The growing diversity of school populations around the world means that for many learners the language of learning in mainstream classrooms is not their first language. The researcher would submit that content-based second language learning in a context such as a Science classroom is considered advantageous as it enables the learner to manipulate a target language such as English in a way which is meaningful. However, Science learners who have yet to achieve communicative competence in English are disadvantaged when it comes to developing a deep understanding of scientific concepts. Many mainstream Science educators have concerns about this significant group of learners who can be left on the periphery of the class to cope as best as they can. Very often educators aim to meet the needs of English Second Language (ESL) learners without any specific knowledge of the strategies which would enhance learning and ensure that learning environments encourage participation and interaction. The learners themselves have not only to deal with language and sociocultural issues but must face the cognitive demands of Science including negotiating its specialized language. The aim of this study was to investigate how the use of English as a language of learning and teaching Science in rural secondary schools in the Vlakfontein Circuit of the Limpopo Capricorn District, influenced the ability of Grade 8 students to learn Science. The focus was on the Grade 8 classes since they are at the threshold of their educational pursuit. The study had two main purposes. The first goal was to describe the current situation with respect to rural secondary school learners and their educators in selected learning environments in Vlakfontein Circuit. The second goal was to bring about improvement in the learners’ situations by employing specifically designed interventions. The study had three focal areas: the language; the teaching and learning environment; and the ESL learner. The investigation was conducted in disadvantaged rural secondary schools in the Vlakfontein Circuit in the Limpopo province. Observations of the Science classes revealed that, even for the learners with very limited English language proficiency there was little ESL specialist support available. The data analyzed was collected using a variety of data collection tools. The main data generation tools were observation, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. The analysis revealed that learners were lacking in Science register (terminology). This study also found out that non-technical language used in Science lessons affected the learners’ understanding much more than the educators were aware. Educators’ attitudes and beliefs strongly influenced the interaction and participation of ESL learners in Science classrooms. The study also revealed that developing language skills prevented ESL learners from asking questions and answering questions in class and academic progress in Science was impeded by limited opportunities for ESL learners to clarify their understanding. Further, the investigation established that achievement in Science and in education overall was affected by assessment instruments which were infused with specific linguistic or cultural knowledge. The study arrived at a conclusion that the needs of the research students could not be met by a programme based on the traditional format of ESP teaching. Hence, the researcher has recommended a Science Based English Programme (SBEP) which encapsulates several adjustments in orientation methods and materials to meet the ESL learners’ needs. This kind of learning-centred arrangement will allow not only efficiency of SBEP instruction but also allow the kinds of activities that may not be possible in groups with a wide dispersion of interests. However, the extent to which the research learners encountered difficulties with vocabulary suggests that there is a need to investigate more effective methods of dealing with this issue. Needed research could also be directed into the development of a Science glossary with appropriate language levels for ESL learners. This could include technical scientific terms with examples of how terms can be used.From the outcome of the interviews with educators, it is evident that further research is needed concerning the educators’ English proficiency and Science competence in ESL situations. / Teacher Education / D. Ed. (Didactics)

The aim of the research study, Combatting the Downward Spiral: Burnout, Support Networks and Coping Strategies of TESOL Teachers at Private Language Schools in Johannesburg, South Africa was firstly to determine whether TESOL teachers working in private language schools in Johannesburg, South Africa suffered from burnout. Secondly, the aim was to discover which factors caused stress for TESOL teachers inside and outside the classroom, what support structures were available for burned out TESOL teachers and the type of coping strategies TESOL teachers used to manage burnout. Using a mixed method design which consisted of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey and semi-structured interviews, the findings revealed that 46% of the TESOL teachers who participated in the research study were suffering from high levels of burnout. Interviews revealed three main areas that caused stress for TESOL teachers: the job of teaching, relationships at work and organisational and TESOL-related issues. These areas were divided further into various sub-themes. Furthermore, support structures for burned out TESOL teachers were generally inadequate and although TESOL teachers attempted to manage burnout by using a variety of coping strategies, these did not seem to be effective in the long-term. / English Studies / D. Lit. et Phil. (English)

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No description available.

