The implication of South Africa’s multicultural and linguistic diversity is that many learners have a home language that is not their language of instruction. Research has indicated that children learn best in their home language (UNESCO, 2020). In South Africa, however, language is seen as one of the biggest barriers to teaching and learning. In the historical context of South Africa’s divided past, equal educational opportunities are still not afforded to every learner, with many learners learning in a language in which they are not yet proficient. In South Africa, there is also a preference for learning through the medium of English, due to its global status and common use by the workforce. This preference is not only shown by teachers and learners themselves but also by parents who prefer that their children learn through the medium of English. Due to globalisation, multilingualism in education has become a major point of discussion in relation to research in education. Translanguaging, which is how multilingual speakers use more than one language in their everyday communication with others, is questioning ‘monolingual practices and ideologies worldwide’ (Makalela, 2013). This study was conducted in two township primary schools in Eersterust, which is a Coloured township situated west of Mamelodi in the Tshwane South District. The study aimed to answer the following research questions: What are the perceptions of translanguaging amongst English teachers in township primary schools? And why do teachers perceive translanguaging in this way? The research participants included seven English-language teachers from Grades 4, 5, 6 and 7. All these participants were selected purposively, and their participation was voluntary. Data were collected qualitatively through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, classroom observations and documentation. The conclusion from the study is that teachers viewed translanguaging as an effective strategy within their Home and First Additional English-language classrooms. Teachers from both schools instinctively implemented translanguaging on a daily basis. Translanguaging within both schools did not occur only as a pedagogical practice but also as a sociolinguistic phenomenon. What was evident from the findings were the many acts of unplanned and spontaneous translanguaging which took place within the classrooms. These findings were generated through accounts that teachers gave during interviews, during classroom observations of their lessons and, through analysis of lesson plans. The unplanned acts of translanguaging confirmed that teachers were willing to implement translanguaging, which in turn influenced their perceptions of translanguaging. What was also evident was that many of the social circumstances, which teachers and learners within this community faced on a regular basis, influenced how translanguaging was implemented. / Dissertation (MEd (Curriculum and Instructional Design and Development))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Humanities Education / MEd (Curriculum and Instructional Design and Development) / Unrestricted

Educationists, linguists and other stakeholders are concerned about the effectivity of the level of teaching regarding Afrikaans Additional Language. Some of the teachers of Afrikaans Additional Language are not qualified in the teaching of specifically a foreign language. There is a lot of uncertainty concerning the difference between the teaching of a home language and additional language teaching. In order to ensure learners improvement and achievement as well as future use of Afrikaans Additional Language it is necessary that the teaching of additional languages, especially Afrikaans must be given appropriate attention. The purpose if this study was to determine the selection the teachers made regarding teaching and learning approaches, methods and teaching materials, including the curriculum, textbooks and other documents, as well as to establish the perceptions of the learners regarding these approaches, methods and materials in the teaching of Afrikaans Additional Language in the Dr. Kenneth Kaunda District through empirical research, and to undertake a literature study to establish a teaching-learning program framework that can facilitate to the effective implementation of the National Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement in all the language skills of Afrikaans Additional Language. An interpretive research paradigm was used as foundation for this study. A literature study was undertaken to establish what such a framework should look like with specific attention to language skills. Qualitative research was undertaken through using multiple case studies where teachers and learners who were willing to take part were questioned and observed regarding the teaching of Afrikaans Additional Language as well as the problems they experienced. Documents such as teaching materials and the curriculum were analysed as well. The analyses had a two-pronged focus: thematic analysis with the use of the computer software program, NVivo 8, where the data was reduced and thereafter analysed manually by the researcher. The