D.Ed. / Apartheid and underdevelopment have shaped the educational system in South Africa. Previously South African public schools have been segregated according to race and separate education systems had been instituted for the four main population groups since the early foundations of educations. Racially mixed schools were prohibited. With the transformation of South Africa to a democratic country, where the African National Congress came to power in 1994, many changes took place. One of these was fundamental changes to the educational system with the admittance of learners of all races to previously racially segregated schools. Many parents from townships welcomed the opportunity to have their children attend schools in urban areas to expose them to education that they perceive to be of a higher standard than that in township schools. This movement of learners from all ethnic groups to English medium schools has necessitated some changes in these schools to accommodate the unique characteristics of learners from diverse cultural, linguistic and socio-economic backgrounds. It is important to note that these learners bring to the classroom languages and cultures previously underrepresented. Learners who come from different cultural or linguistic backgrounds are often seen as environmentally deprived simply because of their “being different” from the dominant culture. These learners begin their schooling with certain lags that may be due to the fact that they have a limited understanding of the language of instruction. These communication difficulties are exacerbated when the learner is confronted with a foreign culture that may cause anxiety and frustration as well as insecurity. This, in turn, becomes the educator’s problem, because learning is impeded under such circumstances. Grade eight learners in transition from township schools may also have added difficulties on account of their required adjustment to changes linked to their developmental phase, namely adolescence. The aim of this study was to explore and describe the experiences of LEP grade eight learners in transition from township schools to English multicultural schools in order to develop an intervention programme for educators and educational psychologists with regard of support for these learners. The research was conducted from the qualitative paradigm. It included a literature review, individual and focus group interviews with learner, their educators and their parents, essays by LEP learners and observation of these learners. A purposive sample of ten learners from each six English medium secondary schools in Gauteng was selected. Data analysis was deductive. Categories of meaning included the following: scholastic performance, emotional factors, behavioural factors, sociological factors, cultural factors, environmental factors, educator attitudes and, finally, transition and adjustment. The three groups of respondents agreed to a large extent on the experiences of LEP learners. An intervention programme, based on the findings of the study, was developed for educators and educational psychologists to render support for LEP learners in order to facilitate their learning and adjustment in multicultural schools. The principal areas of the programme aimed at providing and inclusive, inviting educational approach that will enable learners to feel included and valued in the school, while improving their learning and adjustment. / Prof. J. Pillay

Distance education is being used increasingly for both pre and in-service teacher education in both developed and developing countries (Robinson & Latchem, 2003; Kwapong, 2007; Perraton, 2010). In Rwanda, the Kigali Institute of Education (KIE) introduced its first distance education programme in 2001 with the aim of upgrading the qualifications of under-qualified high school teachers, including those who teach English, using printed materials as the main teaching/learning resource. This study has aimed to investigate the role of the 2010 version of these materials in addressing the professional needs of high school English teachers. It was centrally informed by theories of the sociologist of education, Basil Bernstein (1996, 1999), about curriculum and of the sociocultural psychologist, Lev Vygotsky (1978), on mediation, by Shulman’s (1986, 1987) work on pedagogic content knowledge and by literature on English language teaching, on language teacher education and on distance education materials design. The investigation involved textual analysis of a selection of KIE’s distance education materials for English teaching and focused on the content selected for these materials and on the mediation of this content on the page. After this analysis, one section of these was re-designed by the researcher. Nine teacher-learners enrolled in the programme for English teaching were interviewed to determine their responses to both the KIE materials and to the redesigned section. The findings suggest that Kigali Institute of Education’s distance education materials for English do not adequately address the academic and professional needs of high school English teachers for four main reasons. Firstly, the content selected for the materials does not respond sufficiently to the interests and needs of foreign language teachers of English. Secondly, it is not externally aligned to the curriculum at the level that these teachers are supposed to teach. Thirdly, the mediation of this content does not adequately support the development of subject and pedagogic content knowledge and skills of teacher-learners and encourages surface rather than deep learning (Biggs, 1987). Lastly, with the exception of sections on some literary genres, the materials list useful ideas and language teaching approaches and methods but consistently fail to explain to the teacher-learners how to teach different aspects of language. These findings suggest that these materials do not adequately assist teacher-learners to develop pedagogic content knowledge (Shulman, 1987) for the teaching of English. The limitations identified may result from a lack of knowledge, skills and experience in distance education materials and graphic design among the KIE materials designing team and from inadequate resource provision (including time) by the institution and suggest that there is a need for changes to the KIE distance education materials designing process.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Education, University of the Witwatersrand in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education. / The research, conducted as part of a project aimed at improving teachers' English .skills, set out to answer the question: What are the needs of farm school teachers in relation to the use of English as the medium of instruction? Clarification of this question involved the examination of teachers' English proficiency, the teaching of English as a subject and the.observation of the learning/teaching situation in the farm school classroom. The research raised questions concerning the underlying assumption that an English language intervention could bring about major change in the classroom. As a result, further enquiries into the socio-economic context-of the schools were instituted. In addition, the learning/teaching situation was examined in the light of theories of cognition and change. A range of research methods involving both quantitative and qualitative approaches were utilized to penetrate this highly complex situation. The findings indicated a clear need on the. part of ihe teachers for an English proficiency course. At the same time. the findings also indicated most strongly that a fundamental change is needed in tne teachers' understanding of their role if they are to become agents of significant change. / Andrew Chakane 2019

