Bibliography: pages 104-109. / The purpose of this study is to address the issue of language in education policy in Botswana where English is used as a language of instruction at the lower levels of primary education, in this instance focusing on grades 2 and 5. Bearing in mind that English is not the learners' first language, this dissertation firstly attempts to discover some of the possible effects this could have on learners concerning their acquisition of English as a second language, and their progression into further education. Secondly it looks at the role of the primary language (Setswana) as the foundation for the child's acquisition of new knowledge and hence subsequently his/her learning of L2. The data were collected qualitatively in three primary schools through interviews and classroom observations. All three schools are government-run Tswana medium primary schools. The study is based theoretically on the sociolinguistic perspective of bilingual/multilingual education. It draws on language policy studies, language attitude studies as well as issues of language and culture.

Includes bibliographical references. / The purpose of this investigation was to uncover what went into the provision of books of fiction to schools; to examine the construction of readers by book selectors; to find out how children saw themselves as readers and what their own feelings were about reading; and to speculate on the extent to which policies are changing or can be changed. In order to do this I have looked at the situation in two schools with very different histories in the Western Cape. I have tried to establish what the conditions were that created their situation. Through speaking to various book selectors and to children to discover their responses to books, I have gathered material to comment on their perceptions. The schools were chosen as representative of two systems. The children are readers who speak for themselves and, to a certain extent, for their schoolmates. A basic assumption of this work is that both texts and readers are socially constructed. A second assumption, drawing on Wolfgang Iser, is that both texts and readers are active in the reading process. I am, therefore, interested in the "two basic thrusts" in recent research into children's literature identified by Joel Taxel (1989:32). The first is textual and assumes that meaning is determined by the text itself; the second is reader focused. Taxel contends that they can both be accommodated within a sociological perspective, as "literature constitutes an important source of children's knowledge about and orientation to the social world" (1989:33). Another influence on this work is what Charles Sarland has written about young people's reading in terms of culture and response. He has built on the research of Donald Fry, and recorded the voices of children responding to the voices of authors in order to understand the social meaning of what they say. In trying to set a frame within which to study the reading behaviour of children, I have drawn on Margaret Meek's work dealing with children's reading and the meaning of literacy. Ultimately, this thesis is a comment on and an analysis of the state of affairs at two schools at a time when the educational system is in a state of flux. It is an attempt to examine the dominant views of book selectors and to discuss them in relation to those of the children for whom they choose books.

Bibliography: leaves 68-70. / This study investigates aspects of the learning process that takes place in the Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) classroom in the Department of Linguistics and Southern African Languages at the University of Cape Town. It also studies how a small sample of students make adjustments in language learning with the help of the multimedia Swahili programme. The sample comprises four UCT learners (mixed Ll 's) studying a (CD-ROM) multimedia Swahili language programme.

Bibliography: leaves 77-80. / This study had its origins in the interest of the researcher in the literacy practices involved in the production og museum labels. Three displays at the South African Museum, Go Bats!, Mineral Mania and Fossil Stories, were selected for close study because they presented key examples of the differences the researcher wanted to study. These differences appeared to be present in the language used in the labels as well as in the aesthetics of the displays. The research attempts to explain these apparent differences and attempts to provide an explanation as to why and how differences in the genres of writing and designing labels appear. The research entailed examining the literacy and semiotic social practices implicit in the design activities of different museum professionals - scientists, designers and educators.

Bibliography: leaves 111-117. / My research set out to clarify to what extent democracy education is an identifiable and teachable concept in Curriculum 2005 and to find pedagogically useful ways of conceptualising and teaching active democratic participation. I chose a two-staged explorative qualitative research framework, informed by the New Literacy Studies and Critical Discourse Analysis, with Grade 7 learners in a primary school. I identified school Student Representative Councils (SRC's) as a potential site for 'democracy education-in-action'.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-67). / What counts as English depends on the circumstances and where and how it is employed. In classrooms this socio-cultural artefact is constructed through practices in particular ways. Language and literacy practices in schools produce and re-produce certain things that count. In this dissertation I asked what counts as English and what practices were employed in varying contexts to validate what counted in a greater context. I was concerned to find out whether and how English-language resources in different contexts or did not contribute to enhancing students’ (social and economic) mobility. This ethnographically-based study focused on two Grade Six classes in State run Primary schools in Cape Town, one of them being a well-resourced, monolingual, English classroom and school and the other being a poorly-resourced, multilingual, English as an Additional language classroom and school.

Includes bibliographical references. / This study developed out of my own experiences as a high school English teacher and my engagements with the intertwined issues of language and diversity in the classroom.The study foregrounds the nature of students' and teachers' engagements with linguistic diversity and the role of the teacher in critical literacy. In South Africa there is very little classroom based research which shows how students and teachers are engaging with issues of diversity, power and inequality, post-apartheid. This research focuses on how my students and I interact with issues of linguistic diversity in an English Home Language, Grade 8 classroom context using critical literacy pedagogy as the means by which to engage with these issues.

This project concerns the way the radio programme "Khalamdumbadumbane" functions as non-formal education and influences discourses of femininity in Swaziland. I have engaged in critical research in an attempt to show how the media (more specifically radio in this context) influence women's perceptions of themselves in a way which sustains the inequality between sexes. I also show how the programme "Khalamdumbadumbane" as a popular and topical programme has become a social institution, exerting its hidden power to ensure· the dominance of males within the Swazi society. Women's experiences have been recorded in transcribed interviews and these have been discussed and analysed for common themes. The following themes are discussed: Power relations, Cultural identity and the Discourse of rights. The first two themes have been further divided into subthemes: Imbalance I inequality between the sexes, patriarchal family system, disregard for women, abusive relationships, Swazi values versus Western values and the religious discourse. From interviews with the host of the radio programme in question and with Swazi women, I show how this programme has influenced women's self perceptions through their acceptance of the problem solving as 'help' and not as ideological propaganda for patriarchy. Bibliography: pages 99-108.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-136). / This study reports on the changes which occurred in the performance scores of 89 Grade 8 English first language speakers when they attempted two sets of counter-balanced mathematics tests, each comprising of 17 items. After a preliminary pilot study, the main investigation proceeded through three phases, first two being quantitative and the third phase being qualitative.

As a teacher of academic literacy, the researcher is involved in initiating non-traditional students into academic language practices--the academic 'conversation'. This study approaches mediation in a way that takes student diversity into account. This is done through an exploration of the relationship between the biographies of speakers of English as an additional language and their experience of writing academic essays in the faculties of Arts and Social Science at the University of Cape Town. In order to explore this relationship, the research draws on ethnographic methodology, and takes place in different locations. The first is in the curriculum in the form of a discourse analysis of an assignment which required personal writing in an introductory course to English I. The focus is on meaning exchange in context (discourse). The second involves biographical interviews with 13 students on the same course. Here the focus is on the transitions in their lives, and on their views on academic writing and identity. The emphasis is on the voice of the individual. The third area involves bringing voice and discourse together in interviews with three students about their assignments on the introductory course. Students were asked about the influences visible in the linguistic surface of their writing. The study concludes that if the academic conversation is to be open to a full exchange of meaning which includes the participation of voices traditionally excluded, there need to be new ways of thinking about discourse while emphasising the importance of voice and agency. The consequences of this are examined in three areas: a) research, b) research-as-curriculum and c) curriculum in the areas of task design, referencing and evaluation.