The aim of this study is to investigate how teachers interpret the reading strategies in the revised English as aSecond Language (ESL) syllabus from 2021, and what advantages and disadvantages they see with the syllabuswhen they teach reading strategies. Previous studies suggest that it is beneficial to teach reading strategies in school.The revised ESL syllabus for upper secondary in Sweden mentions reading strategies but gives no definition orinstruction, making it the teachers’ responsibility to choose an interpretation. However, there is not much researchon the interpretation of reading strategies in ESL in a Swedish context nor in upper secondary school.The study was made through interviews, which where analysed thematically, and a survey, where univariate analysiswas used. The results showed that most teachers were confident using and explaining the strategies, but ofteninterpreted them in different ways. The results also showed that while most teachers think the phrasing in thesyllabus is clear, there are some ambiguities. Most teachers also said they had the resources they needed, but somedidactic resources were mentioned as lacking by some.Conclusions from these results are: that the revised ESL syllabus provides room for interpretation and gives teachersautonomy which they see as positive; that the differences in strategy interpretation can affect the students’ right toequal education; that there are strategies of which teachers are unsure; and that the lack of some resources is anobstacle in the implementation of the syllabus and the teaching of reading strategies. Implications of this thesis arethat policy makers can use it in their development of future educational policy documents, and that teachers can useit to educate themselves on their role in interpreting the syllabus in their work.

<p dir="ltr">The early COVID-19 pandemic presented a sudden and shared challenge to educators across the country. This dissertation focuses on the challenges presented to writing program administrators (WPAs), a group in higher education who provides leadership and guidance to courses which frequently fulfill writing requirements for students such as First Year Composition. In asking what we can learn from these WPAs who supported teaching and learning in difficult times, I arrive at an understanding of education which is always changing and in crisis. I position writing program administration—which is often poorly-understood, capacious work—within what we know about wicked problems (Rittel & Webber, 1973), which are iterative and socially situated in ways that call for responsiveness and collaboration. To respond to this exigence, I begin to describe an approach of <i>agile writing program administration</i>, which centers the needs of students and teachers through changes that affect teaching and learning.</p><p dir="ltr">My study began with a survey (n=55) collecting information from WPAs on how they targeted support to instructors in 2020’s Emergency Remote Teaching. I then conducted a series of two interviews (n=13) that included narratives of that support, reflections on programmatic decisions, and analysis of texts created to support instructors and students. This data analysis led me to four themes that describe agile WPAs in the early pandemic: centering humans; promoting accessibility and usability; responding to users; and strategizing to respond to change.</p><p dir="ltr">Responding to Lindquist's (2021) call for the field of writing studies to revisit its commonplaces of work, I reconsider commonplaces of writing program administration: its activities, what it takes for granted, and what often goes unseen with this work. Most importantly, I move away from any commonplace understanding of education as stable. Instead, I argue that writing program administration, like any wicked problem, is an iterative problem which therefore requires iterative response. Just as the pandemic didn't definitively end, the issues facing down a WPA continue and change and multiply. WPAs are asked to navigate changes in student populations and needs, updates to local and statewide policies, and an increasingly contingent instructional labor force in higher education. An agile framework for writing program administration can inform more practical and intentional ways for WPAs to achieve their goals of supporting, first and foremost, the instructors and students involved in these writing programs.</p>

