities, enforcing expectations, and co-ordinating initiatives through development planning. Our understanding of our work is an appropriate point from which to increase our competence, as it determines both what competences we develop, and how we develop them. Competence is increasingly concerned with how a situation is understood, what is required according to that understanding, and taking the necessary action. Competence is a consequence of the interaction between our understandings and the extent to which our work context empowers or controls us. For secondary school head teachers, it is argued that competence is dependent on how they understand what needs to be done to improve a school, and the extent to which their environments enable them to act on their understandings.

Purpose This study examines the extent to which Native English-speaking Teachers (NETs) have an impact on the oral English language proficiency gain of pupils taught in secondary schools in Hong Kong i.e. the so-called 'NET effect'. The principal aim was to determine whether the oral proficiency gain of subjects involved in this study was greater in students taught by NET teachers than it was in students taught by local teachers. Through the examination of Time one and Time two oral assessment data, this study also sets out to investigate the nature and strength of other predictor variables for the outcome variable 'Time two oral assessment'. Through a number of different statistical modelling techniques this study also sought to establish the model that would account for or 'explain' as much variance as possible between the Time one and Time two assessment scores. Procedures A randomised, stratified sample of secondary schools that was representative of the whole population secondary students in Hong Kong who are studying English was generated. From this sample, one thousand four hundred and twenty four students from forms one, three and four were selected and an English language oral proficiency test, specifically developed for this study was administered as a pre and post test. The period of data collection was a two year period, from the beginning of the 1998-1999 academic year to the end of the 1999-2000 academic year. The oral proficiency assessment instrument was designed, and piloted by a small team of trained assessors, and a standardised procedure was established for conducting the assessments. Hong Kong NET and local teachers were trained in the procedures and use of materials and techniques required to administer the assessments in specifically dedicated language assessment workshops. The assessments were then administered by the trained group of teachers who taped all of the interviews to allow monitoring to take place and to provide a data source for a second stage interview analysis (not covered in this thesis).The resulting pre-test and post-test data was then analysed through the use of a number of statistical techniques. In the first instance, a descriptive analysis was conducted in order to satisfy the assumptions on which traditional statistical analysis is based. The data analysis then proceeded with a number of scaling processes and was finally analysed to determine whether or not any significant 'NET effect' had been detected. In addition, the analysis also considered whether any of the other variables could be considered good predictors of the final post-test score. Major Findings Analysis of data produced from the Time one and Time two oral assessments revealed a number of important findings. Students did make significant oral English language proficiency gain as measured by the specially developed instrument. This gain was significant regardless of whether the students' results were analysed by whole sample or by separate year/age group. An analysis of means revealed that on average, the mean scores of students attending EMI schools were significantly higher than those attending CMI schools indicating that the medium of instruction is potentially a strong predictor of the Time two assessment score. In the post test analysis of means, students taught by NETs performed better than those taught by 'both' [NETs and local teachers] and in general, students taught by local teachers also performed better than those taught by 'both'. There was little difference between the scores of students taught by NETs and local teachers. The banding of the schools was also found to be an important predictor variable, with the average scores of students in high band schools significantly higher than their peers in medium and low band schools. Multiple regression analysis also revealed some important findings. When the modelling was conducted on the whole sample, the medium of instruction, the school level and NET teacher were all found to be significant predictor variables although in the case of the latter, the effect was small. When modelled by separate form/age group, similar results were found with Form one and with Form three students and again the medium of instruction, the school level and NET teacher were significant predictor variables although in the case of NET teacher, the effect was again small. The findings of this thesis suggest that in terms of measuring value-added between Time one and Time two, there are indeed strong predictor variables such as medium of instruction, school level and student level. However, in trying to evaluate the contribution of NETs to students' oral English language proficiency gain over a two-year period, there is some evidence of a so-called 'NET effect' although this is rather weak, suggesting that more research is required to investigate this question more thoroughly.

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In this project, the discourse of literature teaching is studied as it is constructed in a range of texts, different in function, that come from England and Greece. Starting with the English paradigm, I make an analysis of four versions of the National Curriculum and then look at a series of interviews with English literature teachers of secondary education. Replicating this in the Greek context, I study first a number of official policy documents of the 1990s and then a set of interviews with Greek teachers of secondary education. At the end of each paradigm, a comparison is made between the official documents and the interviewtexts from each education system. Texts from both countries are put in a historical perspective, since traces of the past can be 'read' in the present. Finally, the discourse of literature teaching in England is juxtaposed with the one developed in Greece. Overall, the comparison is along two axes: first between teachers' interviews and official policy documents, and then, between the English and the Greek paradigm. In my analysis of all these different texts, I focus on specific aspects of the discourse of literature teaching. In particular, I look at the conceptualisation of textual meaning and the relation between referent, text and author, at the issue of text selection, at the aims set for this area of the curriculum and how they are translated into practice, and finally, at the presentation of all those who are involved in literature teaching, i.e. the teachers, the students and the central authorities. From the comparison, the image of a school subject as a natural process that draws on neutralised and rationalised knowledge is called into question. Literature teaching emerges as a discourse full of contradictory trends that are constantly negotiated and reshaped in localised configurations.

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