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The study, Mind the Gap between Grade Three and Four is written within the research fields of Mathematics Education. The research interests in the study concerns how to achieve a smooth transition between grade three and four in compulsory school. As a mathematics teacher I found out that the transition from one grade to another in compulsory school affects both the pupil and the mathematics teacher and not always in a satisfactory way. Formal meetings concerning handing over information about pupils are not sufficient, and there is a definite difference between what is said about the pupils during a formal meeting and what is said in more informal settings. Are their gaps that occur? The aim of this study is to listen to mathematics teachers´ and to illuminate their stories about handing over pupils from grade three and taking over pupils in grade four. I am searching for gaps in their stories. My goal is to safe guard the continuity concerning the changes of grades between grade three and four in compulsory school. The research questions are: What are the important factors for mathematics teacher´s concerning the transition between grade three and four? What themes and gaps concerning the transitions are revealed in their stories? The study is based on a theoretical framework made of; Gees (1999) theory about "language-in-use" and "the seven building blocks of language". Social constructions because the idea is to criticize and change the established order regarding the transition between grade three and grade four. I also made a choice to look at the difficulties concerning the transition as external factors and not as the shortcoming of the mathematics teachers´ therefore I use the critical perspective. Discourse is used because this study is about communication, both spoken and written. In order to investigate important factors for mathematics teachers concerning the transitions I interview six mathematics teachers. They are asked about the existent transition between grade three and four at their schools and what they think are important factors for transitions overall. I also videotape one formal meeting because when different methods are used it helps me verify 2 the outcome. The transcriptions from the interviews and the formal meeting are analyzed with help from the discourse analysis based on Gee (1999). The analysis/result shows themes that are important and signal about gaps that could be filled by further research. Themes revealed concerns: school organization, formal/informal meetings, teaching, assessment and special pedagogy. Gaps that are visible concern the teachers’ different educations, the school-web and the curriculum, time, relations, communication, assessment, feedback, teaching methods, teaching materials, and pupils in special needs. I argue that its´ necessary to create a structure and make guidelines for formal conferences concerning the transition between grade three and four to minimize the discontinuity. It should also be of interest that the gaps mentioned in this study are filled, and one way to begin could be to plan for collegial work between teachers’ in different grades.

<p> This study examined the common essence of language restriction and then resurgence among Quechan Native American elders. The data suggests that Quechan elders' sense of culture and identity was influenced by speaking the native language. Bourdieu's work on language and power were supported as socially constructed means of communication. Findings from this study provided empirical support for Hatch's Cultural Dynamics model. Erikson's work on identity was also supported with additional suggestions made to expand his final stage of psychosocial development for the Quechan Native American. </p><p> This research primarily focused on the individual level of analysis and provided practical application for the constructs of language, culture, and identity. In addition, this research also provided theoretical contributions for identity while embracing the existing body of knowledge. The research question, <i>"How does speaking the native language affect one's sense of culture and identity?"</i> was addressed through ten interviews with elders of the Quechan Native American Tribe. </p><p> Three distinct findings emerged from data gathered in this research. The first major finding indicated that language is a means of survival for the Quechan elders who forms much of their current reality on historical knowledge. The second finding suggests that the identity of Quechan elders is under reconstruction through the resurgence of the Quechan language and subsequent legitimization of that linguistic symbol. Lastly, the Quechan elders may be realigning their individual view of culture based on a combination of long-standing tribal knowledge and documentation presented by the dominant culture. </p><p> This study suggests a need to draw stronger theoretical connections between the constructs of identity and culture. On the individual level of analysis, culture and identity form and reform constantly to emerge as new entities. However, as this research has suggested, the individual may greatly influence the group's fundamental ideas of culture and identity.</p>

Title: Preschool – a social language environment and an arena for emergent literacy processes. Author: Martina Norling By focusing on preschool, as an arena for emergent literacy and language learning processes, this thesis put the lens on preschool staff´s approaches and strategies in the social language environment in Swedish preschools. Taking its point of departure in real preschool settings, the overall purpose of this thesis is to develop a greater understanding of this social language environment, with particular emphasis on the quality dimensions of strategies, such as the preschool staff´s sensitivity and approaches in the preschool environment. Two didactic issues are of special importance to the thesis: preschool staff´s descriptions of what kind of strategies and approaches they use in the social language environment as well as how preschool staff support children’s language learning processes in literacy-related activities. The thesis consists of four articles aimed at capturing, variations of dimensions of preschool staff strategies as well as approaches that contribute to highlighting essential strategies for supporting children in the social language environment. The theoretical framework in this thesis consists of social constructivism (Vygotsky, 1997) and bioecological theory (Bronfenbrenner, 2005). The four empirical studies in this thesis have made possible a mixed method design. The data production consists of questionnaires with questions regarding background information of the participants, observation instruments (scoring the quality of the social language environment), focus group interviews, video observations as well as a systematic literature review. In this thesis, three dimensions of preschool staff strategies in social language environment emerged: play strategies, emotional strategies and communicative strategies. The social language environment in Swedish preschool can be described in terms of those three strategy dimensions and continuous interplay processes among children, peers and preschool staff, over time. The quality dimensions of strategies focus, on preschool staff efforts and children’s prerequisites of learning processes, rather than focusing on children’s individual performance. Keywords: Preschool, social constructivism, bioecological theory, preschool staff, emergent literacy, social language environment, language learning processes

