Thesis (M.S.L.T.)--University of Canterbury, 2008. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-71). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Education)) - Rhodes University, 2007.

Thesis (D.Phil. Linguistics(Unit for Academic Literacy))-University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Orientador: Cyntia Graziella Guizelim Simões Girotto / Banca: Renata Junqueira de Souza / Banca: Stela Miller / Resumo: Experiências vivenciadas como educadora das séries inicias do Ensino Fundamental têm demonstrado que a realidade das escolas públicas ainda é desanimadora no que diz respeito à formação de leitores e produtores de textos. Têm-se constatado que pouca atenção é dada aos textos dos alunos das primeiras séries, que acabam guardados em pastas e servem para fim de mera verificação, por parte do professor, dos 'prováveis níveis' de escrita, diante das concepções educacionais adotadas, em que os alunos se encontram, sem discussão sobre sua função linguística ou social. Sabemos que, nas escolas públicas, a realidade é a de que a maioria das crianças ingressa na primeira série não alfabetizadas, e, por outro lado, as correntes teóricas surgidas a partir da década de 80 não foram suficientes para responder às questões dos processos de aquisição da linguagem escrita, na alfabetização. Diante dessas questões, a pesquisa tem como objetivos observar e compreender como ocorre a apropriação da linguagem escrita pelas crianças do segundo ano do Ensino Fundamental, e analisar as relações de mediação estabelecidas para a consolidação deste processo, coadunando com os fundamentos teóricos que foram salientados ao longo deste trabalho. Para tal estudo, a base teórica é pautada na vertente histórico-cultural, na teoria da enunciação de Bakhtin, bem como em teorias atuais sobre gêneros do discurso e escrita. Justifica-se essa base teórica em virtude do foco da pesquisa: o papel do professor-mediador na busca da compreensão dos processos de linguagem em seu contexto social, nas relações reais em sala de aula, e na apropriação da escrita, como um bem cultural a ser apropriado pelas crianças, na ampliação... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Experiences as an educator of the initial series of elementary school have shown that the reality of public schools is still disappointing with regard to the formation of readers and producers of texts. It has been found that little attention is given to students' compositions from the first grades, which eventually end up saved in folders, merely serving for the teacher's correction about the 'likely levels' of writing before the educational concepts adopted. Here, students are without discussion of their social or linguistic function. It is known that in public schools the reality is that most children who enter the first grade are not literate, and, on the other hand, the theoretical currents arising from the 80's were not sufficient to answer questions of the written language acquisition processes, in literacy. Given these issues, the research aims to observe and understand how does the written language acquisition by children of the second year of elementary school, and analyze the relationships of mediation established to consolidate this process, consistent with the theoretical foundations that have been highlighted throughout this work. For this study, the theoretical basis is founded on historical and cultural aspects, in Bakhtin's theory of enunciation, as well as current theories on speech genres and writing. This theoretical basis can be justified from the focus of the research: the role of the facilitator teacher in the pursuit of understanding the processes of language in its social context, in real interactions in the classroom, and... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Thesis (MTech (Education))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2015. / Writing pedagogy of the News Report genre across the Intermediate Phase in one school. The low levels of writing proficiency that are experienced by students is a global phenomenon and South Africa is no exception (DBE, 2008; 2013). The NEEDU Report (2012) and Hendricks (2007, 2008) argue that insufficient extended writing takes place in South African classrooms, resulting in limited textual and linguistic progression across grades. According to Hendricks (2007, 2008) and Dornbrack and Dixon (2014) little research around writing pedagogy has been carried out in South Africa, particularly on how genres or text types are taught and extended across the grades. This research examines the teaching of the News Report genre across the Intermediate Phase in one school, the discourses and positioning of literacy by the three teachers and how these are translated into practice. This study is underpinned by the notion of literacy as a social practice which Street (2003) and Prinsloo (2013) propose is not merely a technical and neutral skill but that it occurs in social practice not only through formal schooling but within a social context which has a direct bearing on it. Themes that emerge from the semi-structured interviews conducted with the three teachers include inadequate information on writing in the CAPS documents, an “overloaded” writing curriculum, a lack of pre-service/ in-service training, gaps in espoused pedagogy and the impact of teachers’ writing histories on their conceptualization of writing and espoused pedagogy. Classroom observations of writing lessons on this genre reveal the dominance of a skills discourse by two of the teachers. However, the third teacher who clearly articulated her own writing history as being “fraught and contested” illustrates evidence of a socio cultural writing pedagogy which deeply engages her students (Ivanic, 2004).

