This study investigated the oral proficiency of ESL teacher trainees in different discourse domains. The sample for the study consisted of twenty ESL teacher trainees in their final year at a College of Education. Different methods were used to measure the teacher trainees' oral proficiency in the English Communication Skills class while engaging in less formal conversations and in more formal teaching of content subjects during Practice Teaching. Three categories of constructs for oral proficiency were measured: Accuracy and fluency, classroom language and non-verbal communication. The findings supported the hypothesis: The oral proficiency of ESL teacher trainees is more satisfactory in some discourse domains,e.g. casual conversation, than in others, e.g. formal teaching. Although these findings cannot be regarded as conclusive they raise awareness of the problem. Recommendations were made on how to address the problem of poor oral performance of ESL teachers and teacher trainees teaching content subjects. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Specialisation in Applied Linguistics)

This study sought to investigate challenges faced by teachers in applying reading strategies when teaching reading in the Foundation Phase in the Mthatha District in South Africa. The study was conducted at Four Junior Secondary Schools. It was prompted by a deep concern about challenges faced by teachers in applying reading strategies required in the Foundation Phase. While studies have been carried out on applying reading strategies in the Foundation Phase, few studies have looked at the factors impacting on reading in South African schools, especially in the Mthatha District where isiXhosa is the mother tongue. The method used in this study involved a qualitative approach. The study addressed the following research questions: What strategies are used in the Foundation Phase? What type of challenges are faced by teachers? To what extent are educators trained to teach reading in the Foundation Phase? Does the lack of resources affect the performance of learners? To what extent does the use of a second language affect the performance of Foundation Phase learners? Do teachers receive enough support from the Department of Education to teach reading? The study is a multiple-case study and data were collected through individual interviews and focus group interviews (sixteen teachers were interviewed). Content analysis guided the data analysis through themes derived from the subsidiary questions. Data reporting took the form of thick description and verbatim quotations in line with the qualitative approach of the study. A pilot study was conducted in two Junior Secondary Schools for the purpose of validity and reliability. ii The study`s findings revealed that: Different reading strategies were used by teachers in the Foundation Phase, teachers faced many challenges in applying reading strategies such as teacher training in the teaching of reading. This suggests that intervention is needed by the Department of Education such as providing relevant resources which are essential in order to address the problem of reading. Improvisation by teachers to improve reading material, insufficient allocation of time, multilingualism, teacher competence, lack of motivation and parental involvement in relation to learner performance in reading all need attention in order to solve problems. Furthermore, lack of resources hinders the reading ability of learners. The use of home language as a medium of instruction in teaching reading is highlighted. There is insufficient support by the Department of Education for Foundation Phase teachers to teach reading. Based on the study findings, the researcher has recommended that teachers should be urged to use reading strategies in a way that benefits learners. The use of reading strategies, therefore, needs more attention. Libraries should be built in these schools to enable learners to develop a culture of reading. Education development officers, subject advisors, lead teachers and parents should work together to improve the reading ability of Foundation Phase learners.

An emphasis ·on creativity as well as its implications for teacher education is significant for the South African education system. In this study some relevant issues related to the creative teaching of English in the· Junior Primary phase of schooling as well as to the training of teachers are highlighted. The transitional changes that are taking place currently, present a challenge for all educators, particularly language educators. It is evident that teachers need to acquire competencies which would enable them to function effectively in a multicultural, multilingual society. They need to be a skilled, flexible and innovative work-force. The main area of focus. is the training programme used at Springfield College of Education. An analysis of the Junior Primary English Syllabus reveals that there is a need for the programme to be orientated towards the development of creative teachers. This study includes some recommendations for teaching practice and teacher training. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Didactics)

The research in this dissertation is the first attempt in Hungary to reveal language learners' language proficiency in the public education sector through a vocabulary size test as an alternative method. Based on the assessment of vocabulary in learners' coursebooks, the analyses of teacher talk and the answers in learners' informal strategy questionnaire reveal the possible sources through which the learners' can get an access to new vocabulary and also what they do themselves in order to acquire new words in- and outside of the classroom. The results of this research can prove that even the Hungarian language learners' English language knowledge can be at a considerably good level. The starting point for the research was that both language teachers and students have been evaluating the Hungarian learners' English language knowledge as insufficient, despite the relatively many English classes in the public education. This negative assumption has been supported by the data of Eurostat (2009) statistics, which says that the Hungarians are the last ones in Europe concerning their foreign language knowledge. There has also been guessing that the Hungarian learners' English knowledge does not meet the international standards and like this it is falling behind foreign students' English language knowledge. The results show objectively how Hungarian learners' knowledge compares with other learners in other countries from the point of view of English as a foreign language. The current dissertation is hoped to be a substantial contribution to the field of teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Hungary, in particular, and to the field of second language vocabulary acquisition, in general.

This thesis investigates the automatic assessment of essays written by Japanese low level learners of English as a second language. A number of essay features are investigated for their ability to predict human assessments of quality. These features include unique lexical signatures (Meara. Jacobs & Rodgers, 2002), distinctiveness, essay length, various measures of lexical diversity, mean sentence length and some properties of word distributions. Findings suggest that no one feature is sufficient to account for essay quality but essay length is a strong predictor for low level learners in time constrained tasks. Combinations of several features are much more powerful in predicting quality than single features. Some simple systems incorporating some of these features are also considered. One is a two-dimensional 'quantity/content' model based on essay length and lexical diversity. Various measures of lexical diversity are used for the content dimension. Another system considered is a clustering algorithm based on various lexical features. A third system is a Bayesian algorithm which classifies essays according to semantic content. Finally, an alternative process based on capture-recapture analysis is also considered for special cases of assessment. One interesting finding is that although many essay features only have moderate associations with quality, extreme values at both ends of the scale are often very reliable indicators of high quality' or poor quality essays. These easily identifiable high quality or low quality essays can act as training samples for classification algorithms such as Bayesian classifiers. The clustering algorithm used in this study correlated particularly strongly with human essay ratings. This suggests that multivariate statistical methods may help realise more accurate essay prediction.