Purpose: The purposes of the present study consisted of primary, secondary, and tertiary purposes: 1) to determine what factors that can be addressed in speech therapy are the most important for female-to-male (FtM) transgender individuals in passing as their true gender, 2) to determine what factors may contribute to these individuals seeking speech therapy services and to the importance that they assign to speech therapy as part of the transition process, and 3) to determine awareness of this population in regards to the availability and scope of speech therapy services relative to transitioning or passing as their true gender. Method: A 38-item survey was developed to address these research questions and a link to the online survey was distributed via email to various listservs, organizations, and personal contacts to assist in the electronic distribution of the survey link. The responses of the final participant pool of 63 respondents were evaluated. Results: Overall, the participants ranked voice characteristics as the most important for passing followed by nonverbal communication and social language use. These broad categories rankings are generally supported by the existing literature. Within category rankings revealed rankings that are in accord with the existing literature, others that oppose the existing literature, and others that have not been explored in the literature. The following factors stood out as possibly contributing to how important FtMs find speech therapy as facilitating their ability to live as their true gender: desire to pass, satisfaction with hormone related pitch changes, current overall presentation, and whether speech/language contribute to instances of not passing. Factors that appear to possibly contribute to how likely FtMs are to have sought speech therapy include: satisfaction with hormone related pitch changes, voice prior to transition, and if aspects of speech and language contribute to instances of not passing. Overall, FtMs have little awareness regarding speech therapy as part of the transition process, particularly for FtMs. / text

This dissertation introduces the concept of an artificial society based on the use of an action based social language combined with the behavior-based approach to the construction of multi-agent systems to address the problem of developing decentralized, self-organizing networks that dynamically fit into their environment. In the course of accomplishing this, social language is defined as an efficient method for communicating coordination information among cognitive radios inspired by natural societies. This communication method connects the radios within a network in a way that allows the network to learn in a distributed holistic manner. The behavior-based approach to developing multi-agent systems from the field of robotics provides the framework for developing these learning networks. In this approach several behaviors are used to address the multiple objectives of a cognitive radio society and then combined to achieve emergent properties and behaviors. This work presents a prototype cognitive radio society. This society is implemented, using low complexity hardware, and evaluated. The work does not focus on the development of optimized techniques, but rather the complementary design of techniques and agents to create dynamic, decentralized self-organizing networks / Ph. D.

This is a qualitative research that draws Gee‟s Discourse analysis to understand how learners communicate their mathematical reasoning in a multilingual classroom in South Africa. The study involved a Grade 11 class of 25 learners in a township school East of Johannesburg. The research method used was a case study. Data was collected using classroom observations, and document analysis. The study has shown that learners communicate their mathematics reasoning up to a certain level. The way learners communicated their mathematical reasoning depended on the activities that were given by the textbook being used in the classroom, and the questions which the teacher asked during the lessons. From the findings of the study, recommendations were made: the assessment of how learners communicate their mathematical reasoning should have a basis, say the curriculum. If the curriculum states the level of mathematical reasoning which the learners at Grade 11 must reach, then the teacher will have to probe the learners for higher reasoning; mathematics classroom textbooks should be designed to enable learners communicate their mathematical reasoning. The teacher should ask learners questions that require learners to communicate their mathematical reasoning.

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Thesis (M. A. (Language Education)) -- University of Limpopo, 2023 / This study investigated the challenges experienced by Grade 10 learners in the usage of English as the first additional language in classroom academic writing. Qualitative methodology was used to conduct this study where responses from a sample of 10 learners and 2 EFAL teachers were obtained. The participants were purposefully sampled from a secondary school in Tweefontein. The researcher collected data using the semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Selected teachers were interviewed and learners were given an essay writing task. The data was analysed using the inductive thematic data analysis method. The study‟s findings point to social media as the major factor that contributes to the learners‟ usage of social language in academic essay writing. Contraction was found to be the most common language issue in the learners‟ academic writing. The study recommends that stakeholders such as the Department of Education, teachers, parents and learners should work together in order to improve the learners‟ usage of language in academic writing.