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:30:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2012-04-27Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T21:00:44Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 avante_rq_me_mar.pdf: 1126652 bytes, checksum: f9c35ed791f2bcc338f4d51a4820ae44 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Experiências vivenciadas como educadora das séries inicias do Ensino Fundamental têm demonstrado que a realidade das escolas públicas ainda é desanimadora no que diz respeito à formação de leitores e produtores de textos. Têm-se constatado que pouca atenção é dada aos textos dos alunos das primeiras séries, que acabam guardados em pastas e servem para fim de mera verificação, por parte do professor, dos ‘prováveis níveis’ de escrita, diante das concepções educacionais adotadas, em que os alunos se encontram, sem discussão sobre sua função linguística ou social. Sabemos que, nas escolas públicas, a realidade é a de que a maioria das crianças ingressa na primeira série não alfabetizadas, e, por outro lado, as correntes teóricas surgidas a partir da década de 80 não foram suficientes para responder às questões dos processos de aquisição da linguagem escrita, na alfabetização. Diante dessas questões, a pesquisa tem como objetivos observar e compreender como ocorre a apropriação da linguagem escrita pelas crianças do segundo ano do Ensino Fundamental, e analisar as relações de mediação estabelecidas para a consolidação deste processo, coadunando com os fundamentos teóricos que foram salientados ao longo deste trabalho. Para tal estudo, a base teórica é pautada na vertente histórico-cultural, na teoria da enunciação de Bakhtin, bem como em teorias atuais sobre gêneros do discurso e escrita. Justifica-se essa base teórica em virtude do foco da pesquisa: o papel do professor-mediador na busca da compreensão dos processos de linguagem em seu contexto social, nas relações reais em sala de aula, e na apropriação da escrita, como um bem cultural a ser apropriado pelas crianças, na ampliação... / Experiences as an educator of the initial series of elementary school have shown that the reality of public schools is still disappointing with regard to the formation of readers and producers of texts. It has been found that little attention is given to students´ compositions from the first grades, which eventually end up saved in folders, merely serving for the teacher’s correction about the 'likely levels' of writing before the educational concepts adopted. Here, students are without discussion of their social or linguistic function. It is known that in public schools the reality is that most children who enter the first grade are not literate, and, on the other hand, the theoretical currents arising from the 80's were not sufficient to answer questions of the written language acquisition processes, in literacy. Given these issues, the research aims to observe and understand how does the written language acquisition by children of the second year of elementary school, and analyze the relationships of mediation established to consolidate this process, consistent with the theoretical foundations that have been highlighted throughout this work. For this study, the theoretical basis is founded on historical and cultural aspects, in Bakhtin's theory of enunciation, as well as current theories on speech genres and writing. This theoretical basis can be justified from the focus of the research: the role of the facilitator teacher in the pursuit of understanding the processes of language in its social context, in real interactions in the classroom, and... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

This thesis examines tutor feedback on student essays to ascertain the extent to which these responses assist in teaching the academic and specific disciplinary conventions and to determine what is effective feedback and what is not. The investigation constituted an evaluation of a small sample of essays and the framework for this evaluation was developed from a study of current theories of literacy and language teaching. It was further informed by data gathered from interviews with students and tutors and questionnaires completed by them. This was done in order to establish how students interpret and react to feedback and to demonstrate the level of understanding between tutors and students in this mode of communication. The conclusion was that tutor feedback can provide a valuable method for teaching the discourse of the discipline. However, results of the study revealed that communication often breaks down because tutors and students do not share a common language for talking about academic discourse and because students may not have understood the requirements of the task. In addition, the study found that responses to a small group of essays in the lowest mark category and written by second language students, were very inadequate. As the researcher, I concluded that graduate tutors were not well equipped for the task of dealing with these weaker essays. I have made suggestions for future research in this area and I believe that the data from this case study will provide valuable ideas for training tutors for responding to student essays.

This work questions the usefulness of heuristic procedures, within composition in general writing in business in particular, as an effective aid to the generation of written, non-fiction discourse.

