Graduation date: 2006 / Curricular models and teaching techniques that support college students as the primary authors of their writing-across-the-curriculum experiences remain largely unexplored. This thesis addresses that research gap by investigating the use of a start-of-term writing self-assessment and goal-setting questionnaire (STQ) for upper-division undergraduates taking writing-intensive (WI) college courses in their majors. The tool was piloted in 23 WI sections at Oregon State University during winter term 2004. Feedback obtained through an end-of-term writing self-evaluation showed that students who completed the start-of-term questionnaire tended to take the effort seriously, fill out the questionnaire completely, and use the tool for its intended purposes of reflective self-assessment and goal-setting. Students saw the tool as something that could help them with their writing, and study results suggest that its benefits may have been reinforced by students’ end-of-course review of their STQ responses. Feedback from participating instructors indicated that the tool helped with their teaching as well as their students’ learning, and most instructors planned to continue using the STQ beyond the pilot study. Study results also suggest that the questionnaire can serve as a program-level research and assessment tool, providing WI program administrators and policy-makers with new insights on students’ writing needs and goals. Campus-wide use of the STQ may lead to WI program enhancements, generate new ideas for WI instructor training, and support department, college, and institutional writing-curriculum development efforts.

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

For several years specialists in reading have debated on how pupils should learn to read. The debate has focused on two methods of teaching reading, that is, the phonic method and the whole language method. Some researchers have identified five elements of reading instruction that are critical to achievement in reading, namely; that reading instruction should include phonics, phonemic awareness, reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. These are the components that make up what is termed a balanced literacy approach. Although there is some debate on what constitutes the balanced literacy approach, this study adopted the understanding of the approach described above. The study investigated whether the use of the balanced literacy approach could improve standard four pupils’ achievement in reading and writing in English. The targeted population consisted of twelve schools located in Zomba rural district. Pupils were tested before and after the intervention. Teachers in the experimental group were trained twice on balanced literacy approaches, first before the intervention and midway of the intervention. Observational measures revealed that teachers generally implemented the treatment. The post intervention data indicated that pupils responded very well to the activities that were presented to them. The reading and writing achievement of pupils that were present for the post-test increased more than those of the control group. The results obtained suggest that the balanced literacy approach improved the reading and writing achievement of standard four pupils in the experimental group. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

This research explores peer review in the academic writing of ESL university students. It investigates the problem from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives. Overall findings showed no significant differences between the holistic coherence ratings given to the original and final drafts of the group of students exposed to a process approach to writing with peer review. Similarly, there were no significant differences between the holistic coherence ratings of this experimental group and control group on their final drafts. However, the findings of finer-grained comparative analyses of each experimental group student's original and final drafts revealed both positive and negative results with respect to changes made. The study also explores the changes in terms of the peer review process, so attempting to analyse in more qualitative detail how coherence is constituted in student academic writing. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Linguistics)

Orientador: Anna Christina Bentes da Silva / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-26T12:22:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Goulart_Claudia_D.pdf: 2362444 bytes, checksum: 66898c7fa5e37eebef6809fa0abaf88b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: Esta tese tem como objetivo geral investigar como a diversidade e a variação linguísticas são tratadas no interior dos Livros Didáticos de Português (LDP) nos anos finais do ensino fundamental. Para tanto, verificamos se o conceito de língua anunciado pelos autores dos LDP nos Manuais do Professor (MP) é coerente com o conceito de língua que está na base das atividades apresentadas nos livros. O desdobramento dessa proposta é verificar se há, nessas atividades, questões que conduzam os alunos a uma reflexão sobre certos fenômenos importantes para se entender a diversidade e a variação linguísticas, já que a concepção de língua assumida pelos autores de LDP é aquela ligada ao processo dialógico, cujo discurso se manifesta por meio de textos e, portanto, de base interacionista. A partir de um corpus formado pelas cinco coleções didáticas recorrentes nos PNLDs de 2005 a 2011, investigamos como esses materiais promovem o conhecimento sobre três aspectos importantes para o desenvolvimento de habilidades, comportamentos e práticas de uso da língua necessárias tanto para o processo de progressão escolar dos alunos como também para a inserção deles no mundo social como cidadãos de uma sociedade democrática, a saber: (i) as relações entre fala e escrita e entre oralidade e letramento; (ii) as questões de norma linguística; e (iii) o estilo linguístico. As análises revelaram haver uma tipologia em relação às atividades: (i) atividades de correção nos diferentes níveis (fonético-fonológico, morfossintático e lexical); (ii) atividades de proposição de exercícios estruturais (exercícios envolvendo ações de substituição; transformação, preenchimento de lacunas e retextualização). Grande parte dessas atividades trabalha as relações entre fala e escrita e entre oralidade e letramento de forma dicotômica, na perspectiva da polarização diglóssica. Tais atividades, sobretudo as que propõem correção (do coloquial para o formal e do oral para o escrito), comprovam a submissão das marcas da diversidade linguística aos processos de padronização/normatização da língua, um dos aspectos linguísticos do processo mais amplo de "legitimação" da violência simbólica de que nos fala Pierre Bourdieu / Abstract: This thesis aims at investigating how diversity and linguistic variations are treated within the Portuguese Textbooks (LDP) at final Elementary School years. Therefore, we analyzed whether the concept of language announced by LDP authors in Teachers¿ Manuals (MP) is consistent with the concept of language that underlies the activities presented in the books. The unfolding of this proposal is to determine whether there are, in these activities, questions that lead students to reflect on some major phenomena for understanding the diversity and linguistic variation, since the conception of language assumed by the LDP authors is that linked to the dialogic process, whose discourse is manifested through texts and therefore have interactional basis. Based on a corpus formed by five teaching collections recurrent from 2005 to 2011 PNLDs, we investigated how these materials promote knowledge of three important aspects for skills development, expertise and practices of language. These skills use is required for students¿ progression process as well as for their membership in the social world, as citizens of a democratic society, that is: (i) the relationship between speech and writing and between orality and literacy; (ii) the issues of linguistic norm; and (iii) the linguistic style. The analyses revealed that there was a typology in relation to the activities: (i) remediation activities at different levels (phonetic, phonological, morphosyntactic lexical); (ii) proposal of structural exercise activities (replacement actions, processing, filling gaps and retextualization exercises). Most of these activities work out the relations between speech and writing and between orality and literacy in a dichotomous fashion, from a diglossic polarization perspective. Such activities, especially those that propose correction (from colloquial to formal and from oral to written), prove the linguistic diversity marks submission to standardization/normalization processes of language, one of the linguistic aspects of the wider process of symbolic violence "legitimation" mentioned by Pierre Bourdieu / Doutorado / Linguistica / Doutora em Linguística

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