This paper is the result of a case study of learner responsibility in English language teaching at an upper secondary school. With the implementation of Gy11, the new curriculum for the upper secondary school in Sweden, learner responsibility has been introduced as an obligatory goal. However, in the steering documents the concept is not clearly defined. As a result the implementation of learner responsibility is dependent on the interpretation done by the schools. The purpose of this project was to explore how some students, teachers and head teachers perceive learner responsibility in relation to teaching and learning. The empirical study consists of observations and interviews with two head teachers, two teachers and eight students. Our results show that both students and teachers are happy with the opportunities for learner responsibility provided.Furthermore, they highlight it as something important. Both the head teachers and theteachers emphasise the importance to view the implementation of learner responsibility as an on-going process which the teachers are responsible for. In addition the students express that they are more motivated in their English studies as a result of being allowed more influence over their learning process. Lastly, the head teachers highlightmotivation and understanding as key factors for learner responsibility.

In this degree project the concepts of student democracy, student influence, learnerresponsibility and learner awareness are discussed. This has been done in connection to the learner autonomy movement in Sweden and the steering documents at a secondary school level. Our study concerns some teachers’ and students’ attitudes to and experiences of working with these issues in school. We came to the conclusion that the teachers that we interviewed are very aware of what the steering documents say and try to incorporate these essential parts in their teaching. We also found that the students are not at all aware of theconcepts and ideas presented in the steering documents in the same way as the teachers are.Also, the teachers’ and the students’ understanding of these terms differ, something that may lead to a misunderstanding and make it hard to discuss matters connected to student democracy and learner autonomy. A lot of work has to be done in schools in order to make the students more aware and to encourage them to take more responsibility for their learning.

Providing feedback on learners’ written production is an integral part of English as a second language (L2) teaching, and it is thus important that teachers know when and how to apply such feedback, and how it affects learners. In the current study, we use a semi-structured interview design focusing on the concepts of implementation, motivation and emotion to explore teacher beliefs regarding the usefulness and reception of written corrective feedback (WCF) in a Swedish, lower-secondary L2 English teaching context. Four lower-secondary school English L2 teachers who used WCF regularly in their work participated in the study. It was found that teachers consider WCF given in the form of metalinguistic feedback to be the most commonly used type of feedback. Metalinguistic feedback was seen as an effective way of giving feedback on repeated errors. WCF was reported as having a positive effect on some learners’ motivation. However, the teachers also expressed a concern that the feedback could demotivate weaker learners if it was too extensive and because of this reported choosing to limit or adapt their feedback in such cases. They also stressed the importance of teachers knowing the learners to help avoid evoking negative emotions when receiving their feedback. In light of these results, we argue that teachers should be mindful of factors that could affect their learners, both positively and negatively, in connection with providing WCF in the L2 classroom.

This study investigated the management of learner discipline by female primary school principals in the Bojanala Region of the North-West Province. The main focus was on strategies used by female primary school principals to manage learner discipline and the challenges they encounter in managing learner discipline in their schools. A qualitative research approach was used. Participants included four female principals, four deputy principals as well as four senior teachers in primary schools. Data was collected by means of an open-ended qualitative questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Data analysis began as soon as the first set of data was collected. Recorded data was transcribed verbatim. The main findings were that the gender of the principal does not matter in the management of learner discipline and that it all depends on the character and the leadership style of the principal. Female managers are capable of changing behaviours and attitudes of their subordinates and handle discipline by applying effective discipline strategies in the running and managing of primary schools. Role modeling and use of guidelines for discipline in the school are some of the strategies used by female principals. Disciplinary problems stem from both the home and the school and this presents a challenge for the effective management of learner discipline. It is recommended that a uniform well-communicated system of discipline and effective leadership styles be adopted in order to manage learner discipline appropriately. / Thesis (M.Ed ( Educational Management) North-West University, Mafikeng campus, 2013

Published Article / A study was conducted to determine factors which caused stress for township secondary school teachers. The purpose of this paper is to determine the role of School Management Teams (SMTs) in the stressors of township secondary school teachers. A questionnaire was developed and administered on 368 teachers from the Free State Province. Once the stressors were determined, their means were used to rank them - from the most stressful to the least stressful. Only the highest 30 stressors were considered in this paper. The main stressors were: poor learner performance, poor learner discipline and poor parental involvement in school matters. It was also found that 20 of the 30 stressors were the SMTs' responsibility, seven were the parents' responsibility and three were DBE's (Department of Basic Education) responsibility. It was concluded that SMTs of the schools surveyed were unable to adequately address factors causing stress for teachers in their schools. It was recommended that SMTs should be developed, and then be held accountable for the high levels of teacher stress, and for the subsequent poor performance of teachers in their schools.

