published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Master / Master of Education

The purpose of this study is to answer the research question: What are the elements of the writing process and written texts of kindergarten/first grade students in a whole language classroom that constitute authenticity? The written texts of twenty-one children from a variety of ethnic, socioeconomic and linguistic backgrounds were collected over the course of the school year. The tests were categorized according to penpal letters, signs/labels/captions and dialogue journal entries. Each category was analyzed to describe the writer's place in the context of situation, the function that each text served and the interaction of the linguistic cueing systems. The data indicate that the physical elements in the Context of Situation as described by Michael Halliday that proved most important to authenticity are: (1) Availability (proximity) and accessibility of a wide variety of resources. (2) Experience of students in creating and identifying resources in the environment. (3) Many opportunities to interact with audiences. (4) Student ownership of the process. The social relationships within the classroom that proved most important to authenticity are: (1) having a "real" audience for writing. (2) The relationship between the writer and the audience. (3) The degree of invitation with choice of when and where to write. The features of written texts which proved most important to authenticity are: (1) The students' familiarity with the genre of text. (2) The function of the texts to fulfill the purposes of the students. Whole language classrooms such as the one in this study provide a rich source of data for the study of authenticity.

D.Phil. (Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

D.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / The general preference for English as language of teaching and learning (LoLT) poses a formidable learning barrier to many English Second Language (ESL) learners in South African schools. Addressing this barrier is the responsibility of the whole-school with the support of the Department of Education. In particular, school based support teams (SBST) are tasked with the support of learners who experience reading barriers in an inclusive mainstream school. This thesis concerns the implementation of a whole-school intervention at a primary school in a disadvantaged community in Gauteng, South Africa, where ESL learners experience severe barriers to reading acquisition. The aim was to provide support to the whole-school to address reading barriers in an inclusive environment. Objectives were to identify the elements of whole-school reading; to develop and implement an integrated whole-school reading intervention; to train educators to address learners' reading barriers; and to provide guidelines to the Inclusion and Special Schools Unit (provincial level), District Based Support Team (DBST) and the school, to address reading barriers in future. A literature study reviewed themes regarding inclusion, support structures and whole-school development. Literature dealing with essential elements of wholeschool reading, approaches and strategies provided a theoretical framework for the implementation of whole-school reading. A qualitative study within an interpretive paradigm using practitioner action research was conducted. The research site was a primary school in a disadvantaged area in Gauteng, which had referred ESL learners to the local Inclusion and Special Schools Unit for support. Action research was selected because of its fundamental principle of participant empowerment through participation, collaboration, acquisition of knowledge and social change. Data was gathered from staff and learners and analysed during the phases of the action research process. Data collection included learner and educator questionnaires, discussions, observations, field notes, pre- and post baseline scholastic assessment, focus group interviews and the researcher's reflections. Findings indicated that SBST's need support in order to address reading barriers. ESL learners do not receive sufficient exposure to English to develop reading skills. Intermediate phase educators have not been trained to teach learners to read and improve their reading skills. Whole-school reading intervention was thus valuable in providing training and support structures for the school to address reading difficulties.

Language is probably the greatest thing developed by mankind. Yet few have come to understand how it is acquired. I am one of them. I want to understand how it is acquired, and how students come to understand the important area of subject-verb agreement. The purpose of the research was to gain an understanding of local students whose mother tongue is Cantonese (L1), and what are the factors affecting their acquisition of subject-verb agreement in English. To a lesser degree, it is aimed at gaining an understanding of how language is acquired; to gain an understanding on how second language is acquired; and to gain an understanding of how grammar is acquired. The research was carried out as the author wanted to see if there was a reason why students could not understand subject-verb agreement in English. The author wanted to look at four main reasons. These included biological reasons, physiological reasons, developmental reason, and cultural reason. The research was conducted on children aged six to twelve from two main school streams (public and private) using a quantitative and qualitative survey. The quantitative survey included fifteen missing words, twenty statements, and five sentences to see if students could recognise if the statements were ungrammatical or grammatical. The qualitative survey was conducted with a group of primary four students (aged nine to ten) to gain an understanding of why certain answers were selected and what was the reasoning behind the decisions the participants made. From the researcher, it was discovered there was some level of first language interference, though to the exact degree it was questionable as it could not be determined quantifiably. It was evident from the YoE data that students new to English had the highest number of errors. It was also found that there was no absolute or definitive time or age when subject-verb agreement was evident. However, there was a sharp decrease in the number of errors at both schools at the age of eight. The results also show that culture does influence the learning of English as a second language in Hong Kong. It is not just because Cantonese has no Subject-verb agreement; it also extends to the teaching practices in the classroom and the culture of teaching through grammar. The problems this created became evident in the research. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Multiple cognitive-linguistic factors have been found to contribute to narrative writing in English, and this study aims to investigate whether the same applies to writing in Chinese. Taken into account the special characteristics in grammar of the Chinese language and the differences between oral dialect and written language, the present study assessed a total of 117 Hong Kong primary school children in either Grade Three or Five on their performances in a range of cognitive-linguistic skills (i.e., syntactic skills, oral-written translation, discourse skills, and topic knowledge) and narrative writing in Chinese. Results of regression analyses showed that oral-written translation skill is the unique and significant predictor of writing in general. Besides, syntactic skills are more predictive for the writing performance of junior writers, while topic knowledge is more crucial to the writing by senior writers. More specifically, syntactic and oral-written translation skills predict the grammar of writing; topic knowledge predicts the fluency of writing; and discourse skills contribute significantly to the content of writing. These findings shed light on understanding the basis of writing in Chinese and serve as a foundation for future research on writing development and difficulties. / published_or_final_version / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education