This study aimed to examine the relationship between teacher written feedback and change in the writing of tertiary students in their final year of undergraduate study through investigating: (i) the characteristics of final year undergraduate tertiary students’ texts prior to receiving feedback; (ii) the way these characteristics change after written feedback is given; and (iii) the relationship between the changes made and the types of feedback given. The study examined student texts and teacher written feedback that arose naturally out of a third year disciplinary-based unit in which the students each submitted a text three times over the course of a semester, each time receiving feedback and a mark prior to rewriting and resubmitting. Two in-depth non-quantitative analyses were conducted: one analysing the characteristics of each of the students’ texts and how these changed over the course of the process, the other analysing the relationship between the different types of feedback and the changes that occurred in the subsequent text. The analysis of the students’ texts and their changes covered: (i) coherence; (ii) the sources used and the manner in which these were cited and referenced; (iii) academic expression and mechanics; and (iv) additional expectations and requirements of the writing task. These characteristics and their changes were related to the instructional approaches to which all the students had been exposed in their first, second and third year studies. The analysis shows that, on their own accord, the third year students were able to produce a range of generalisable characteristics reflecting the “basics” in writing and demands specific to the tertiary context that had been revealed through the instructional approaches used. The problems in the students’ texts were mainly related to (i) executing and expressing the specific requirements of the task and (ii) their reading of the social context. Most of the changes in the texts were related to the feedback given. Some of these changes directly resolved problems, however, others did not. Some changes occurred to accommodate other changes in the text and some were made to satisfy a demand of the lecturer sometimes resulting in a problem that did not present in the previous text. These findings enabled insights to be drawn on two major views of tertiary student writing: the deficit view in which the problems in student’s texts are seen to be due to a lack of “basic skills”; and the view that students’ problems arise due to the new demands of the tertiary context. The study found that the deficit view and the “new demands” view were unable to explain all the characteristics of the students’ texts and their changes. Arising out of these findings, this study proposes that the characteristics of a student’s text show the end result of how that student negotiated and integrated his/her understanding of form, content and contextual demands at the time of writing. In analysing the relationship between the different types of feedback and the changes that occurred, the feedback was categorised according to the issue that was being addressed, the manner in which it was given, and its scope. The different types of feedback were directly related to the changes that occurred in the students’ subsequent rewrites. The analysis shows that clear direct feedback on which students can act is strongly related to change where it (i) addresses characteristics that could be readily integrated into the existing text without the need to renegotiate the integration of form, content and contextual demands OR (ii) addresses characteristics and indicates to students how to negotiate the integration between form, content and contextual demands where integration in the text needs to change. In addition, the analysis shows that change is further influenced by the balance between the various individual points of feedback and the degree to which they reinforced each other. The findings from both analyses in this study show that the use of feedback that is strongly related to change can improve the writing of all students beyond what they learn through other instructional approaches to writing.

Text in Afrikaans / Die Rektoraatsomsendskrywe word binne die Universiteit van Suid-Afrika (Unisa) gebruik as mondstuk vir die Bestuur, maar ook terselfdertyd om inligting van en/of oor Departemente, Afde lings en Institute aan ander Departement, Afde lings en Institute oor te dra. Veral inligting betreffende personeelaangeleenthede, departemente le aange l eenthede, gel eenthede aangebi ed deur 'n Departement, verandering in diensvoorwaardes, die beleid van Unisa, die eksterne publieke van Unisa en die verbetering van die algemene welstand van die personeel word versprei. Die vraag het ontstaan in welke mate hierdie kommunikasiekanaal effektief funksioneer. Daar wil ook vasgestel word hoe belangrik die Rektoraatsomsendskrywes as kommunikasiekanaal beskou word in die totale kommunikasiesisteem van Unisa. 1.3 PROBLEEMFORMULERING Die doel van hierdie studie is om die Rektoraatsomsendskrywe as kommunikasiekanaal binne Unisa te evalueer. 1.4 AANNAMES Die volgende aannames ten opsigte van die huidige status van die Rektoraatsomsendskrywe as kommunikasiekanaal aan Unisa gaan geverifieer en vergelyk word met die riglyne soos wat dit onder punt 3 uiteengesit word. Die Rektoraatsomsendskrywe word beskou as die belangrikste kommunikasiekanaal waardeur die Bestuur vinnig met alle Personeel gelyktydig kan kommunikeer. Die Rektoraatsomsendskrywe funksioneer nie optimaal nie. Personeel verkies Rektoraatsomsendskrywe in ten minste Afrikaans en Engels. Die uitleg van die Rektoraatsomsendskrywe voldoen nie aan die behoeftes van die personeel nie. 3 Te veel Rektoraatsomsendskrywe het gedurende 1995 verskyn, dit wil se oorlading het voorgekom. Die gedrukte formaat Rektoraatsomsendskrywe word verkies bo die Rektoraatsomsendskrywe in elektroniese formaat. Die verspreiding van sekere reekse Rektoraatsomsendskrywe aan sekere teikengroepe het tot gevolg dat inligting wat van toepassing is op alle personeel, slegs aan sekere groepe personeel gestuur word. Daar is nie konsekwentheid in die tipe inligting wat aan die verskillende teikengroepe gestuur word nie. / Communication Science / Unknown