researcher then used a comparative analysis to compare the different case studies (schools). The results of this study showed that the implementation of the curriculum was problematic for teachers, they were uncertain about the degree of difficulty of the teaching materials, and would rather stick to textbooks. The results also indicated that the teachers who did not use the communicative approach preferred to teach mainly through direct instruction. The communication in the classrooms was mainly teacher-orientated and the learners got little chance to use the language in interactive activities. The proposed teaching-learning programme framework for Afrikaans Additional Language should help teachers with the planning of their teaching as well as the implementation of the curriculum that could result in more effective Additional Language Teaching to learners. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Teaching and Learning))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

Educationists, linguists and other stakeholders are concerned about the effectivity of the level of teaching regarding Afrikaans Additional Language. Some of the teachers of Afrikaans Additional Language are not qualified in the teaching of specifically a foreign language. There is a lot of uncertainty concerning the difference between the teaching of a home language and additional language teaching. In order to ensure learners improvement and achievement as well as future use of Afrikaans Additional Language it is necessary that the teaching of additional languages, especially Afrikaans must be given appropriate attention. The purpose if this study was to determine the selection the teachers made regarding teaching and learning approaches, methods and teaching materials, including the curriculum, textbooks and other documents, as well as to establish the perceptions of the learners regarding these approaches, methods and materials in the teaching of Afrikaans Additional Language in the Dr. Kenneth Kaunda District through empirical research, and to undertake a literature study to establish a teaching-learning program framework that can facilitate to the effective implementation of the National Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement in all the language skills of Afrikaans Additional Language. An interpretive research paradigm was used as foundation for this study. A literature study was undertaken to establish what such a framework should look like with specific attention to language skills. Qualitative research was undertaken through using multiple case studies where teachers and learners who were willing to take part were questioned and observed regarding the teaching of Afrikaans Additional Language as well as the problems they experienced. Documents such as teaching materials and the curriculum were analysed as well. The analyses had a two-pronged focus: thematic analysis with the use of the computer software program, NVivo 8, where the data was reduced and thereafter analysed manually by the researcher. The researcher then used a comparative analysis to compare the different case studies (schools). The results of this study showed that the implementation of the curriculum was problematic for teachers, they were uncertain about the degree of difficulty of the teaching materials, and would rather stick to textbooks. The results also indicated that the teachers who did not use the communicative approach preferred to teach mainly through direct instruction. The communication in the classrooms was mainly teacher-orientated and the learners got little chance to use the language in interactive activities. The proposed teaching-learning programme framework for Afrikaans Additional Language should help teachers with the planning of their teaching as well as the implementation of the curriculum that could result in more effective Additional Language Teaching to learners. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Teaching and Learning))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

The study investigated 6 Soweto primary school teachers’ ability to analyse and give feedback on the errors of English First Additional Language learners. Drawing on literature on assessment for learning and feedback, as well as on error analysis of English second language learning, I developed a conceptual framework that enabled me to classify learner errors and teachers feedback strategies. I used a qualitative approach to investigate assessment abilities. Firstly, the teachers marked a written assessment task, identified errors, evaluated learner performance and gave feedback based on identified errors. Secondly, the teachers were interviewed on why learners made those errors and what feedback strategies they suggested for remediating the errors. The findings indicated that the teachers: i) were generally capable of identifying the errors, ii) struggled to correct the identified errors, iii) were still working in a summative mind-set, and iv) were insecure about their abilities to deal with English First Additional Language errors. Therefore, assessment for learning has a long way to go for the township primary school teachers.

