Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2004. / Advisor: Suzanna Becker. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Communication Disorders, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 59-63).

Thesis (M.S.)--Villanova University, 2006. / Psychology Dept. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis attempts to draw together two distinct perspectives on literacy acquisition, an educational perspective and a psychological perspective. Written English has a complex orthography that has motivated academics since the 15th century to devise 'definitive' teaching methods. Throughout much of the 20th century two influential and mutually exclusive teaching approaches dominated literacy acquisition, i.e. ~whole language' and 'phonics'. Recently, empirical psychological investigation has opened a new debate into the cognitive underpinning required for successful literacy acquisition. A developmental psychological approach argues that literacy development should capitalise on children's naturally developing phonological awareness that generally progresses from large units of sound such as rhyme and syllables to small units of sound, such as phonemes. Conversely, an instructional psychological approach proposes that, irrespective of children's naturally developing ability, it is the phoneme and its correspondence with its visual counterpart, the grapheme, that needs to be brought to children's attention from the earliest stages of learning about written language. It will be argued from an educational perspective, that the whole language approach is sub-optimal for induction into an alphabetic script and most phonics approaches take too long to be effective, are too decontextualised, or require too much apparatus. In line with the small unit approach in psychology, it is proposed that the starting point for literacy acquisition is to focus pre-literate children's attention on the 44 English grapheme-phoneme correspondences that can be blended and segmented into phonetically pronounceable words. This proposal was investigated in an intervention study over a period of 8 weeks for 10 minutes a day, in a whole early-years class setting and an error free entertaining environment. Results showed that this significantly improved initial literacy acquisition for less advantaged children, suggesting that an early induction into the alphabetic principle provides children with "a framework for setting up a written language recognition and production system sufficient to drive the development of a self-teaching mechanism" (Share, 1995; Stuart, 2000). The practical implications of this finding have particular significance for the NLS, which proposes a later start and a two-year structured programme of phonics teaching.

Motivation is the driving force behind successful learning. It is especially crucial in a curriculum area such as foreign language study. This investigation aims to explore the motivational role of the central teaching and learning resource used in schools - the coursebook. The opening Chapter reviews major theories of motivation and learning from behaviourism to cognitivism with the aim of establishing a theoretical base. Chapter Two examines mother tongue acquisition and foreign language learning. Theories of both are discussed, compared and contrasted with the emphasis on identifying compatible features. Key aspects of learning theory and motivational factors related to foreign language learning are presented. The motivational function of the teacher is reviewed with particular reference to the planning and management of learning. The role and the nature of the foreign language coursebook are reviewed and reappraised in Chapter Three. The main aim of this study is identified and, in the light of previous discussion of motivation and learning, an evaluation instrument for coursebooks is drawn up. Chapters Four and Five report and discuss surveys of the views of pupils and teachers on three widely-used coursebooks. Although reactions are generally positive, clear areas of unfulfilled need emerge, as do shortcomings in coursebooks' effectiveness in motivating learners and promoting successful learning. A broad consensus of views between the two groups is revealed. The most popular coursebook of the 1980s is used as a case study in Chapter Six. Application of evaluation criteria established earlier reveals some commendable features but a rather larger number which fail to generate motivation or promote effective learning. The final Chapter sets an agenda for a reappraisal of coursebook design based both on findings of this study and on the impact of sweeping change and reform of the education system which will take effect in the 1990s.

Graduate

Delay in language development can be the result of failure of a child to use language for purposes of communication. The notion that productive control of language can be considered separately from competence in language emerges as an important investigative concept. A non-verbal blind child whose delay in language was accompanied by indications that language was comprehended is the subject of this study. Demonstration of language acquisition and comprehension of both structural (syntactic) forms and understanding of meaning was achieved by a transformational analysis of spontaneous utterances, sentence completions, word associations, and the Brown and Berko Usage Test. The investigation of the language usage of the subject is considered in terms of social usage and the acquisition of public and private symbol systems. Three major premises emerge from the study: 1. Language may be acquired and competence attained while productive control remains undeveloped. 2. The structural forms employed provide an accurate reflection of deviance in language and speech development. 3. The question of reference to the external world is crucial to the development of language for social communication. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

A post-structuralist framework (Foucault, 1976; Weedon, 1997) is used to explore language acquisition and identity construction in the life histories of four multilingual white South African men, who became fluent in the African language of isiXhosa in the racially-divided world of Apartheid South Africa, at a time when law and policy made fluency in an African language unusual for whites. Theories used within the 'social turn' in Second Language Acquisition (Block, 2003; Norton, 2000), as well as the social learning theory of Lave and Wenger (1991), support an exploration of how the men acquired this language on the farms in the Eastern Cape where they spent their early years. The identity implications of the men's multilingualism are examined using post-colonial studies of race, 'whiteness' and hybridity (Bhabha, 1994; Frankenberg, 1993; Hall, 1992a). The study was undertaken using Life History methodology (Hatch & Wisniewsky, 1995) and biographic interviewing methods developed within the Social Sciences (Wengraf, 2001). Poststructuralist discourse analysis (Wetherell & Potter, 1992), together with aspects of narrative analysis (Brockmeier, 2000), were used to analyse the data. The study contributes to research into naturalistic language acquisition, using theories from the 'social turn', and analysing a bilingual context in which language, power, race and identity interact in unique ways. The findings endorse the importance of a post-structuralist framing for the Communities of Practice model (Wenger, 1998), and show that participation in target-language communities requires investment by learners in identities which ameliorate the inequities of power relations. The study shows that isiXhosa can become linguistic capital (Bourdieu, 1991) for white South Africans, depending on context and the isiXhosa register they use. It demonstrates that Apartheid discourse ascribes to the men an identity which is indisputably white, but that early experiences shared with isiXhosa-speakers shape their lives and form a potentially antihegemonic facet of their identities.

No description available.

No description available.