Languages and Arts Education

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Classroom talk : lowered affective filters and ESL proficiency in arts and culture classrooms.
(2007) Naicker, Shalina.; Balfour, Robert John.
This case study explores the impact of a specially designed programme of communicative strategies: role-play, group-work, pair-work, and information gap activities, on English second language proficiency. The aim of this programme is to promote teacher guided, constructive learner talk in the outcomes-based education (OBE) classroom. The case study, which took place in a multilingual secondary school in Durban, focused on four groups of Grade 8 learners in 2003, and the same four groups of learners in Grade 9 in 2004. This thesis presents an account of my research in three parts and nine chapters. Part I introduces and locates the study. Part 2 presents theory and evidence to support the core arguments presented, the design of the project, and its methodology. Part 3 focuses on the research process, the findings and the implications for future policy and practice. In Chapter 1 the key issues and questions for the exploration of pedagogical strategies for verbal interaction are presented. Language pedagogy in South African schools from the onset of the apartheid era to the present is reflected on, to show that past methods have disadvantaged ESL learners. The history of language policy and practice in African education in South Africa from 1948 to 2003 is reviewed in Chapter 2. The aim is to illustrate that language policy and practice can have a positive impact by lowering the Affective Filter of ESL learners. In Chapter 3 a review of research on English second language learning is offered to support the theoretical framework. The principles of pedagogy that inform the design of the Classroom Talk Programme are the focus of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 outlines a design for a Classroom Talk Programme and interactive tasks in three Units. Chapter 6 considers possible research methodologies, the quasi-experimental research process, the study context and the sample. Part 3 presents the findings of the CT Programme organized into themes. Chapter 7 focuses on the learner and educator perceptions of lowered Affective Filters and learner confidence and proficiency and the implications for assessment for progression purposes. The third theme, which is the focus of Chapter 8, is concerned with managing pedagogy and assessment in large 'multilingual' classrooms. Finally, Chapter 9 examines the issues surrounding micro school-based language policies and practices. The CT Programme is critically reflected on in relation to its advantages and disadvantages and what has been achieved in this case study.
Developing reading strategies in higher education through the use of integrated reading/writing activities : a study at a university of technology in South Africa.
(2006) Bharuthram, Sharita.; Balfour, Robert John.
Higher education in South Africa faces severe challenges due to the under preparedness of many students entering the system. Research (Perkins 1991; Pretorius 2000, 2005; Balfour 2002) has shown that many students who enter higher education do not have the required academic literacy knowledge and strategies to engage meaningfully with the relevant texts in their disciplines. A major obstacle to students’ success is their limited reading strategies. A significantly large number of students are not able to read at the appropriate grade and/or age level. Yet, reading is one of the most important academic tasks encountered by students. This thesis focuses on the use of reading strategy interventions together with integrated reading/writing activities to enhance reading comprehension. The study is located at the Durban University of Technology, using as participants the students who were registered on the first year extended Dental Technology programme in 2004. The interventions are implemented through an action research project. The piloting phase of the interventions reveals the need for an understanding of the students’ backgrounds in, amongst others, their reading and writing practices, attitudes, approaches to learning, and motivational factors. Consequently, the action research project was conducted in parallel with an ethnographic inquiry into students’ reading worlds and practices. Given that reading and writing are complementary processes whereby the enhancement of the one has a positive effect on the other, the ethnographic inquiry also explores students’ attitudes and practices towards writing. Using the ideological model (Street 1984) and, in particular, the new literacy approach to teaching and learning as a framework for the thesis, I argue that the students’ early childhood and schooling experiences of reading and writing impact on their current attitudes and practices. I further suggest that for children from disadvantaged backgrounds learning and retaining literacy is more difficult than for children from advantaged, middle class backgrounds. The ethnographic inquiry involved a series of interviews with students, as well as a questionnaire to ascertain students’ attitudes and practices towards reading and writing. In addition, a questionnaire was designed for lecturers to obtain their attitudes and practices towards reading and writing in their disciplines. A major finding of the ethnographic inquiry was that the majority of participants in the study come from a background that can be described as traditionally oral in the sense that it is one in which very little or no emphasis is placed on reading. For some participants story telling was a more common form of interaction or communication with the elders. Also, the majority of participants come from lower socio-economic backgrounds where the purchasing of reading materials is considered a luxury. In addition, for many of the English additional language students, their school environment and experiences were not adequate enough to foster the need for reading and/or any engagement in reading. Based on my research, as well as the findings of other researchers, I argue that reading strategy interventions are essential in order to raise awareness and promote the use of reading strategies so as to enhance the learning (reading) process. The review of literature on reading development and the findings from the interviews indicate that the explicit teaching of reading strategies is essential for students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds (Heath 1983; Delpit 1986; Cope and Kalantzis 1993). To this end the action research component of the study was implemented through the explicit teaching of three reading strategies, namely, identifying the main idea in a paragraph, using context clues to guess the meaning of unknown words in a text, and summarization. The focus of the intervention was on the process and on raising students’ levels of metacognitive awareness. The approach is novel in two ways. First, via the process approach to reading the chosen reading strategies were initially taught independently to the students using the explicit explanation approach which involved scaffolded tasks involving explanations, modeling (using the think-aloud protocol), practice, and transfer exercises. Thereafter, using the cognitive apprenticeship approach, students were taught to use all three strategies simultaneously during reading. Second, discipline specific materials were used as reading sources during the interventions which were conducted with integrated reading/writing activities. Data was collected by means of a language proficiency pre-and post-test, a reading strategy pre-and post-test, worksheets, student reflective pieces, portfolios, and observations. An analysis of the pre-and post-test data showed that the reading strategy interventions were highly successful. Students performed better in the reading strategy post-test than in the pre-test. Furthermore, their performance was better than that of a control group of students who were registered for the first year mainstream programme and who wrote only the reading strategy post-test. A marked improvement was also noted in the language proficiency post-test. These results stress the need for the teaching of reading strategies through integrated reading and writing activities.