Inaugural lecture delivered at Rhodes University / Rhodes University Libraries (Digitisation)

Thesis (MTech(Education))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2009 / This dissertation researches the connection between the training of low literate child carers in a ruraI area to stimulate the language development of children from birth to 4 years, and school performance, Here it is argued that the problem of the low literacy performance of ruraI learners manifests within the first year of school and that the potential to solve the problem can be found in the first four years of a child's life. All the intervention strategies of the Department of Education failed to produce the expected results while the Department of Social development focuses on the physical needs of the young child. The literature study underlines the importance of the first four years and how interpersonal relationships influence children's emotional well being, their behaviour and ability to learn. The role of the child carer in the life of the child in relation to their language development is researched, because of the time they spend together during the day. Attention is focussed on the relationship between the educator and the child and the influence of the hidden curriculum on the development of attitudes and values of the child carer during training. Training was used by the researcher as a method to investigate the learning needs and problems of low literate child carers in order to stimulate the language development of children before the age of five. Existing training programmes for child carers were critically investigated to use for the training. The researcher came to the conclusion that this research can be the first phase of a project where different role players can cooperate. Educators and community developers can interact with communities to promote awareness

Orientador: Elza Taeko Doi / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-13T03:05:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Moschim-Gianini_Zenaide_M.pdf: 968258 bytes, checksum: aec9136b28741e6c48af9358790c64d6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: Este trabalho relata os resultados de uma pesquisa realizada em um Curso de Letras (Inglês) de uma Universidade pública estadual paulista. Trata-se de uma pesquisa documental descritiva cujos objetos de estudo foram documentos escritos relativos aos primeiros anos de funcionamento da Universidade assim como programas e ementas das disciplinas de língua inglesa. O objetivo foi analisar a trajetória do ensino de língua inglesa dentro do curso através de um estudo longitudinal, que compreende um período de aproximadamente 60 anos - de 1940 a 2003. Foram verificadas as mudanças ocorridas ao longo desse tempo para traçar uma tendência caracterizadora e compará-la com as propostas de ensino de inglês no Brasil e com as teorias de ensino de línguas propaladas internacionalmente. A realização deste estudo justifica-se em razão da urgência de prover o ensino de língua inglesa de boa qualidade no Brasil, sobretudo nas escolas de ensino básico e, a decorrente importância de se conhecer as variáveis envolvidas no processo de formação dos professores que cumprem com esse ensino, o que ocorre nos Cursos de Letras. Os resultados mostram que houve mudanças significativas em relação aos projetos de estruturação do ensino, aos componentes do ensino de língua e visão de linguagem e, aos elementos metodológicos observáveis em todo período estudado. Observou-se também que houve similaridade entre o que era proposto no curso e o que era estabelecido em lei para o ensino de língua estrangeira nas escolas brasileiras no início do período estudado. Entretanto, nos períodos mais recentes há um distanciamento entre as orientações legais e a proposta dos programas pesquisados. Os dados ainda revelam que neste curso houve o acompanhamento, com lacunas de tempo, das principais teorias desenvolvidas para o ensino de línguas sustentadas internacionalmente. / Abstract: This paper reports the results of a research carried out in a course for English teachers education of a public university in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. It comprises a descriptive analysis of written documents concerning the first years of the University activities and the English course syllabus/outline. It aimed at analyzing the way English teaching was planned in the course during approximately 60 years, from 1940 to 2003, through a longitudinal study. It first inquired the changes occurred during this time to trace a trend of the teaching process in the course. The results were then compared to the guidelines of the English teaching policies in Brazil and with widespread theories of foreign language teaching. This research is justified by the urgency of providing elementary and high schools with effective English teaching, particularly in the public ones, and the importance of knowing some variables involved in a teachers education course design. The results demonstrate that there were meaningful changes regarding the structural and organizational teaching projects, the language concepts and the teaching approaches throughout the period researched. It was also observed a connection between the course outline and the guidelines of the Brazilian English teaching policies in the beginning of the observed period. However, a detachment between those policies and the course proposals was identified, especially in the latter years. The data still reveal that course complied with the development of the main international theories of foreign language teaching. / Mestrado / Lingua Estrangeira / Mestre em Linguística Aplicada

M.Ed. (Curriculum Studies) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Comm. / This dissertation explores the effects of mother tongue interference during the process of the acquisition of English as a second language. The Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis hypotheses are presented and the concepts of interlanguage explored. The limitations and strengths of Contrastive and Error Analysis hypotheses are highlighted. Research on errors that are caused by mother tongue interference is reviewed. A sample of error analysis in the written work of English second language learners at primary school level is undertaken. Errors resulting from mother tongue interference are identified at lexical, semantic, phonological and syntactical level. Various methods and approaches in the teaching of English are identified in accordance with their relevance to outcomes based education. An Eclectic Solution is suggested to facilitate remedial intervention. The Input Hypothesis validity is explored and related to the communicative approach. Examples of lesson material to address some of the issues are included to assist educators.