ABSTRACT This research is a Qualitative Case Study which investigates the electronic literacy practices of one English teacher and two Grade 10 English classes in a Muslim High school outside of Johannesburg. This study seeks to find out what the forms of electronic literacy used in the classroom are and for what purposes these are used. It is also aimed at investigating how the students in the English classroom engage with these forms of electronic literacies and whether or not gender plays a role in their engagement. This study draws on work in New Literacy Studies, particularly theories of literacy as social practice, Multiliteracies and multimodality as well as current research in the field of electronic literacy. Although there have been numerous studies in the fields of electronic literacy and digital literacy in developed contexts like the United Kingdom and Australia, there is a paucity of research in South Africa in the field and particularly in the area of electronic literacy in the English classroom. The main sources of data were: classroom observations from which field notes were created and group interviews with the students as well as an interview with the English teacher. The findings of this study reveal that being electronically literate in the English classroom means having access to sophisticated forms of technology not only inside the classroom but also outside as well as having a certain degree of fluency around computer use. The forms of electronic literacy used by the English teacher and the purposes for which they were used demonstrate his pedagogy in English and the social forces that shape the production of this pedagogy. The research shows an expansion of the teacher’s role in the English classroom as he is no longer only ‘a mediator of learning’ but a mediator of technology. The status of the text has also changed as the ‘disappearance’ of print-based texts from the classroom was noted with the foregrounding of visual texts and hypertexts. It was found that the students on the whole were engaged with the technology used in the classroom and expressed a preference for its integration into their lessons as opposed to the traditional ‘reading and writing’ practices. Additionally, students’ engagement did not vary according to gender.

<p>The aim of this study is to investigate the notion of pupil influence in English teaching at level 1 and 2 at High-School level. The study focuses on how the students and teachers experience the possibility of influence in their English classes. Empirical data has been collected through questionnaires from two classes at year 1 and two classes at year 2 in English. The study also includes interviews from four teachers and four students. The study is both qualitative and quantitative. The results show that the majority of the students consider their possibility of influence in their English- learning to be very high in all schools to a great extent, even though the results showed that their influence in their teaching was not very extensive.</p><p>The way the students mostly influenced their teaching was when discussing the planning of their courses and through regularly made evaluations of their courses.</p><p>The teachers´ view on the pupil-influence was mostly linked to personal views and opinions of the matter as well as the referred information in the national curriculum for teachers. Overall the results show that the students´ and the teachers´ view on the influence seems to coincide very well.</p><p>The differences in year 1 and 2 at high-school in this investigation can mostly be seen by the fact that year 2 increasingly can influence their curriculum of their courses and that they also can influence how examinations are to be carried out in a more extensive way than the students in year 1.</p><p>The hypothesis of this essay, that pupil-influence should increase with age and level at</p><p>high-school proved to be a partly correct assumption, mainly because the majority of the students expressed that this was partly true. Nevertheless, both the teachers and the interviewed students claimed that influence increases with age, so maybe it is hard to make a clear conclusion out of these results.</p>

The aim of this study is to investigate the notion of pupil influence in English teaching at level 1 and 2 at High-School level. The study focuses on how the students and teachers experience the possibility of influence in their English classes. Empirical data has been collected through questionnaires from two classes at year 1 and two classes at year 2 in English. The study also includes interviews from four teachers and four students. The study is both qualitative and quantitative. The results show that the majority of the students consider their possibility of influence in their English- learning to be very high in all schools to a great extent, even though the results showed that their influence in their teaching was not very extensive. The way the students mostly influenced their teaching was when discussing the planning of their courses and through regularly made evaluations of their courses. The teachers´ view on the pupil-influence was mostly linked to personal views and opinions of the matter as well as the referred information in the national curriculum for teachers. Overall the results show that the students´ and the teachers´ view on the influence seems to coincide very well. The differences in year 1 and 2 at high-school in this investigation can mostly be seen by the fact that year 2 increasingly can influence their curriculum of their courses and that they also can influence how examinations are to be carried out in a more extensive way than the students in year 1. The hypothesis of this essay, that pupil-influence should increase with age and level at high-school proved to be a partly correct assumption, mainly because the majority of the students expressed that this was partly true. Nevertheless, both the teachers and the interviewed students claimed that influence increases with age, so maybe it is hard to make a clear conclusion out of these results.