Drawing on theoretical work in literacy education, drama education and second language education, and taking account of poststructuralist, postcolonial, third world feminist, critical pedagogy, and intersectionality frameworks, this dissertation presents findings from an ethnography that critically examined the experiences of English language learners (ELLs) in three different drama classrooms, in three different high school contexts. More specifically, this multi-site study investigated two aspects of multiliteracies pedagogy: i) situated practice and ‘identity texts’ (Cummins et al., 2005; Cummins, 2006a) and ii) multimodality and embodied learning by overlaying, juxtaposing, or contrasting multiple voices (Britzman, 2000; Gallagher 2008; Lather 2000) of drama teachers and their students to provide a rich picture of the experiences of ELLs in drama classrooms. The diverse drama pedagogies observed in the three different drama contexts offer possibilities for a kind of cultural production proceeding from language learning through embodied meaning-making and self-expression. The situated practice of drama pedagogies provided a third space (Bhabha, 1990) for the examination of students’ own hybrid identities as well as the in-role examination of the identities of others, while moving between the fictional and the real in the drama work. The exploration of meaning-making and self-expression processes through drama, with attention to several aspects of embodied learning—from concrete, physical and kinesthetic aspects, to complex relational ones—was found to be strategic and valuable for the language and literacy learning of the English language learners. The findings from this study highlight the role of embodied forms of communication, expression and meaning-making in drama pedagogy. This embodied pedagogy is a multimodal form of self-expression since it integrates the visual, audio, sensory, tactile, spatial, performative, and aesthetic, through physical movement, gesture, facial expression, attention to pronunciation, intonation, stress, projection of voice, attention to spatial navigation, proximity between speakers in space, the use of images and written texts, the use of other props (costumes, artefacts), music and dance. The dialogic, collective, imaginative, in-between space of drama allows students to access knowledge and enrich their language and literacy education through connections to the real and the fictional, to self/others, to past and present experiences, and to dreams about imagined selves and imagined communities (Kanno & Norton, 2003).

Drawing on theoretical work in literacy education, drama education and second language education, and taking account of poststructuralist, postcolonial, third world feminist, critical pedagogy, and intersectionality frameworks, this dissertation presents findings from an ethnography that critically examined the experiences of English language learners (ELLs) in three different drama classrooms, in three different high school contexts. More specifically, this multi-site study investigated two aspects of multiliteracies pedagogy: i) situated practice and ‘identity texts’ (Cummins et al., 2005; Cummins, 2006a) and ii) multimodality and embodied learning by overlaying, juxtaposing, or contrasting multiple voices (Britzman, 2000; Gallagher 2008; Lather 2000) of drama teachers and their students to provide a rich picture of the experiences of ELLs in drama classrooms. The diverse drama pedagogies observed in the three different drama contexts offer possibilities for a kind of cultural production proceeding from language learning through embodied meaning-making and self-expression. The situated practice of drama pedagogies provided a third space (Bhabha, 1990) for the examination of students’ own hybrid identities as well as the in-role examination of the identities of others, while moving between the fictional and the real in the drama work. The exploration of meaning-making and self-expression processes through drama, with attention to several aspects of embodied learning—from concrete, physical and kinesthetic aspects, to complex relational ones—was found to be strategic and valuable for the language and literacy learning of the English language learners. The findings from this study highlight the role of embodied forms of communication, expression and meaning-making in drama pedagogy. This embodied pedagogy is a multimodal form of self-expression since it integrates the visual, audio, sensory, tactile, spatial, performative, and aesthetic, through physical movement, gesture, facial expression, attention to pronunciation, intonation, stress, projection of voice, attention to spatial navigation, proximity between speakers in space, the use of images and written texts, the use of other props (costumes, artefacts), music and dance. The dialogic, collective, imaginative, in-between space of drama allows students to access knowledge and enrich their language and literacy education through connections to the real and the fictional, to self/others, to past and present experiences, and to dreams about imagined selves and imagined communities (Kanno & Norton, 2003).