Published Article / Learner discipline is an important aspect of schooling. Historically, teachers applied a number of measures to maintain discipline, including corporal punishment. In 1996 the use of corporal punishment in South African schools was banned. However, some parents and teachers believed that the banning of corporal punishment was directly responsible for poor discipline among learners in the township schools. The purpose of this article was to investigate this perception, as well as to investigate what teachers were doing to address disciplinary problems among learners. A questionnaire was developed, and distributed among 20 teachers from primary schools in the Matjhabeng Municipality (16 teachers responded). The data collected was quantitatively analysed. It was found that although cases of learner mischief were still experienced in the primary schools, the level of discipline has not increased disproportionately after the banning of corporal punishment; the majority of learners behaved fairly well. However, some teachers were found to use harsh measures of disciplining learners, including corporal punishment. The involvement of parents in learner discipline was not preferred by many teachers. To help teachers to effectively handle discipline, the Ministry of Education has to find ways of training teachers in democracy, stress management and conflict management.

Published Article / Problem-based learning (PBL) is a learner-centred strategy that can be used to achieve the objectives of Outcomes Based Education (OBE). The Hospitality management program has no evidence of a fixed learner-centred didactic approach such as PBL, E-learning or Resource-based learning (RBL). In considering PBL, we raised questions: Why PBL? To what extent are staff and learners prepared for PBL? What are the characteristics of the curriculum when implementing PBL etc? This paper highlights these and other questions. The outcome shows that principles of PBL are extremely applicable to Hospitality but that timetabling within the program is a concern.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

In recent decades, autonomous learning has been a hot issue in the field of second language teaching and learning and the previous studies on autonomous learning have made great progress. However, the researches on the individual efforts affecting achievements of major English language proficiency tests from the cognitive perspectives of autonomous learning are still relatively rare. On the basis of the review of literature on learner autonomy at home and abroad, the present study aims to investigate Chinese learners’ IELTS preparation efforts under the guidance of the cognitive theory with the participants of English-medium tertiary institutions for graduate or undergraduate degrees who got high score(at least 7 or above) in IELTS within 2 years and answer what these Chinese learners have done to maximize their IELTS scores to apply for postgraduate programmes in English medium universities autonomously and why they could undertake these efforts to maximize their IELTS scores. Semi-structure interviews on autonomous learning were conducted to find out IELTS preparation experiences. In terms of the data analysis results, the dissertation tries to provide the present or future graduate degree applicants during their IELTS preparation with some suggestions and implications for enhancing recognition on IELTS taking and help language educators better advise these students on undertaking proper preparations for the language challenge in their overseas studies. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Learner participation in language learning opportunities has been configured differently by different learning theories. In the domain of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), the cognitive view of learning has been dominant in explaining learner participation. It has been widely accepted that it should be in the form of participation in oral activities which leads to gains in linguistic competence. The aim of this thesis is to understand the issue of learner participation from the social perspective, where a broader understanding of learning will be employed informed by the work of Lave and Wenger (1991) and others. To do so, this study investigates the forms of participation of six ESL learners in suburban Malaysia in two contexts: in-class and out-of-class. In order to understand the issue of learner participation from a social view point, data were collected using classroom observations, learners’ interviews, learner diaries, and photographs taken by them. All the data were transcribed and analysed qualitatively. In order to handle the large amount of data, the Nvivo software package was used for organisation and retrieval purposes. The findings reveal several insights about learner participation. First, learners are active agents where they constantly make decisions on what to engage with and how, and act on the norms and expectations that are imposed on them in a particular sociocultural context. Second, the six learners are members of or aspired to become members of several communities: academically successful learners; successful ESL learners; proficient speakers of the target language; the classroom; and youth. Thus, they aligned their forms of participation with these various communities. Third, learners in this study tended to distinguish between learning and other kinds of engagement. They tended to equate certain forms of participation as actions that one needed to take to learn the language; thus other forms of participation accorded less value. In this study, some insights from Communities of Practice (CoP) theory- learning as a process of gaining membership in a particular community and that learners move from peripheral to core membership- were used to understand the issue of learner participation. However, upon understanding and interpreting the data, it was found that CoP theory is limited in several ways. First, CoP focuses only on one type of community (e.g. the classroom) in one temporal dimension. Yet, findings indicate that there are several other communities that exist in the classroom at one time. Due to this shortcoming, this study has turned to the concept of ‘figured worlds’ (Holland et al, 2001). Secondly, CoP theory argues for a group dynamic. Less recognition is given to the fact that individual learners are also dynamic and agentive. Akkerman and Meijer (2011) suggest dialogical views on identity; in which a framework is provided that acknowledges the multiple, discontinuous and social nature of identity (a postmodern view), while at the same time assumes identity as being unitary, continuous and individual (a modern view). Thirdly, CoP tends to focus on a singular “identity-in-practice (Tan and Barton (2008)). Tan and Barton (ibid: 50) argue for the plurality of identities-in-practice (IdPs); rather than a singular “identity-in-practice (IdP) as suggested by Lave and Wenger (1991). The view of learning as boundary crossing seems to better describe the kinds of participation and learning that have been suggested by the findings generated in the study. Instead of looking at learning as participation in a particular community, learning as boundary crossing better captures the dynamic of learner participation in language learning opportunities, of learners as whole persons (rather than fragmented identities), and of learners as agentive beings.