The strong hold of the research paper on the English curriculum over the past fifty years has created instructional and learning challenges that call for innovative solutions. Although concerned educators have developed creative variations to spark student interest and promote critical thinking, research has revealed little change in curriculum design or student performance on the research paper, even with advanced ability students (Ford, 1995; Moulton & Holmes, 2003). The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how students’ perceptions of the knowledge task presented by a literary analysis research paper related to research and composing strategies for five twelfth-grade advanced students. Social constructivism (Creswell, 2003; Vygotsky, 1934/1986) and phenomenology (Schutz, 1967; Seidman, 1998) served as theoretical frameworks for the study. Three questions guided the research: 1) How might students’ epistemological views be described as they initiate the research paper process? 2) How do students’ epistemological views relate to the choices they make during the research and composing processes? 3) How do students’ epistemological views relate to the final research product? Data collection and analysis occurred over an eight-month period. Data sources included an epistemological questionnaire (Schommer, 1989), four in-depth phenomenological interviews (Seidman, 1998) conducted with each student at drafting stages, member checking, discourse analysis of free responses and essay drafts, and a researcher’s log. Constant comparative in-case and cross-case analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Miles & Huberman, 1994) were used to analyze data. Holistic and four-dimension rubric scoring (content, organization, style, conventions) was used to analyze and evaluate the final essays. Trustworthiness was established through methods that ensured credibility, confirmability, dependability, and transferability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). While participants expressed strong beliefs in complex knowledge and demonstrated high levels of reflective thinking, they differed in their views towards certain knowledge, which resulted in variations in composing strategies and essay quality. Significant relationships were indicated between knowledge views and concept formation, knowledge views and composing strategies, problem solving and the research experience, and reflective thinking and academic challenge. Prior knowledge, motivation, and gender also contributed to different outcomes. Results suggested important directions for research paper design and instruction in the language arts curriculum.

The inclusion of critical literacy is becoming more prevalent in our curricula, however, while the value of using trauma literature in the English Language Arts classroom has been established, the explicit use of sexual assault narratives sometimes seems too risky or intimidating for educators. This case study research utilizes social constructivism, feminist, gender studies, and queer studies, trauma theory, and reader response theory as lenses for analysis. Further, a narrative methodological framework was employed to explore how reading trauma literature can influence the writing practices, specifically the digitally written responses, of grade ten adolescents. As well, the study examined the usefulness of digital writing platforms and social media as vehicles to use while incorporating such critical literacies into the classroom. The research was carried out in one western Canadian high school and across two grade ten academic English Language Arts classes. Data was collected from 25 student participants for the primary portion of the classroom study and four of those participants also participated in the focus group discussion. The findings suggest that engaging with trauma literature is certainly a valuable form of critical literacy, particularly sexual assault narratives. Students’ responses indicated that they responded angrily and aggressively to the texts presented, they voiced a need to be heard through the use of repetition, they identified the significance of mental health issues, they made personal connections with the literature as well as intertextual connections between other stories, and created significant and telling silences. Perhaps most importantly, this study found that we must continue to work towards finding best practices for teaching these texts because doing so may lead to challenging rape culture and fostering a sense of empowerment, agency, and resiliency in our learners. These qualities were particularly demonstrated through the students’ personal, critical, and creative written responses using digital literacy practices. / Graduate / 0727 Curriculum and Instruction, 0279 Language and Literature, and 0533 Secondary / amberjanellemoore@gmail.com

The purposes of this study were to understand the opinions of English teachers in junior high school in Kaohsiung City on the selection criteria and the influence factors for English textbooks, and to offer a few concrete suggestions for the improvement of junior high schools textbook selection according to the results. The research adopted questionnaire survey method. The questionnaire was designed and distributed to 400 English teachers from 45 junior high schools in Kaohsiung City as the subjects. As a result, 305 were valid responded corresponding with a 76% of return rate. Descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Scheffe method were conducted for data analysis and finally come to the following results: 1. The teachers generally agree to the importance of the textbook selection criteria, in which they emphasize the most on ¡§context-related properties,¡¨ and the less on ¡§physical properties.¡¨ 2. On the whole, the teachers agree to the influence factors on textbook selection, and the ¡§internal factors¡¨ have more influence than the ¡§external factors.¡¨ 3. English teachers are the main participants in selecting English textbooks in junior high school, and the final results are determined in the meeting of textbook selection. 4. There are significant different opinions on the importance of the textbook selection criteria due to the ¡§school sizes,¡¨ ¡§genders,¡¨ ¡§years of teaching experience,¡¨ and the ¡§experiences of textbook selection.¡¨ 5. There are significant different opinions on the influence factors on textbook selection because of the ¡§locations of school,¡¨ ¡§educational qualifications,¡¨ ¡§years of teaching experience,¡¨ and the ¡§experiences of textbook selection.¡¨ Based on the results of the study, some suggestions are proposed to the educational authorities, schools, teachers and publishers, as well as future studies.