Language, schooling and self have always been inextricably intertwined in the life of high school adolescents. Yet, there has been a paucity of research that investigates the relationship between language, identity, and language-in-education policies that often contradict multiple and fluid identity expressions of young adolescents. The aim of this study project was to explore the relationship between multilingualism and identity construction among urban black youth in two heteroglossic schools of Soweto township and to understand identity of black urban youth in South Africa. Two phases of data collection were carried out. First, a baseline survey of language patterns was administered to a total of 138 (n=138) grade 11 adolescent youth ranging from 15-19 years old. The second phase involved focus group discussions comprising 10 and 7 self-selected multilingual adolescents per school in order to approximate out of school multilingual spaces to explore a full range of language use, identity expressions and language attitudes. The results of the study are two pronged. The survey revealed a high degree of multilingualism and multilayered identities among the participants as manifested in all spheres of their lives such as the school yard, home, and conversation with friends. However, this complex identity matrix is constrained by classroom practices that are torn between monolingual policy preferences and actual language mixing. Correspondingly, focus group-based language performance and metacognitive reflections on multilingual performance also revealed that a fluid, mobile and versatile communicative practice referred to as translanguaging, which goes a step further from traditional code-switching, is a norm among these urban youth adolescents. The study concludes by highlighting tensions on identity constructions of highly multilingual urban youth. The pervasiveness of identity construction through the translanguaging phenomenon suggests cross-language boundaries and emergence of new urban identities that are expressed through hybrid varieties such as ‘kasitaal’. Multilingually sensitive education approaches that are considerate of the inextricable relationship between age of identity construction, language and education as well as new areas for further research are recommended.

This research was conducted in the particular context of the 2009 new language in education policy in Rwanda. The problem examined within this context, concerns the attitudes and motivation of teachers and students from different language backgrounds (both Anglophone and Francophone) as they have experienced the shift from French and/or English as MoI to the sole use of English as medium of instruction (MoI) in education, all the way from the Primary School stage up to and including tertiary institutes. In this unique context where English was being used as MoI whilst simultaneously learning the language, the aim of this study was to investigate an often overlooked psychological aspect of the language policy shift literature, viz., Teachers’ and Students’ Attitudes and Motivation toward learning English; and toward using it for teaching and learning. Through the lens of Gardner’s (1985) second language (L2) motivation construct as a theoretical framework; this study used quantitative and qualitative methods of enquiry in the context of Mixed Methods approach, to ascertain implementers’ reaction amid challenges of policy change. The study established that, in a quasi monolingual society with Kinyarwanda as the national language, Teacher Training College (TTC) teachers and students form a diverse community of language users; that they converge on knowledge and use of English despite this diversity; that they hold positive attitudes toward learning the language and using it as MoI; and that the main reason for these positive attitudes is that the use of English as MoI offers an opportunity to learn the language. This study thus recommends that all stakeholders in the education enterprise in Rwanda be sensitized on the necessity to distinguish between the tasks of learning English and using it for teaching and learning.

