published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This study evaluates the effectiveness of programed vocabulary instruction in an undergraduate collegiate business communications course. In making its evaluation, the study tests the hypothesis that a class using such instruction would improve over a class without formal vocabulary study. The three areas of proficiency measured are written communication, vocabulary, and reading comprehension.

Thesis (M.A.Ed.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong. / Bibliography: leaves 53-57.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

M. Tech. Language Practice / Using the narrative essays of undergraduate students, this study aims to understand certain linguistic relations for text construction; namely, the discourse constructs of cohesion, coherence, content, grammar, and text length in English writing. A greater emphasis in this study is given to the understanding of cohesion and coherence as discourse markers. With this in mind, their relation to other salient components of language, such as content, grammar, and text length, are also investigated. This study tries to investigate the features of cohesion and coherence in relation to content, grammar and text length of the English narratives of a personal experience written by sixty-four first and second year students of two South African Universities in the Gauteng province.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Creative Imitation is an alternative strategy to help students improve their expository writing in college composition. It combines writing by imitation with process modeling to increase student fluency with both the products and processes of writing. For centuries, a technique of "imitatio" was used to teach oral and written language traditions. Isocrates, Quintilian, and Cicero shaped the tradition of imitating writing models. Their principles were revived in the 60s by two neo-classical educators, Corbett and D'Angelo. Objections to the principles of imitation to teach writing are analyzed: models intimidate students, imitation focuses on the products instead of the processes of writing, and imitation reduces individual creativity. Some teachers have reported success with student-centered writing-by-imitation exercises in college composition classrooms. They assert that imitation exercises increase student awareness of correct usage, grammar conventions, rhetorical strategies, and paradoxically enable students to develop an "authentic" voice in their own writing.

This thesis argues that generic communication practice plays an important role in preparing engineering students for the workplace. Engineering courses, being contextually-bound, cannot prepare students in the same way as generic courses, which can be more flexible in being able to bring workplace practices, documents and artefacts into the academic domain. Therefore the thesis promotes the view that the communication course can provide a basic structure in terms of genre training and technical language from which the students may access further knowledge from the workplace. In an engineering faculty, the communication course facilitates the student’s interactions in classroom discourse. The course also plays a vital role in the student’s transition from academic discourse to the professional discourse of the workplace. This research views this transition from a social perspective, placing the student within the context of the engineering faculty’s discourse community, and, subsequently, sees the student-trainee in the workplace as part of a community of practice. The study concentrates on the contradictions between these two contexts in order to investigate how the communication course impacts on the progress of the student’s discourse practices between classroom and workplace. The observable features of discourse which the investigation focuses on are genre rules, the use of technical language, and the student-trainee’s interaction with colleagues, supervisors, and artifacts of the workplace. The study uses discourse theory with an academic literacy underpinning to establish a framework for the student’s interactions with academic language. These interactions are explored by means of 100 questionnaires administered to first-intake engineering students at Durban University of Technology. The findings reveal that, while students say they do not always understand what is expected of them in terms of using genres to produce documents assigned by the communication course, they appear to be capable of using genre rules when applied to group tasks. Furthermore, students do not seem to regard technical language in its wider context, as a feature of classroom discourse practices. Instead they see it narrowly, as a necessary but isolated skill to be learnt for workplace discourse practices. The research considers the impact of these perceptions and practices on the findings and analysis of workplace practices. The investigation into workplace discourse practices is guided by activity theory which sees a document’s genre rules in a mediating function, and community of practice theory, which places the student-trainee’s interactions within the construct, situated learning. The study used the participant-observer technique to explore workplace discourse in eight engineering companies in Durban and surrounding areas. The observations were complemented by follow-up questions in interviews with thirty six student-trainees in these companies. The findings have shown that, even though students said they had difficulties with technical language in the classroom, they were able to apply it adequately within the context of the workplace. Furthermore, genre rules needed to be adapted to suit workplace practices, therefore the rules of document design in classroom practices should focus on flexibility as well as structure. The findings also suggest that the communication course should see the classroom and the workplace as two activity systems which complement each other, and the communication course should be placed in close proximity to the student’s entrance to the workplace. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master’s in Education (MEd) in the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2012 / Most learners whose home language is not English encounter mounting challenges when learning English as an additional language in schools. Navigating the learning discourses of such learners’ impact on instructional time. Efficient utilization of instructional time is crucial, as it is the time teachers spend teaching knowledge, concepts, and skills pertaining to school subjects. However, studies have shown that the amount of instructional time is diminished by interruptive activities, herein referred to as non-academic incidences. Non-academic incidences tend to obstruct the efficient enactment of lessons. The thesis investigated the extent to which non-academic incidences impact on instructional time during the teaching of English First Additional Language (EFAL), as well as explored how teachers addressed challenges emanating from non-academic incidences. The study utilized qualitative research approaches comprising of classroom observations and a focus group interview. The participants consisted of in-service teachers teaching in under-resourced schools and also enrolled in the Advanced Certificate in Education course at a university in Cape Town. The research identified some of the critical non-academic incidences pertaining specifically to EFAL, including inappropriate use of pedagogic strategies, poor use of code switching and unsuitable teaching exemplars. Other factors consist of the negative attitudes of both teachers and learners towards other learners who are less proficient in English language and possess poor linguistic ability. In addition, non-subject specific non-academic incidences identified included unpreparedness of teachers, teachers’ digression from core lesson, discipline problems in the classroom, lack of school management capability to protect instructional time, lack of EFAL teaching and learning resources, overcrowding, and impact of socio-economic status of learners. This research argues that to reduce non-academic incidences and maximize instructional time requires collaborative efforts from all stakeholders to develop formalized policy guidelines. Educators need training and support to create the uninterrupted atmosphere suitable for learning. Furthermore, educators need to be encouraged to willingly implement tailor-made initiatives to address specific challenges and learners must be motivated to develop a positive attitude towards EFAL. Educators should be provided with teaching aids and specialised learning resources. Even though increasing instructional time is advocated, the cost implication and utilization must be considered. The study could guide educational stakeholders to formulate appropriate policies to enhance efficient utilization of instructional time and also provide insights into the debilitating effects of non-academic incidences on teaching/learning environments.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education