Background: This study formed part of a larger longitudinal research study by Jordaan (2009), who tracked the development of language for academic purposes in grade 1- 3 English Additional Language (EAL) and English First Language (EFL) learners attending English only programmes in Gauteng over a period of three years. These learners attended schools in two different educational contexts where there is a marked heterogeneity in the linguistic backgrounds of both the learners and teachers investigated. Results from Jordaan’s (2009) study revealed that some EAL and EFL learners appeared to be slow in the development of their academic language abilities (as no progress was evident over the period of three years), relative to their peers, and thus these learners may have a language impairment. Purpose: This study investigated in detail, these “slow to learn” EAL and EFL learners in the foundation phase, in order to determine whether they have a language impairment and to determine how the language impairment manifests in these learners. Participants: Sixteen learners (5 EFL learners and 16 EAL learners) who demonstrated no improvement in their academic language abilities from grade one to grade two as determined by their performance on the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation Criterion Referenced (DELV-CR) test were the participants of this study. Method: The participants were assessed on the Automated Working Memory Assessment (AWMA) test, a Non Word Repetition test (Dollaghan & Campbell, 1998), a Sentence Repetition test (Redmond, 2005) and the Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT-4). Educators were also asked to rate these learners’ oral language, written language and reading comprehension abilities on a scale of 0- 5. The research design utilized was a non experimental, descriptive quantitative design, involving both correlational and comparative components. The data obtained was then analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to establish whether there was a relationship between the cognitive processing and the language proficiency measures as well as the teacher ratings in order to provide information regarding these tests as assessment tools for EAL learners as well as to further enhance the validity of this study. Independent sample t-tests were also conducted to determine whether there were any significant differences between the EFL and EAL learners’ performance in the two different educational contexts, so as to establish whether bilingual learners with language impairment are more severely impaired than monolingual learners with language impairment. Results: Based on the analysis of these learners’ performance on the DELV-CR test, results indicated that all sixteen participants presented with SLI and were not just “slow to learn”. The EAL-SLI learners in both contexts performed poorly on the reading comprehension test and were rated lower than their aged matched peers on the teacher rating scales. Furthermore, when comparing these EAL-SLI learners’ performance on the DELV-CR test to the performance of the EFL-SLI learners, the EAL-SLI learners as a group appeared to have performed more poorly than the EFL-SLI learners on all three subtests. As significant differences were found between the EAL and EFL learners’ performance on the DELV-CR test, the results suggested that bilingual learners with SLI, who acquire a second language sequentially, are more impaired than monolingual learners with SLI. The EAL-SLI learners also presented with visuo-spatial short term and working memory deficits and even though a large majority of the learners presented with verbal short term and working memory difficulties, not all the learners presented with cognitive processing difficulties. This finding has implications for the theories of SLI. However, the sentence repetition task was found to be a useful tool in differentiating between the “slow to learn” EAL learners and EAL-SLI learners and furthermore this test also positively correlated with various sections of the DELV-CR test which adds to the value of this test as an assessment tool in EAL learners. Positive correlations were also found between the teacher ratings of the EAL-SLI learners and the subtests of the DELV-CR test which indicates that teachers have the ability to correctly identify learners with language learning difficulties. Positive correlations were also found between the digit repetition subtest, the non word repetition test and the sentence repetition test which adds to the validity of this study. Conclusion: The results obtained from this study demonstrated that bilingual learners with SLI who acquire a second language sequentially are additionally disadvantaged compared to their EFL-SLI peers in the acquisition of certain aspects of academic language. Furthermore, although research has shown that cognitive processing measures are less biased in the assessment of linguistically diverse learners, results indicated that the DELV-CR test identified more accurately, learners with language impairment whereas the cognitive processing measures provided contradictory and biased results with the verbal working memory subtest over identifying learners “at risk” for language impairment. Finally, the use of sentence repetition tasks in the differentiation between “slow to learn” and language impaired EAL learners proves to be promising.