English studies and language teaching : epistemological access and discursive critique in South Africa.
(2007) Mgqwashu, Emmanuel Mfanafuthi.; Balfour, Robert John.
This study investigates ways in which English Studies at Rhodes University, the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Natal, and the University of Sydney responded to linguistic and academic literacy needs of entrance level students. Both qualitative and quantitative data from these research sites are integrated with an autobiographical narrative based on my own personal experiences of learning English and in English at secondary and tertiary levels in South Africa. Dealing with data this way made it possible for my study to examine strategies through which different English departments negotiate the challenge of enabling students to access the discourse of the Discipline. I relied on the principles underpinning Genre Theory and Grounded Theory to engage critically with participants’ responses to interview questions and documentary evidence from research sites. It appears from the study that modules designed to develop students’ linguistic and/or academic literacy skills need not maintain a pedagogic practice that is either grammatical rules or academic writing and critique based, without an attempt to integrate the two. This separation is seen as artificial, and reflects pedagogic practices that tend to mystify the discourse of the Discipline of English Studies. Given the fact that not all students posses relevant cultural capital to negotiate meanings successfully within this discourse, many of them are excluded during lectures. Literature and research findings in this study indicate that this exclusion manifests itself when such students fail to choose grammatical structures according to the purpose for which they construct texts, both in speaking and in writing. Within this context, there is a need for an alternative model to inform theory, module design, and pedagogic practices in entrance level modules.
An investigation into the use of genre theory as an approach to teaching writing at Park High School in Durban.
(2002) Bayat, Ayesha.; Balfour, Robert John.
The transition to democracy in South Africa has resulted in systemic efforts to ensure equality education for all. However, despite such endeavours to address inequities, inequalities still remain regarding not only resources but also classroom pedagogies. One aspect of classroom pedagogy is the teaching of writing. The writing proficiency of mainly non-mother tongue learners seldom surpasses that of mother tongue speakers of English. Writing is seldom explicitly taught. Moreover, factual texts are almost never taught in schools although they are one of the most powerful genres in society. Systemic transformation in South Africa is often driven by global trends that focus on functional literacy. The Outcomes Based Curriculum is such an initiative with its emphasis on skills, values, critical thinking, and learner centeredness. The current process writing approach in our schools, within the framework of Outcomes Based Education, does not address the needs of all learners. The focus on grammar, correctness, and creative outpourings of self -reflective essays, advantages the learner familiar with the cultural heritage discourse. It disempowers those who are from different cultural or linguistic backgrounds. Writing is a social practice, and in order to write effectively learners have to uncover the generic conventions that configure different genres. In schools this translates into an explicit pedagogy of writing underpinned by theory. This thesis attempts to seek an alternate approach to the teaching of writing in a multicultural classroom, using the genre approach. The research was collaboratively planned and implemented as an action research intervention, at a multicultural school in Durban. The aims were to change learner attitudes to writing, use genre theory to teach learners explicitly about linguistic and generic conventions, produce a factual group text, and to transform my own practice. The first part of the thesis describes the rationale for the research within the context of transformation, issues of democracy education, and multiculturalism as a challenge to educators teaching English primary language. The second part examines the theories that inform this research especially genre theory, critical language awareness, functional grammar, and critical literacy. The implementation of the project in carefully planned and explicit stages is the subject of the third part of the thesis. It also describes how field notes, questionnaires, and the leaflets were used for data collection in the field of research. The fourth section addresses the action research intervention at Park High within a ten-day cycle, together with an integrated analysis of data collected and the findings. The final section of the thesis examines the limitations of the project together with recommendations for improved practice in the writing classroom. The findings indicate that learners value explicit pedagogies and that learning about generic conventions improves confidence and competence. The findings further suggest that learning about genres and generic conventions is a lengthy and difficult process. However, this process has the potential to transform implied pedagogies for both mother tongue and non-mother tongue learners in a post-apartheid society.
