The purpose of this study was to understand what occurred when music was infused into a seventh grade poetry unit. Music was used as a co-text in this study, meaning that it was given equal time, energy, and respect as the poetry used in the unit. The unit was nineteen days long, during which, students learned about narrative, free verse, and lyrical poetry. The students also learned about author's intent, language use, mood, metaphor, interpretation, and the role of the audience. During this unit, the students completed two projects that allowed for students to choose to work with either poetry or lyrics. While the use of music caused no significant growth in content knowledge, there was no negative learning effect either. Students found the unit to be engaging and appreciated the amount of choice given to them. Teacher observations, along with student statements, conclude that the use of music raised interest levels in the poetry unit and made the unit fun. The students also noted that a variety of lesson structure played a positive role in the overall effectiveness of the unit. The issues that were raised in the implementation of this study pertain to the allowance of explicit lyrics, time constraints, and managing the duel roles as both teacher and researcher. Finally, the teacher gained new insights into her teaching and came up with several recommendations for future implementation.

This study investigated the relationship between college freshmen?s stage of reflective judgment and the patterns in their written arguments using a mixed-method design with two major and two secondary data collection strategies. The Reflective Judgment Interview (RJI) was conducted with 15 college freshmen enrolled in a composition course that focused on persuasive writing. Participants? essays were examined for patterns in position-taking, evidence-usage, treatment of objections, and rhetorical strategies. Essays were examined ?blind? to participants? reflective judgment scores, and then analyses were compared across reflective judgment groupings. Participants? qualitative interviews and self-recorded reflections on Paper 4 were used to supplement analyses of their essays, and to provide information about contextual factors. Based on assessments made by independent raters, four participants were described as using predominantly pre-reflective judgment, and eleven were described as using predominantly quasi-reflective judgment. Qualitative interviews revealed that participants in both groups had received instruction in persuasive writing in high school, had taken advanced English classes, and were familiar with their own writing processes. However, participants rated as using predominantly quasi-reflective judgment tended to adopt balanced positions, differentiate their views from an authority?s, acknowledge the ill-structured nature of the rhetorical dilemma, and respond to objections more frequently than their pre-reflective counterparts. At the same time, findings for both groups of students suggested that the writing context did not support participants? use of sophisticated assumptions about knowledge and justification, in that most essays written by participants in both groups included one-sided positions, an uncritical use of evidence, and superficial attention to the objections of a doubting audience. Based on these findings, the researcher made recommendations for more developmentally-sensitive instruction.

Inledning: Ett framträdande resultat från Skolinspektionens rapport från 2011 visar att det svenska språket är mer framträdande än det engelska språket hos både pedagoger och elever i engelskundervisningen. Ju mer språkinläraren får höra och exponeras för målspråket desto mer utvecklas hen i språket menar Krashen (2013). Eleverna får även en möjlighet till att lyssna på uttal och intonation vilket de inte får om pedagogen inte talar målspråket i undervisningen. Rapporten visar även att man i skolan behöver ta del av den engelska eleverna lär sig på fritiden i en större utsträckning. I dagens samhälle är det engelska språket ett världsspråk och en nyckel till social och ekonomisk framgång (Lundahl 2012). Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka ett antal pedagogers uppfattningar kring den egna muntliga kommunikativa förmågan i engelskundervisningen. Metod: I undersökningen användes den kvalitativa metoden med intervju som redskap vid insamling av data. Sex verksamma pedagoger i ämnet engelska intervjuades på tre olika skolor i en kommun på Västkusten. Resultat: I undersökningen har det framkommit att pedagogerna säger sig kommunicera mycket på engelska i engelskundervisningen och att de anser att det är av stor vikt att de själva talar målspråket. Resultatet visar även att det svenska språket används vid speciella tillfällen i engelskundervisningen. Ett framträdande resultat är att muntliga diskussioner är en viktig del av undervisningen vilket även Vygotskij (1984/2001) förespråkar eftersom man lär sig i samspel med andra. Hälften av pedagogerna har inte hört talas om rapporten från Skolinspektionen från 2011 som bland annat visar att svenskan är det övervägande språket i engelskundervisningen.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includsd bibliography.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Education in partial fulfilment of the Degree of Masters of Education in the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Needs at the University of Zululand, 2017 / This study is a descriptive survey designed to investigate challenges teachers encounter in teaching English reading and writing in the uThungulu District schools. This study comprised 44 teachers who were purposely sampled on grounds of availability. Views were sampled through the use of a self-made questionnaire. This study addressed three research questions, namely: (i) what are the challenges teachers encounter in teaching reading in the Intermediate Phase? (ii) what are challenges teachers encounter in teaching writing in the Intermediate Phase? (iii) what factors contribute to difficulties in teaching English reading and writing in the Intermediate Phase? The study used a qualitative and quantitative questionnaire and the survey design. Data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) resulting in descriptive data. The findings of the study revealed that teachers were faced with numerous challenges which included, among others, learners who are unable to read and construct complete sentences, their inability to write as characterised by errors in spelling and poor punctuation. In addition to these challenges, mother tongue interference, teaching methods used by teachers, and overloading of the curriculum were also experiences of the teachers. Another salient finding was the lack of support for teachers from both the department and parents. Recommendations made from the study were that teachers need to be trained in efficient methods of teaching reading and writing. Teachers also need to be trained in identifying learners with special needs as early as possible and refer them accordingly. Workshops and campaigns designed by the department of education need to be planned and conducted early in the year and need to be implemented in manageable packages. Teachers need to be equipped on how to encourage their learners to read for pleasure and provide reading material that is interesting to their learners.

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