If we define language fluency as more than simply a way of speaking, but also a way of thinking, acting, and being, then we enter a conversation of language as ‘Discourse’ that was sparked by James Paul Gee. This conversation invokes discrete designations of Discourse as home-based, school-based, dominant, and non-dominant. These designations reveal divisions between Discourses that are believed to manifest themselves in the identity formation of ‘language-minority students:’ those whose home Discourse is non-dominant. The dominant Discourse that these students encounter in school generates two documented paths: Richard Hoggart’s scholarship boy and Herbert Kohl’s not-learner; both paths reflect the limited agency of these students within academia. In order to counteract this delimiting of student agency, this project proposes a progressive shift towards a post-modern conception of identity formation; this can be accomplished by opening the Composition classroom to student authored, non-traditional, ‘hybridized’ Discourses. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to understand and describe the sources of Nicaraguan EFL teacher educators’ knowledge base, the types of knowledge and skills that constructed their knowledge base, and the relationship of this knowledge base and classroom practices in a teacher education program at a Nicaraguan University. This study presents a literature review on the sources of knowledge and knowledge base of EFL teacher educators in the field of language teacher education. I used a purposeful sampling technique to select both the research site and the six EFL teacher educators who participated as research participants in this study. Data were collected from three sources: a curriculum analysis, six one-shot semi-structured interviews, and a document analysis to lesson plans, syllabi, and assessment instruments used by the research participants. To analyze the data collected, I used the qualitative data analysis model proposed by Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña (2014). As a mode of findings, I describe the sources of knowledge, a categorization of knowledge base and skills that Nicaraguan EFL teacher educators possess as well as the relationship they identified between their knowledge base and their teaching practices in EFL teacher education classrooms. Findings revealed that Nicaraguan EFL teacher educators possess sixteen types of knowledge and fourteen types of skills that resulted from eight sources of knowledge, among which English proficiency, own experiences as language learners, subject knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, teaching experience in EFL teacher education programs, assessment knowledge of language student teachers, and knowledge of students’ L1 seem to be the most important when it has to do with actual teaching in language teacher education classrooms. In addition, according to the findings, the process of becoming an EFL teacher educator may take many years. It begins with the professional coursework teacher educators take in their language teacher education programs where they first become English teachers. It continues with teaching experiences either in high schools, English teaching centers, or universities. Their professional knowledge as teacher educators is completed through the interaction with EFL preservice student teachers in teacher education classrooms, in which their previous pedagogical, linguistic, and teaching experiences as EFL teachers is transformed. In other words, their professional identity as EFL teacher educators is developed as they begin teaching in EFL teacher education programs. Pursuing this further, this study presents some pedagogical implications based on the findings that can help improve the quality and preparation of EFL teacher educators in Nicaragua. Finally, it offers some avenues for more research regarding the knowledge base of EFL teacher educators in Nicaraguan teacher education programs.

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This study is a qualitative evaluation of how one state school interprets and makes a decision on the language medium to use as guided by the Language in Education Policy [LiEP] that advocates multilingualism in schools. The study asks how the LiEP ideal informs the language policy in the school, and establishes reasons parents give for choosing English as medium of instruction to be used in classrooms. Following Parlett and Hamilton‟s (1976) evaluation as illumination framework, this study outlines the language medium ideal expressed in LiEP and describes the actual Language Policy of the School in practice and how it accords with LiEP in guiding the medium of instruction. Data collection methods in this report included document analysis, classroom observations, interviews and questionnaires. The key findings from the data illuminate; parents of the learners in the school view the national language policy in a positive light that it is inclusive despite the challenges it presents to implementation. The findings reflected the decision makers‟ endeavour to strengthen their case that by choosing English as medium of instruction is not to contravene the policy, but a democratic right to benefit their children. Findings in the report suggest that the national language policy in South Africa is regarded a valuable document to guide the selection on the medium of instruction in schools, but raises issues that need to be addressed to make it play a more effective role in educational contexts.