Submitted by Andrea Pereira (andrea.pereira@unipampa.edu.br) on 2018-07-30T19:21:05Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dis Rosonêz Luz 2018.pdf: 5157869 bytes, checksum: 1b44eb4743956e2c01faad6ad093ea60 (MD5) Prod Rosinêz Luz 2018.pdf: 3194381 bytes, checksum: 7fc803c58c04d283261a022f7a93ade5 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Dayse Pestana (dayse.pestana@unipampa.edu.br) on 2018-07-31T16:21:27Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dis Rosonêz Luz 2018.pdf: 5157869 bytes, checksum: 1b44eb4743956e2c01faad6ad093ea60 (MD5) Prod Rosinêz Luz 2018.pdf: 3194381 bytes, checksum: 7fc803c58c04d283261a022f7a93ade5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-31T16:21:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dis Rosonêz Luz 2018.pdf: 5157869 bytes, checksum: 1b44eb4743956e2c01faad6ad093ea60 (MD5) Prod Rosinêz Luz 2018.pdf: 3194381 bytes, checksum: 7fc803c58c04d283261a022f7a93ade5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-04-16 / O objetivo deste estudo é analisar a implementação de uma proposta de ensino autoral, voltada para a interculturalidade desenvolvida em forma de oficinas de língua inglesa (LI) junto a estudantes da terceira série do ensino fundamental (EF), de uma escola pública de Santa Rosa, Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Brasil. A presente pesquisa reflete sobre a falta de políticas públicas que assegurem o ensino de uma língua adicional (LA) para as séries iniciais nas escolas públicas, apoiada em Tonelli e Chaguri (2011), e defende a inclusão deste componente curricular baseada nos PCNs (1997); LDB (1996); Referenciais Curriculares estaduais (2009); Irala e Lefffa (2014); Schlatter e Garcez (2012); Paiva (2012). Ao mesmo tempo em que se refere a alguns estudos realizados acerca do ensino de LI, como LA para crianças, quanto à formação de professores e metodologias apropriadas para esta faixa etária, abordado por Tonelli (2008), Pires (2001), Scheifer (2008), Rocha (2007), Rocha; Tonelli; Silva (2010), onde os autores utilizam o termo LEC (língua estrangeira para criança). Para falar sobre o tema de interculturalidade e cultura são citados Hall (2006), Thompson (2009) e Motta-Roth (2003). O ensino de línguas, a partir de uma perspectiva intercultural, contribui para que o aluno compreenda as diferenças culturais existentes, sem ignorar a cultural local e, ao mesmo tempo, possibilita ao aprendiz interagir e conviver com responsabilidade social (SCHEYERL, BARROS, SANTO, 2014). A aplicação deste estudo acontece através de um conjunto de 18 aulas/oficinas com o uso de um material didático autoral (MDA), fundamentado em Leffa (2007) e Scheyerl e Siqueira (2012). A pesquisa tem como objetivos específicos: analisar, aula a aula, a percepção da professora de língua inglesa a respeito de suas próprias aulas, durante o desenvolvimento das atividades implementadas ao longo das oficinas; avaliar o engajamento discente durante a aplicação das oficinas; verificar a adequação do material didático autoral após a sua implementação, reformulando-o para fins de socialização. Para fundamentar o termo engajamento é empregado Stelko-Pereira, Valle e Williams (2015); Bzuneck, Megliato e Rufini (2013); Fredricks, Blumenfeld e Paris (2004); Gouveia (2009). Para geração de dados deste estudo foram considerados a gravação de áudios e vídeos reflexivos, feitos pela pesquisadora/autora deste estudo; relatos escritos das aulas pela professora titular da turma; autoavaliações dos alunos e questionários de avaliação aplicados ao final das aulas. Após a análise desta proposta pedagógica autoral, utilizando os instrumentos mencionados acima, foram alcançados os objetivos propostos: à professora/pesquisadora foi permito refletir acerca de sua prática pedagógica; o MDA foi reformulado para fins de facilitar o ensino e aprendizagem dos alunos; e houve o engajamento dos participantes com as atividades propostas e o aprendizado de LI através do diálogo e da reflexão sobre temáticas do cotidiano do aprendiz. / The objective of this study is to analyze the implementation of a proposal of authoring teaching, focused on interculturality developed in the form of English language (EL) workshops with third grade students of elementary school (ES), of a public school in Santa Rosa, Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Brazil. The present research reflects on the lack of public policies that assure the teaching of an additional language (AL) for the initial grades in public schools, supported by Tonelli and Chaguri (2011), and it defends the inclusion of this curricular component based on PCNs (1997); LDB (1996); Referenciais Curriculares estaduais (2009); Irala and Leffa (2014); Schlatter and Garcez (2012); Paiva (2012). At the same time, it refers to some studies carried out on the teaching of EL as an AL for children, regarding teacher training and appropriate methodologies for this age group, discussed by Tonelli (2008), Pires (2001), Scheifer (2008), Rocha (2007), Rocha; Tonelli; Silva (2010), where the authors use the term LEC (foreign language for children). To talk about the theme of interculturality and culture, are cited Hall (2006); Thompson (2009); Motta-Roth (2003). The teaching of languages as from an intercultural perspective contributes to the student's understanding of the existing cultural differences, without ignoring the local culture and, at the same time, enables the learner to interact and live with social responsibility (SCHEYERL, BARROS, SANTO, 2014). The application of this study happens through a set of 18 classes / workshops with the use of an authorial didactic material (ADM), based on Leffa (2007) and Scheyerl and Siqueira (2012). The specific objectives of the research are: to analyze, from class to class, the perception of the English teacher about her own classes during the development of the activities implemented throughout the workshops; assessing student engagement during workshops; to verify the appropriateness of the didactic material after its implementation, reformulating it for socialization purposes. To support the term engagement are employed, Stelko-Pereira, Valle and Williams (2015); Bzuneck, Megliato and Rufini (2013); Fredricks, Blumenfeld and Paris (2004); Gouveia (2009). For the generation of data of this study were considered considered the audio recording and reflective videos made by the researcher / author of this study; written reports of classes by the teacher in charge of the class; self-assessments of students and evaluation questionnaires applied at the end of classes. After analyzing this authorial pedagogical proposal, using the instruments mentioned above, the proposed objectives were reached: the teacher / researcher was allowed to reflect on their pedagogical practice; the ADM has been reformulated for the purpose of facilitating its use and student`s learning; and there was the engagement of the participants with the proposed activities and the learning of EL through dialogue and reflection on themes of the learner's everyday life.

Submitted by Andrea Pereira (andrea.pereira@unipampa.edu.br) on 2019-02-25T17:37:54Z No. of bitstreams: 3 DIS Virginia Barbosa 2018.pdf: 3650680 bytes, checksum: 8b650d310388feff33de65fb23da7b0d (MD5) Prod. Edu. Virginia Barbosa 2018..pdf: 551050 bytes, checksum: 1df747493849daf5173caec0325c0a48 (MD5) Prod. Edu. 2 Virginia Barbosa 2018.pdf: 366661 bytes, checksum: 4a046d0c7881dc9f46a94f3db9f61c4b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Dayse Pestana (dayse.pestana@unipampa.edu.br) on 2019-02-25T18:48:20Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 3 DIS Virginia Barbosa 2018.pdf: 3650680 bytes, checksum: 8b650d310388feff33de65fb23da7b0d (MD5) Prod. Edu. Virginia Barbosa 2018..pdf: 551050 bytes, checksum: 1df747493849daf5173caec0325c0a48 (MD5) Prod. Edu. 2 Virginia Barbosa 2018.pdf: 366661 bytes, checksum: 4a046d0c7881dc9f46a94f3db9f61c4b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2019-02-25T18:48:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 DIS Virginia Barbosa 2018.pdf: 3650680 bytes, checksum: 8b650d310388feff33de65fb23da7b0d (MD5) Prod. Edu. Virginia Barbosa 2018..pdf: 551050 bytes, checksum: 1df747493849daf5173caec0325c0a48 (MD5) Prod. Edu. 2 Virginia Barbosa 2018.pdf: 366661 bytes, checksum: 4a046d0c7881dc9f46a94f3db9f61c4b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-12-15 / O presente trabalho surgiu do desejo de buscar novas perspectivas de prática que pudessem vislumbrar outras