Negotiation, participation, and the construction of identities and autonomy in online communities of practice : a case study of online learning in English at a university in South Africa.
(2006) Kajee, Leila.; Balfour, Robert John.
This study is located at the interface of online learning within a context of English language studies and academic literacy and is underpinned, from a critical theoretical perspective, by an understanding of the implications of the digital divide for South Africa. The thesis includes an exploration of online learning, as mediated by information and communication technology (ICT), in an undergraduate English language and academic literacy classroom at a university in Johannesburg, South Africa. The study draws on research and theorising by Warschauer (2002a, 2002b, 2003), who argues for the need for technology in developing countries as a means of social inclusion. The aim is to explore the extent to which communities of practice (COPs) are enabled in an online environment, among English non-mother tongue speakers, who have minimal previous access to ICT. To achieve the aim the study examines the extent to which the learners participate, negotiate meaning, construct identities, and perceive themselves as autonomous in online spaces. This is a case study that explores asynchronous lCT practices such as the use of the Internet (Net), e-mail, and discussion threads in an online Web course management system. From a sociocultural perspective, and recognising that learning does not occur in isolation, the work of Lave and Wenger (1991, 1996,2002) is used to frame the study, concerned as it is with learning, technology and empowerment. Lave and Wenger (1991, 2002) locate learning as a form of interaction and co-participation, and argue that learning occurs within specific contexts or communities of practice. Thus they focus on how individuals become members of 'communities of practice'. The study suggests that practice and participation are underpinned, and to some extent determined, by the identities constructed by participants In the on line communities. Participants' ICT practices are examined from the perspective of literacy, in this case electronic literacy, as a social practice and New Literacy Studies, where the work of Gee (1996, 1997, 2000), Street (1984, 1993a, 1993b, 2003), Barton, Hamilton and lvanic (2000), and Lankshear and Knobel (1997, 2004) are drawn on to examine the use of technology. Constructions of identity are examined from Hall's (1992) post-structuralist view that old identities, which stabilised the social world as we knew it, are in decline, giving rise to new identities and fragmenting the modem individual as a unified subject. From observations, participant-interviews, questionnaires, written data, and the analysis of messages posted to discussion threads over the duration of a year, the study demonstrates that the online environment facilitates the construction of communities of practice, by enabling participants to develop and sustain local and global relationships, construct identities, and engage autonomously in the medium. My findings suggest that online environments be considered, not merely as alternative modes of delivery in the language classroom, but for social inclusion, provided that facilitators and learners are adequately prepared for the use of digital technology. The study further suggests a model for the adoption of ICT in relation to learning within the South African context.
Processing heard versus transcribed English vocabulary in English second language (ESL) learners : a quasi-experimental study at a secondary school in KwaZulu-Natal.
(2009) Govender, Maanasa Devi.; Sookrajh, Reshma.; Balfour, Robert John.
At a technically biased secondary school in KwaZulu-Natal, teachers of Grade 12 English Second Language (ESL) learners, including myself, found it problematic to assess students' writing which is often fraught with spelling and grammar errors. This meant that these learners were disadvantaged because they were assessed with a lower score in comparison to students who edited their work and ensured that their writing was free from spelling and grammar errors. The aim of this study is to improve English vocabulary spelling of ESL learners by investigating the effectiveness of processing Heard English Vocabulary, in comparison to the Transcribed Vocabulary Training Programme (TVTP). This study is theoretically framed by the Cognitive Load Theory (2003), and employs a quasi-experimental approach as a methodology (Goodwin, 2005). It is a quasi-experiment because the sample was not randomly selected, as in a classic experiment. The sample consisted of 60 Grade 12 English Second Language (ESL) volunteers from a technically biased high school in Ethekwini, KwaZulu-Natal. Significant findings revealed first, that the comparative analysis of the Nonequivalent Control Group (NECG) in comparison to the Experimental Group (EG) was that the Transcribed Vocabulary Training Programme (TVTP) increased the 06-010 average scores for the EG by 36.3%, yet reduced the average time by 40 seconds; second, the visual and kinetic nature of transcription facilitates distinct pattern markings on the graphemic output lexicon; third, transcription also facilitates semantic processing, because meaning can be derived from context, and finally, there is a strong positive correlation between transcription and sustained attention, which implies that correct transcription depends on sustained attention. The findings in this research are compatible with the principles underpinning Sweller and Cooper's (1998) Cognitive Load Theory and Instructional Design. It is argued that if the instructional design uses more than one sense of perception, for example, auditory and visual, then the cognitive load on the working memory is decreased and the mental capacity (attention levels) is increased. When mental capacity is increased, the chances of retrieval are greater. It is also argued that time and training results in automatic processing, which decreases cognitive load, and increases mental capacity. Training also enhances performance, and reduces performance time. In this study, performance would mean written retrieval of English vocabulary. The findings also suggest that any ESL learner who attentively transcribes meaningful English vocabulary will successfully retrieve English vocabulary. The overall conclusion of this research is that instructional designers (for example, educators) have some control in increasing attention levels through synergizing the senses of perception at the encoding stage of the instructional design, and presenting meaningful data. The use of transcription as a 'hands on' instructional design in a quasi-experiment makes this an innovative project. This study began in March 2005 and was completed in July 2008.