This thesis is a reflective exploration of the use and impact of using drama pedagogies in the English as a Second Language (ESL)/ English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. It stems from the problem of secondary school English language learning in Malaysia, where current teaching practices appear to have led to the decline of the standard of English as a second language in school leavers and university graduates (Abdul Rahman, 1997; Carol Ong Teck Lan, Anne Leong Chooi Khaun, & Singh, 2011; Hazita et al., 2010; Nalliah & Thiyagarajah, 1999). This problem resonates with my own experiences at school, as a secondary school student, an ESL teacher and, later, as a teacher trainer. Consequently, these experiences led me to explore alternative or supplementary teaching methodologies that could enhance the ESL learning experience, drawing initially from drama techniques such as those advocated by Maley and Duff (1983), Wessels (1987), and Di Pietro (1983), and later from process drama pedagogies such as those advocated by Greenwood (2005); Heathcote and Bolton (1995); Kao and O'Neill (1998), and Miller and Saxton (2004). This thesis is an account of my own exploration in adapting drama pedagogies to ESL/EFL teaching. It examines ways in which drama pedagogies might increase motivation and competency in English language learning. The main methodology of the study is that of reflective practice (e.g. Griffiths & Tann, 1992; Zeichner & Liston, 1996). It tracks a learning journey, where I critically reflect on my learning, exploring and implementing such pedagogical approaches as well as evaluate their impact on my students’ learning. These critical reflections arise from three case studies, based on three different contexts: the first a New Zealand English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) class in an intermediate school, the second a Malaysian ESL class in a rural secondary school, and the third an English proficiency class of adult learners in a language school. Data for the study were obtained through the following: research journal and reflective memo; observation and field notes; interview; social media; students’ class work; discussion with co-researchers; and through the literature of the field. A major teaching methodology that emerges from the reflective cycles is that of staging the textbook, where the textbook section to be used for the teaching programme is distilled, and the key focuses of the language, skills, vocabulary, and themes to be learnt are identified and extracted. A layer of drama is matched with these distilled elements and then ‘staged’ on top of the textbook unit, incorporating context-setting opportunities, potential for a story, potential for tension or complication, and the target language elements. The findings that emerge through critical reflection in the study relate to the drama methodologies that I learn and acquire, the impact of these methodologies on students, the role of culture in the application of drama methodologies, and language learning and acquisition. These findings have a number of implications. Firstly, they show how an English Language Teaching (ELT) practitioner might use drama methodologies and what their impact is on student learning. While the focus is primarily on the Malaysian context, aspects of the findings may resonate internationally. Secondly, they suggest a model of reflective practice that can be used by other ELT practitioners who are interested in using drama methodologies in their teaching. Thirdly, these findings also point towards the development of a more comprehensive syllabus for using drama pedagogies, as well as the development of reflective practice, in the teacher training programmes in Malaysia. The use of drama pedagogies for language learning is a field that has not been researched in a Malaysian context. Therefore, this account of reflective practice offers a platform for further research and reflection in this context.

Research demonstrating the beneficial effects of corrective feedback (CF) for second language (L2) learning (e,g., Li, 2010) has almost invariably resulted from studies in which CF was provided immediately. Yet teachers are often encouraged to delay CF to avoid interrupting learners (Harmer, 2001). This study investigates how differences in the timing of CF on oral production affect L2 learning and learners’ reactions to CF. Theoretically, Immediate CF may facilitate L2 development by allowing learners to immediately compare their errors to accurate models (i.e., recasting, e.g., Doughty, 2001). The effectiveness of Immediate CF has also been linked to skill acquisition theory because some CF (i.e., prompting) is hypothesized to help learners proceduralize their L2 knowledge (Ranta & Lyster, 2007). This thesis introduces additional theoretical explanations to explain the effectiveness of both Immediate and Delayed CF. For example, reactivation and reconsolidation theory (Nader & Einarsson, 2010) holds that long-term mental representations are susceptible to change when they are recalled. Thus, both Immediate and Delayed CF may help learners alter their incorrect mental representations of language features if that CF reminds learners of those incorrect representations and provides them with accurate models. In a laboratory-based study, 90 intermediate-level adult ESL learners were randomly assigned to Immediate, Delayed, and No CF conditions. Learners took three pre-tests to measure their knowledge of the English passive construction: an aural grammaticality judgment test (AGJT), an oral production test (OPT), and a written error correction test (ECT). Next, they received some brief instruction on the passive. Learners then completed three communicative tasks in which the CF conditions were provided. These tasks were followed by immediate and delayed post-tests. Learners’ reactions to CF were elicited with a questionnaire. Mixed-design one-way ANOVAs revealed statistically significant improvement for all conditions over time on all measures, but no statistically significant differences between conditions. The questionnaires revealed that learners prefer Immediate CF, but that Immediate CF may constrain CF noticeability and learners’ independence, while Delayed CF may cause anxiety or embarrassment. In summary, altering the timing of CF did not differentially affect L2 development, but it did elicit different reactions from learners.