Teachers' decisions are a powerful influence on student learning and it is important to fully document accomplished teachers' instructional decisions, as well as to investigate possible influences on those decisions. Shakespearean dramas are central to high school curricula across the U.S. and pose particular instructional challenges, therefore teachers' decisions about teaching these texts are of particular interest. There is limited empirical research, however, about these instructional decisions. Thus, the purpose of this study was to describe how four accomplished high school English teachers working on a single campus make instructional decisions about teaching a Shakespearean play. Specifically, research questions addressed teachers' decisions regarding the teaching of a Shakespearean play and various influences on those decisions (self-reports and inferences from the data). Case study methodology was used, including an inductive analysis of individual teacher interviews, classroom observations, focus group, instructional artifacts, and researcher's journal. The findings revealed that instructional activities described by these teachers addressed support for meaning-making during four stages of reading instruction: (a) before, during, and after; (b) before; (c) during; and (d) after. Comparison of these cases suggests that, although each teacher brings personal preferences and unique background knowledge to her instructional decisions, all make decisions to promote student engagement and student construction of meaning. Regarding influences on these teachers' decisions about teaching the Shakespearean play, four categories were identified: (a) response to students; (b) aspects of the text; (c) response to contextual constraints and supports; and (d) personal preferences and background experiences. Individual teacher differences are clearly a strong influence, even among this group of colleagues on the same campus. Also, two influences not reported explicitly by the teachers suggest a complex integration of these influences. One is their intuitive thinking, which deserves a closer investigation in future research. The other proposes that each teacher's decisions are influenced by her instructional interaction working model (IIWM), a conceptual framework that shapes each teacher's conversational patterns, non-verbal behaviors, and other interactional patterns. Further research should explore the use of such a model to describe and explain the complexity of teachers' decisions, particularly when teaching complex, challenging tasks and texts.

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本研究旨在探查台灣國中基本學力測驗英語科之內容效度，以期了解國中基本學力測驗英語科之試題內容是否達到出題者宣稱之目的，進而對英語教師、教育學者、學生、及社會大眾能有啟示作用。 本研究兼採質及量的分析方法。質的研究取自51位現任國中英語教師之專業判斷，以2003年第一次國中基測英語試題為例，從課本的符合程度、學校教學、學校評量、試題難易度等四方面逐題審視國中基測與教學之相關程度，及問卷調查此51位教師對國中基測與課程標準之總目標、分項目標、基測命題原則、及學力指標之看法，透過Aiken之效度指數檢測是否達到顯著。量的研究取自台灣四所國中共1204位畢業生在校三年之英語段考平均成績分別與國中基測英語原始分數之相關。 研究結果顯示：國中基本學力測驗英語科具有內容效度。 / The purpose of this study is to investigate the content validity of Basic Competence Test (BCT) in English, hoping to verify whether or not the test reaches what the tester claims to test, and further promote a better understanding of BCT toward teachers, students, educators and the public. This study adopts both qualitative and quantitative analyses. Fifty-one qualified junior high school teachers examine the relationship between BCT’s items and curricular instruction from textbook coverage, instruction, evaluation, and item difficulty. They also offer their perceptions toward BCT from the content domain the tester claims to test, i.e. the general and specific objectives of Curriculum Standards, test principles from the BCT Center, and Core Competence Indicators. Aiken’s Validity Index checks if items are significantly content valid. Computing the correlation coefficient between 1204 students’ academic scores of monthly tests for three years at four schools and BCT’s raw scores does the quantitative analysis. The result of this study indicates that first BCT items have high accordance with curricular instruction. Second, students’ performance at school correlates highly to that on BCT. Third, what the BCT Center claims to test is highly acclaimed by the junior high school teachers. In other words, BCT’s content validity is established.