Suggesting Lozanov : suggestopedia and creative writing at a high school in Durban, South Africa.
(2007) Kusner, Charles.; Balfour, Robert John.
Suggestopedia (also sometimes referred to as "Accelerated Learning") is a teaching methodology that claims to remove barriers to learning rather than teach students how to learn. Developed by Bulgarian psychotherapist and medical doctor Georgi Lozanov (1926- ), it utilizes a detailed, three-phase cycle of teaching in which about 75% of teaching time is devoted to "Activations", games and activities in which students rehearse material previously presented in unique "Concert Sessions" (which make up the other 25% of contact time). Suggestopedia highlights factors often forgotten in the classroom: the design of an "optimum" learning environment, high expectations of success from the teacher, the use of music and art, the importance of enjoying the learning process, and the fostering of an atmosphere of "relaxed alertness". The method has been used with some success, particularly in the teaching of foreign languages. Ostensibly based on the way we learn naturally, Suggestopedia has developed a number of incarnations, in some cases because Lozanov's work was not freely available in the West during the Cold War. This dissertation outlines the salient features of both Suggestopedia and some of its incarnations. Additionally, it suggests ways in which the method may be utilized in the high school English classroom in South Africa. In particular, it describes an intervention in which elements of Suggestopedia were used to teach creative writing in a multilingual environment. In short, this intervention involved the creation of a traditional two page creative "essay" inspired by, inter alia, the teacher's high expectations, the meditative atmosphere created by music, and the posters in the students' peripheral vision. A total of 158 Grade 9 and Grade 11 (mainly isiZulu speaking) students in an "ex-model C" school wrote, edited, and submitted such essays, the main criterion of success being whether each essay was deemed by the teacher to be of a sufficiently high standard to be reproduced here. The project, based on a qualitative research design using the process approach to writing and a Suggestopedicbased pedagogy, elicited many engaging pieces of writing from students. The spirit of their writing as well as the writers' own comments about the process will hopefully suggest the genius and versatility of the Lozanov methodology.
The use of critical literacy theories as an approach to teaching as a home language to learners at a Durban secondary school utilising community newspapers.
(2009) Pather, Saloshini.; Balfour, Robert John.
As a former journalist and a columnist for the very first community newspaper in Chatsworth: the Chatsworth SUN, which is no longer in circulation, and a teacher of English Home Language at secondary school level for twenty years, my research project combines an interest in print media with my efforts to promote a pedagogy in which issues of inclusion, access, and identity are addressed. The impetus for this study was a research assignment I conducted in 2002 for the "Introduction to Research Methods" module of this degree. I carried out a survey at my school that aimed at ascertaining the media habits among a class of Grade 10 learners. The survey revealed important information regarding 'newspaper reading habits' . Almost every learner read the weekly community newspapers or 'knock and drop' publications circulated free of charge to almost every household in Chatsworth, south of Durban, where the majority of learners, of Indian descent, resided. In some cases these were the only publications that learners read. In 2003, I therefore decided to involve the same learners in a research project for the dissertation component of the degree. The Project would allow the learners to become active and critical participants in the media culture that is omnipresent in their lives. Interesting perspectives on issues of identity, ethnicity, and gender would emerge from this heterogeneous sample, which included five African learners, in the deconstruction of community newspapers that targeted Indian readers. Community newspapers, by virtue of their convenience of access, are potentially very influential publications and the research project provided the opportunity to assess and change attitudes to the discourses that arise from reading such newspapers. Particularly important are the ideologies, hegemonies and issues of power found in the language of these community newspapers, as well as the technological and production processes involved. Hence, the main objective of my study was to narrow the divide that exists between educational experience and the real world. I demonstrate this in the thesis through the interactive application of Critical Literacy theories to printed texts by learners who deconstruct, critique, and subvert taken-for-granted assumptions that result from submissive interpretation ofmedia like the community newspapers.

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