A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF EDUCATION IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF EDUCATION IN THE DEPARTMENT OF FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND, 2008. / The research examines the Perceptions and Practices of learner rights in the South African Black Schools. This study made use of Primary sources, Secondary sources and interviews to ascertain the perceptions and Practices of learner rights in South African Black schools. In this study we first embark on a retrospective probe into discourses of difference between educators and learners and argue that these discourses of difference tend to promote oppressive and dehumanizing social relationship between learners and educators. We further argue that the discourses of difference and power tend to naturalize and normalize Otherness as though it is naturally given rather than conceiving of it as socially constructed. The study thus highlights that the issue of learner rights in schools that is predicated on differential power relations between learners and educators can be resolved if co-operation between learners and educators could be forged.

English learners are expected to acquire academic language and content simultaneously. Long Term English Learners (LTELs), a growing English Learner subgroup, struggle academically and do not have the necessary academic vocabulary proficiency to achieve academic success in our current educational system. This mixed-methods study examined the implementation of Academic Vocabulary Instructional protocols in the upper grades in a small urban elementary school district. Semistructured interviews, focus group, observation protocol, and data analysis methods were used as primary methods for data collection. Overall, four key themes emerged in this study. First, all 4th- and 5th-grade teachers implemented the new Academic Vocabulary Toolkit and protocol to address the academic language needs of English learner students. Second, teachers consistently used the academic vocabulary and grammatical frames. Third, teachers regularly modeled the use of an academic register. Finally, there was an increase in the use of grammatical sentence frames and academic vocabulary by students across the content areas. Language Acquisition and Sociocultural Theory in Language conceptual frameworks were used.

The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between a number of environmental variables and achievement measures in English language of third year Bahraini secondary school students. Fifteen null hypotheses were formulated and tested against students' achievement results. The first set of research instruments included students' first term English Language Achievement Tests while the second was a questionnaire completed by the selected students. The questionnaire was administered entirely in Arabic. The third set of materials involved conducting a total of thirty-two interviews. Responses to the interviews complemented the findings of those of the student and teacher questionnaires. The fourth and final set of materials was a teacher questionnaire which was basically intended as an additional step towards the study of variables existing within the teaching situation. The sample needed for the study was comprised of a total number of 327 randomly selected students, 161 of whom were males and 166 were females. Thus differences in sex were fully taken into account. Ages ranged from 16 to 23 with a mean of 17. Subjects averaged 12 years of education and had studied English as a foreign language for a minimum period of 9 years.The conclusion drawn from this research implied that Bahraini students need to show a considerable degree of commitment and also strive to make use of the language in its various contextual settings. Female students need to modify their present attitudes-held toward English language learning and its culture. Students need to be on the alert as to the degree of availability and teachers' frequency and skill in using a fully incorporated teaching aid. Home conditions, in terms of educational support and encouragement should work in favour of acquiring the language.

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Previous research documents the importance of maintaining the home language to the acquisition of a second language. This study examined the effects of a shared reading experience in the child’s home language on the emergent literacy and language acquisition in English of preschool-age English Language Learners (ELLs). Parents of Spanish-speaking four-year-old Head Start students read storybooks in Spanish with their children concurrently with the use of the English language version of the books in the classroom. A single subject design with multiple baselines across subjects and settings was applied. The researcher documented changes in the frequency of utterances, the Mean Length of Utterance-word (MLU-w), and the frequency of spontaneous or child-initiated utterances in various settings within the Head Start classroom. The Results indicated that there might be a relation between a shared reading experience in the home language and second language acquisition. Additionally, there appeared to be a relation between the behaviors and the settings.

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Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01