formas de ensino/aprendizagem da língua adicional/inglês. Nesse sentido, a pesquisa teve como objetivo principal desenvolver e implantar uma unidade didática para o ensino da língua adicional/inglês junto ao primeiro ano do Curso Normal a partir da formação de uma Comunidade de Prática. Para a aplicação do projeto, foi utilizada uma prática de pesquisa-ação na implantação de uma unidade didática com uma turma de primeiro ano do curso normal da rede pública estadual de ensino, no município de Santana do Livramento/RS, entre os meses de abril a agosto de 2018. Durante a intervenção, analisamos de que maneira o trabalho desenvolvido na implantação da unidade didática, a partir de Comunidades de Prática, constituída de 8 módulos, abordando Ensino Baseado em Tarefas e utilizando-se de ferramentas digitais, contribuiu para o ensino de uma língua adicional. Para fundamentar este estudo, o trabalho foi amparado na teoria sobre Comunidades de Prática (LAVE; WENGER, 2007) e em Morrison (1931), para abordarmos sobre a unidade didática. Uma vez que a unidade didática era constituída de oito módulos e dentro de cada módulo haviam diversas atividades a serem desenvolvidas, discorremos sobre o Ensino Baseado em Tarefas, segundo Ellis (2003), e sobre o letramento digital (MORAN, 2004; BUZATO, 2006; LEFFA, 2006), ao abordarmos as ferramentas digitais. A partir do produto elaborado para esta pesquisa-ação, uma Unidade Didática, e das atividades desenvolvidas em cada módulo, realizamos a análise dos dados gerados através dos questionários, rubrica e notas de campo com o intuito de verificar se os objetivos iniciais foram alcançados. O resultado da análise qualitativa e da observação dos dados mostrou que a elaboração da unidade didática, baseada no engajamento dos alunos na formação de Comunidades de Prática, auxilia de maneira significativa os alunos na execução das tarefas. Embora a aprendizagem da língua adicional em estudo tenha focado o aprendizado do vocabulário e de algumas performances da parte de alguns alunos, a interação do grupo e a curiosidade para o além da sala de aula ficou semeada. / The present work arose from the desire of seeking for new perspectives of practice that could glimpse other forms of teaching / learning of the additional language / English. In this aspect, the main objective of the research was to develop and implement a didactic unit for the teaching of the additional language / English in the first year of the Normal Course from the formation of a Community of Practice. For the application of the project, it was used an action research practice for the implementation of a didactic unit with a group of the first year of the normal course in a state public school, in Santana do Livramento / RS, from April to August 2018. During the intervetion, it was analyzed how the work developed in the implementation of the didactic unit, from Communities of Practice, constituted of 8 modules, addressing Teaching Based on Tasks and using digital tools, contributed for teaching an additional language. In order to base this study, the work was supported in the theory on Communities of Practice (LAVE ; WENGER, 2007) and by Morrison (1931), to discuss the didactic unit. Since the didactic unit was made up of eight modules and within each module there were several activities to be developed, we discoursed about Teaching Based Tasks by Ellis (2003) and on Digital Literacy (MORAN, 2004; BUZATO, 2006; LEFFA, 2006), when we approach the digital tools. From the product elaborated for this action research, a didactic unit, and the activities developed in each module, we performed the analysis of the data generated through the questionnaires, rubrica and field notes in order to verify if the initials objectives were reached. The result of the qualitative analysis and the observation of the data showed that the elaboration of the didactic unit, based on the students’ engagement in the formation of Communities of Practice, significantly assists the students in the execution of the tasks. Although the learning of the additional language under study has focused on learning vocabulary and some performances on the part of some students, group interaction and curiosity for the beyond the classroom has been sown.

