In summary, this study was designed to investigate whether teaching students to approach scientific texts using their knowledge of language (specifically syntax) would help them better understand the passages they are reading. It has long been taken for granted that the study of grammar is unhelpful in teaching students to write. Much of the research in the past decades has been used to provide evidence that the study of the structure of our language restrains the generative, creative process. The reading process, however, must be admitted to be a more analytic process. Constructive, yes, in that the reader does more than merely receive meaning from the text; rather, he or she constructs meaning from it. But the text is a whole which must be first broken down into parts in order for the reader to reconstruct the frame. Simultaneously, the reader is adding to the text frame from his or her own store of knowledge, and the final product of the act of reading will be the construction of something new and unique to that reader. The theoretical framework upon which the study is based is van Dijk's and Kintsch's concept of discourse structure which represents reading as a process involving the building of both a text base, the aforesaid "frame" and a situation model, the new and unique product of the reader. William Adler's theoretical framework upon which he based his book How to Read a Book also serves as a point of reference. Adler describes reading as an active process that requires taking apart an argument proposition by proposition (a process which he says requires a certain amount of grammatical knowledge) in order to fully comprehend it and reconstruct it. Such a complex analytical approach is usually unnecessary when reading fictional narrative, but the reading of content area text presents different and greater challenges to the young student, and, of all content areas, science can present the most complex concepts. Processing science concepts becomes even more difficult when the concepts are counterintuitive, as in the study of forces in physics. The questions addressed in this study were the following: 1. Is direct teaching of syntax effective in raising syntactic awareness in young students? 2. Can young students be taught to apply syntactic knowledge during the reading process? 3. Will an increased awareness of syntax and application of syntactic knowledge be accompanied by an increase in reading comprehension of science text? In the course of the study the experimental group received a pretest and a posttest testing syntactic knowledge and reading comprehension and a seven week intervention which included whole class lessons teaching students to recognize sentence structure, chunk sentences and use connectives as cues for relationships between propositions. The intervention also included guided reading sessions applying the syntactic concepts to reading science text. A control group received only the pretest and posttest. Results indicate that the experimental group improved in syntactic knowledge and maintained their scores comprehension, while the control improved slightly in syntactic knowledge and, on the whole, did not improve in comprehension. Furthermore, observation notes from the intervention indicate that the intervention allowed students to gain a sense not only that they needed to adjust their pace of reading while reading dense, science text, but a notion of how and where to do so, using commas, connectives and their knowledge of phrases and clauses as points at which to stop and think. What follows in this chapter is an interpretation of the findings and the conclusions that can be drawn in light of the research questions. The quantitative data composed primarily of the pretest and posttest results and the qualitative data in the form of the observation notes on the intervention will be discussed separately. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate

No description available.

This study compared the sustained effects of the Reading Recovery (RR) Program through the fourth grade. The research compared the reading performance of 1991-92 RR students who were discontinued with 4th grade-age students who received Chapter I services. The accessible population included 16 RR students matched with 16 comparison students on six variables: age, gender, ethnic identity, grade, and first grade CogAT score.;The two groups were assessed on five variables: Text reading level; the ITBS vocabulary, comprehension, and spelling subtests; and frequency of placement in special education. Using a nonequivalent-comparison group design, data were analyzed by the t-test, the chi-square, and Mann-Whitney U test. Five hypotheses were tested at the.05 significance level. Several limitations should be considered when interpreting the results of this study. A small accessible population (n = 16) in one school system formed the experimental group. The post-test only design matched subjects to create a comparison group that was post-hoc, nonequivalent in nature.;Student achievement of the nonequivalent groups was compared on a number of variables that included reading comprehension, reading vocabulary, spelling, text reading level, and placement in special education. The standardized tests and oral reading test found no statistical significant differences between the two groups on any of the dependent variables. The findings suggest that future research should investigate the effect of continued support and monitoring of RR students beyond the first grade in sustaining learning gains.

This dissertation examined the use and variations of African American Language by middle school students. It focused on the relationships of African American Language to the social and cultural identities and academic achievements of students in educational settings. A second focus examined the educational complexities surrounding the uses of African American Language use by students in traditional classroom environments. Over a seven-month period, data were collected on interactions involving the use of African American Language in an eighth grade language arts classroom. Key classroom events and student interviews were examined utilizing the cultural analysis of discourse, thematic, and microethnographic analysis. Also examined were the cultural models for the use and meaning of African American Language and for cultural identity held by five African American Language student speakers. The study also examined the central role of prosody in signaling particular social and cultural identities and explored the significance of students adopting such identities across varying spaces in and outside of the classroom as a means to navigate social existences in a predominantly African American school community.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xvi, 260 p. : ill. (some col.). Advisor: Keiko Samimy, College of Education. Includes bibliographical references (p. 224-234).

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

No description available.

Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation seeks to answer the question: What are the language contexts, preferences and behaviours of EAL students and staff in the Faculty of Humanities at UCT? The language contexts EAL students and staff find themselves in are either formal or informal. The former refers to domains such as the classroom and administration offices, while the latter alludes to student residences and generally out-of-class social interaction. Language preferences refer to attitudes of both EAL students and of staff towards language(s) that are used in their linguistic context. The language behaviours of EAL students and of staff are their language practices in the various social contexts within which they find themselves. The following research instruments were used to collect data in order to answer the research question: questionnaires, interviews and observations. I opted for self-administered questionnaires and conducted semi-structured interviews to validate questionnaire responses. Both the questionnaires and interviews had closed-ended and open-ended questions to accommodate a variety of responses. I observed a group of respondents, who were part of purposive samples of convenience (snowball samples), for three months and subsequently processed data qualitatively through thematic analysis. The first finding of this study is that EAL students find the UCT language context to be different to their home language context. In the home context they use their PLs more while on UCT campus the institutional culture forces them to use mainly English. The second finding is with regard to their language preferences. EAL students show an ambivalent attitude towards English and their own primary languages in teaching and learning programmes. This attitude of EAL students towards English at UCT is also documented in research by Bangeni (2001), Bangeni & Kapp (2005), and Thesen & van Pletzen (eds.) (2006). This attitude is in tandem with their language behaviour. EAL students shuttle between their PLs and English. The data show that EAL students code-switch in conversations outside class and in their residences. They mainly use English for instrumental reasons (see also De Klerk & Barkhuizen 1998: 159-160). As for staff members they use English inside and outside class. ix The language contexts, preferences and practices of EAL students constitute part of the UCT institutional culture. This institutional culture is the social context within which institutional policy documents such as the UCT Language Plan (2003) are to be implemented. Implications for the implementation of the UCT Language Policy and Plan could be drawn from the language preferences and behaviours discussed above. The study concludes by making recommendations for the implementation of the UCT Language Policy and Plan. The study recommends that the Multilingualism Education Project (MEP) collaborate with language departments so as to explore possibilities of designing programmes that target EAL students and staff for postgraduate certificate courses. Such courses could focus on workplace-oriented communicative skills. Renewed marketability of African languages, as well as reviewing how they are taught and used within the UCT speech community, should be considered. Though the small sample sizes underpinning this study do not justify generalisation on the UCT community, its findings could nonetheless serve as preliminary evidence of significant language contexts, preferences and behaviours of EAL students and of staff in the Faculty of Humanities at UCT. The outcome of this research could be invaluable for language planning at UCT and similar institutions.

The South African constitution recognises 11 official languages, of which isiXhosa is one. IsiXhosa belongs to the Nguni language family which also comprises of isiZulu, isiNdebele, and siSwati. IsiXhosa is mostly spoken in the Eastern and Western Cape Provinces. Those that regard isiXhosa as their home language (HL) are referred to as amaXhosa. However, as a teacher of isiXhosa HL, I have observed that there is often a mismatch between the isiXhosa used by the students and the one used in the schooling context. Thus, this study explores and investigates the written language varieties Grade 6 isiXhosa HL students use in their formally assessed and informal writing. The theoretical framework used in this study reviews literature on discourse/language and literacy as social practice, language ideologies and identity, heteroglossic and translingual practices, as well as primary school children's writing in South Africa to understand the complexities of students' language varieties. Moreover, this study explores the way in which the isiXhosa HL students represent their varied language resources through use of a language body portrait. Further, issues of language standardisation in relation to children's literacy are also reviewed. This study takes the form of qualitative case study in design. Students' Formal Assessment Task (FATs), language body portrait and informal paragraph writing about their linguistic repertoire were collected and analysed. Data analysis revealed the following themes: language ideologies, linguistic repertoires, use of urban and everyday language varieties, Standard Written isiXhosa (orthography), language borrowings, as well as unconventional spellings. Themes and categories are intensively analysed in Chapters four and five of this study. This study displays evidence of hybridity and fluidity of named languages, as well as heteroglossic practices that the students employ. Analysing the students' writing was effective in helping understand how bi/multilinguals engage in writing and that, while the adopted curriculum approach to language and FAT is monoglossic, children's writing is heteroglossic (see also Bakhtin, 1981; Krause and Prinsloo, 2016). The implications of teaching languages as bounded, fixed and separate entities are explored and problematized. Chapter six of this study concludes the study and offers recommendations that are important for deliberation when teaching writing in isiXhosa/African language contexts.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-99). / This mini-dissertation explores the effects of the growth of English as an international and an intranational lingua franca with a focus on the South African debate about language and socio-economic empowerment. This exploration is carried out through an extended review of some of the theories that have challenged the notion that the spread of English is empowering for the majority of the world's population. I refer to these theories as the "critical discourse" about the power of English and argue that within this discourse there is a tendency to be exceedingly dismissive of the idea that the spread of English can in any way empower native speakers of other languages. I refer to this tendency as the "critical model" for looking at the power of English and analyze three metaphors that are often used as tropes to exclude from the "critical discourse" arguments that can be made for using English as a weapon of empowerment. These metaphors characterize English as a "linguistic poacher" that threatens endangered language species with extinction, as a "gatekeeper" that excludes the masses from socio-economic mobility, and as a "colonizer of the mind," or a mechanism that imposes Western-centric values. I argue that while it is important to be aware of these negative effects, the critics of English should not rely too heavily on negative constructions of this language, lest they create theories that are marred by epistemological fallacies that have negative pedagogical and political consequences. Epistemologically, sealing the border of a discourse can lead to tautological arguments that rely excessively on determinism and essentialism. Pedagogically, being exceedingly critical of the power of English can create obstacles in finding ways to teach this language effectively.