The thesis focuses on teachers’ pedagogical subject knowledge and teaching of reading in English as a second language (L2) in Botswana Primary Schools. The participants consisted of ten teachers from four lower primary classrooms setting. To carry out the research, I adopted the qualitative methodology. The three modes of inquiry used in the study are semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and stimulated recall interviews. All the data were transcribed, coded and analysed qualitatively. For organisation purposes, the NVivo 8 software package was used in handling the interview data gathered from the study. The findings revealed that teachers’ classroom practices were not always consistent with their pedagogical subject knowledge. They demonstrated having knowledge on how reading ought to be taught and it was observed that in most cases, their beliefs were not put into their classroom practices. This research highlighted the importance of the phonics instructions in teaching early reading, which most of the teachers’ practices revealed that they lack confidence in teaching. Therefore, this seems to have an impact on the learners in lower classes because this level is considered the foundation, which needs solid base of reading strategies. Most recent studies have revealed that a lack of phonics based on reading instructions leave learners without important decoding skills necessary in recognizing letter/sound relationships in reading. It emerged that most of the activities observed focussed on word level because more emphasis was placed on decoding than comprehension. Although the study indicates that teachers face a number of challenges, which might have an impact in practising their espoused beliefs, it seems that they did not get proper foundation from pre-service training with phonics instructions. Hopefully the insights presented in this study can lead to increased awareness of how reading can be effectively taught and how teachers base classroom practices on their experiences and the contexts within which they work.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:579901 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Mokotedi, Rosinah Thando |
| Contributors | Myhill, Debra |
| Publisher | University of Exeter |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/9522 |
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