A avaliação da aprendizagem é uma preocupação docente constante e que enfrenta novos desafios com o advento do ensino a distancia on-line (Polak, 2009). Neste trabalho, são analisados e discutidos parâmetros e práticas de avaliação qualitativa em um curso de português como língua adicional a distância com vistas à geração e validação de critérios adicionais. O contexto de ensino é o Curso de Espanhol e Português para Intercâmbio (CEPI), destinado aos participantes do Programa Escala de mobilidade discente e ofertado pela Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul no ambiente virtual de aprendizagem Moodle, com o uso pedagógico e complementar da rede social Facebook. Em face aos objetivos propostos pelo curso na edição de 2012-1, adota-se uma perspectiva acional de uso da linguagem (Clark, 1996) e de aprendizagem colaborativa e situada (Stahl, 2006; Wenger, 1998), para enfocar e analisar dados discursivos com relação aos seguintes aspectos: a) competências de uso linguístico expressas nos conteúdos programáticos; b) instrumentos e critérios de avaliação de rendimento utilizados em tarefas de escrita; c) desempenho escrito nas ferramentas dos espaços virtuais de aprendizagem constituídos. Com base nos resultados da análise são definidos índices de qualidade no desempenho discursivo que podem contribuir para uma descrição mais ampla da aprendizagem em contexto digital e permitir uma avaliação integral. / Learning assessment is a constant concern for teachers that now face new challenges with the advent of online education (Polak, 2009). In this work, criteria and qualitative assessment practices in a course of Portuguese as an additional language are analysed and discussed aiming at the generation and validation of additional criteria. The educational context is the on-line Portuguese course (CEPI) for specific purposes offered by the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul to Spanish-speaking students participating in the Escala Exchange Program. The course was hosted in the Moodle virtual learning environment with the additional use of the social network Facebook. Given the objectives proposed for the 2012-1 edition of the course, a perspective of language use (Clark, 1996) and of collaborative and situated learning (Stahl, 2006; Wenger, 1998) is taken in order to analyse discourse data with respect to: a) language skills listed in the course contents; b) tools and assessment criteria used in writing tasks; c) writing skills demonstrated in the virtual learning environments. Based on the results of this analysis, quality indexes in written performance were defined to construct a broader description of learning in this digital context and enable an integral assessment.

The increasing numbers of refugee students in our schools present under-prepared and under-resourced schools with particular challenges because of the students diverse cultural and educational backgrounds, language acquisition processes, and ways of knowing and learning. Refugee students stories are unique in their texture and context compared to other stories, with their themes of oppressive governments, war trauma, loss of home and family, loss of cultural identity, and diaspora. These narratives shape the stories they live by (Clandinin & Connelly, 1999, p. 4). According to Clandinin & Connellys (2000) notion of four directions (p. 50) when researching experiences, this narrative inquiry involved looking inward and outward, and backward and forward into students lived experiences. Listening to the refugee students narratives of their past lives, their present experiences in high school and in the community, as well as their hopes for the future provides educators, administrators and policy makers with a clearer picture of their complex lives. The students narratives in this research give educators an opportunity to reflect on the ways we inspire and give hope to refugee students in our classrooms.<p> As the researcher, I have interwoven my personal experiences with war as a daughter and a mother along with my personal practical knowledge (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 3) as the students EAL (English as Additional Language) teacher together with the students narratives. The goal of this study is to provide participants with an opportunity to have their voices heard and attended to, especially in light of current teaching practices and proposed school transformation in their high school. This narrative inquiry identifies ways in which refugee students exist on the borderlands in high school and areas in schools that require attention. At the same time, it contributes an understanding of what needs to change to provide responsive educational practices in high school.

The increasing numbers of refugee students in our schools present under-prepared and under-resourced schools with particular challenges because of the students diverse cultural and educational backgrounds, language acquisition processes, and ways of knowing and learning. Refugee students stories are unique in their texture and context compared to other stories, with their themes of oppressive governments, war trauma, loss of home and family, loss of cultural identity, and diaspora. These narratives shape the stories they live by (Clandinin & Connelly, 1999, p. 4). According to Clandinin & Connellys (2000) notion of four directions (p. 50) when researching experiences, this narrative inquiry involved looking inward and outward, and backward and forward into students lived experiences. Listening to the refugee students narratives of their past lives, their present experiences in high school and in the community, as well as their hopes for the future provides educators, administrators and policy makers with a clearer picture of their complex lives. The students narratives in this research give educators an opportunity to reflect on the ways we inspire and give hope to refugee students in our classrooms.<p> As the researcher, I have interwoven my personal experiences with war as a daughter and a mother along with my personal practical knowledge (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 3) as the students EAL (English as Additional Language) teacher together with the students narratives. The goal of this study is to provide participants with an opportunity to have their voices heard and attended to, especially in light of current teaching practices and proposed school transformation in their high school. This narrative inquiry identifies ways in which refugee students exist on the borderlands in high school and areas in schools that require attention. At the same time, it contributes an understanding of what needs to change to provide responsive educational practices in high school.