För att kunna erbjuda en främjande läsutveckling för andraspråkselever krävs mycket arbete och en medvetenhet om alla enskilda elevers behov. Det finns många olika undervisningsmetoder i samspel med varierade tillämpningar som används i läsundervisningen, frågan är vilka som anses speciellt främjande. Genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer och undersökning av tidigare forskning som berör området har vi undersökt lärares uppfattningar om vad som främjar andraspråkselevers läsutveckling i de lägre årskurserna. Lärarnas generella uppfattningar om andraspråkselevers läsutveckling, lärarnas arbetssätt och lärarnas val av material i läsundervisningen har varit det centrala i vår studie. De teoretiska perspektiv som vi tagit ut som analysverktyg bygger på olika tankar och angreppssätt till vad som anses betydelsefullt för läsundervisningen. Utifrån resultatet av vår studie såg vi att de flesta lärarna vi intervjuade hade en samsyn om vad som ansågs främjande för andraspråkselevers läsundervisning. Användning av olika dimensioner av stöttning låg som grund för lärarnas uppfattningar, arbetssätt och val av material för att kunna erbjuda en gynnsam läsundervisning. Vår studie visade att läraren anser att läraren måste vara medveten om andraspråkselevernas behov för att kunna utforma en strukturerad undervisning och således att erbjuda anpassat material till eleverna som motsvarar deras nuvarande kunskapsnivå men samtidigt utmanar för utveckling. I intervjuerna synliggjordes det hur interaktionen mellan olika parter kan bidra till en ökad och mer djupgående förståelse för olika texter och som på så sätt bidrar till en utveckling av andraspråkselevers läsning. Ytterligare en aspekt som synliggjordes var betydelsen av modersmålet och hur det kan användas som en resurs för utveckling av andraspråket. Modersmålet fungerar, enligt respondenterna, som ett verktyg för att kunna utveckla förståelsen av olika typer av texter då man tar tillvara på samt uppmuntrar användandet av elevernas starka språk.

Writing center tutors work in a field with a long tradition of fostering meaningful interaction between tutor and tutee. However, as university demographics change and more and more international students and second language users utilize writing centers, our long-held notions of meaningful interaction have been called into question as tutors struggle to reckon the needs of students with the implicit demands of their field. Using data taken from real writing center sessions, I use qualitative and quantitative methods to explore how tutors negotiate this necessarily changing paradigm, looking in particular at the way these changes manifest themselves in who reads a text aloud, how that influences session content, and who talks and when. Based on the data and analysis, I make suggestions for tutor practice, education, and further research.

At every educational level reading is a powerful tool for academic success because it provides students with access to information. Comprehension is crucial to reading. Many students at Lobatse College of Education, Botswana, have problems comprehending L2 reading materials and thus struggle academically because English is the medium of instruction. To some extent, methods of teaching L2 reading contribute to students’ reading failure. It is said that how we teach is as important as what we teach. Thus, how L2 reading is taught is important for improving students’ understanding of texts and their L2 academic performance. This study focuses on teaching reading as a process which involves an application of reading strategies in order to facilitate comprehension of texts. The overall aim of the research is concerned with the improvement of methods of teaching L2 reading comprehension in Botswana Colleges of Education. The specific objective was to implement reading strategy instruction programme (RSI) to see what effect it would have on (i) on L2 students’ use of strategies during reading (ii) on L2 students’ reading comprehension, and (iii) on L2 students’ English academic performance. Using a quasi-experimental pre-posttest design, an explicit RSI programme was implemented over six-week period in a Botswana College of Education. Two intact cohorts of second-year teacher trainees were randomly assigned to a control and intervention groups. A reading strategy questionnaire and a reading comprehension test were used to examine the relationship between strategy use and level of comprehension. A discrepancy emerged between the self-reports responses of the participants and their actual performance in reading text. Although they claimed to be strategic readers the results suggested that they were not in fact reading strategically.The Cohen’s d analysis yielded a large effect size. This corroborates the significant differences that emerged between the two cohorts in their posttest comprehension results. The intervention group showed significant gains in strategy use and reading comprehension after the six-week intervention period. This suggests that even a short period of intervention can be beneficial to L2 students. However, these effects did not manifest themselves in the students’ English academic performance. This suggests that students need more exposure and more opportunities to practice applying strategies to texts that they read before the effect spill over into academic performance in general. The findings from this study have important implications for the teaching reading in Botswana in both L1 and L2 context. This research also point to further avenues for reading research in Botswana, and cautions against a reliance on questionnaire data alone in reading research; the triangulation of data is important to gain an accurate and deeper understanding of reading practices and reading performance. / Linguistics / M.A. (Applied Linguistics)

At every educational level reading is a powerful tool for academic success because it provides students with access to information. Comprehension is crucial to reading. Many students at Lobatse College of Education, Botswana, have problems comprehending L2 reading materials and thus struggle academically because English is the medium of instruction. To some extent, methods of teaching L2 reading contribute to students’ reading failure. It is said that how we teach is as important as what we teach. Thus, how L2 reading is taught is important for improving students’ understanding of texts and their L2 academic performance. This study focuses on teaching reading as a process which involves an application of reading strategies in order to facilitate comprehension of texts. The overall aim of the research is concerned with the improvement of methods of teaching L2 reading comprehension in Botswana Colleges of Education. The specific objective was to implement reading strategy instruction programme (RSI) to see what effect it would have on (i) on L2 students’ use of strategies during reading (ii) on L2 students’ reading comprehension, and (iii) on L2 students’ English academic performance. Using a quasi-experimental pre-posttest design, an explicit RSI programme was implemented over six-week period in a Botswana College of Education. Two intact cohorts of second-year teacher trainees were randomly assigned to a control and intervention groups. A reading strategy questionnaire and a reading comprehension test were used to examine the relationship between strategy use and level of comprehension. A discrepancy emerged between the self-reports responses of the participants and their actual performance in reading text. Although they claimed to be strategic readers the results suggested that they were not in fact reading strategically.The Cohen’s d analysis yielded a large effect size. This corroborates the significant differences that emerged between the two cohorts in their posttest comprehension results. The intervention group showed significant gains in strategy use and reading comprehension after the six-week intervention period. This suggests that even a short period of intervention can be beneficial to L2 students. However, these effects did not manifest themselves in the students’ English academic performance. This suggests that students need more exposure and more opportunities to practice applying strategies to texts that they read before the effect spill over into academic performance in general. The findings from this study have important implications for the teaching reading in Botswana in both L1 and L2 context. This research also point to further avenues for reading research in Botswana, and cautions against a reliance on questionnaire data alone in reading research; the triangulation of data is important to gain an accurate and deeper understanding of reading practices and reading performance. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Applied Linguistics)