L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature
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Pre-primary and first grade primary school teachers\u27 perceptions on the integration of pre-primary and first grade primary school curricula in Greece
Get PDFThe purpose of this research paper is to investigate the perceptions of Greek pre-primary and first-grade primary school teachers on the integration of pre-primary and first-grade language curricula. This research is part of a broader study of the relation between natural/early and conventional/school literacy, the teachers\u27 perceptions of the presence of language curricula connection, as well as practices resulting from the study of curricula. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 32 teachers. Research findings show that pre-primary and primary school teachers partially agree with the integration of curricula, delineating it within a specific context and proposing common goals and teaching approaches that will be governed by continuity and consistency. Pre-primary school teachers who disagree, strongly express their concern about the potential schoolification of pre-primary school, while primary school teachers who disagree persist in the view of preschoolers\u27 inability to acquire knowledge intended to be acquired by primary school children, who are, theoretically, in the age group with respective cognitive, mental and emotional maturity. They want play to maintain as the primary teaching and learning tool in pre-primary school while systematic teaching with elements of the playful way of pre-primary school learning to maintain in primary school
Cognitive activation in L1 literature classes: A content-specific framework for the description of teaching quality
Get PDFIn recent years, the scientific determination of teaching quality has become a central topic and productive field within empirical classroom research. With respect to L1 literature education, there is no framework within which attempts can be made to consistently interpret domain-specific criteria of teaching quality. Against this background, this paper follows two main questions: What does teaching quality in L1 literature classrooms mean? How can teaching quality be operationalised? This paper argues that the construct of cognitive activation offers a suitable approach to integrate existing specifications of teaching quality in L1 literature classrooms and to identify and define characteristics of a content-specific view. The key result presented in this paper is a highly inferential coding system that operationalises cognitive activation for L1 literature classes. The operationalisation regards tasks in process to be indicators for cognitive activation. The theoretical conceptualisation is based on empirical data from a pilot study for the research project KoALa (Cognitive Activation through Tasks in Literature Classes). In this pilot study, six literature lessons were videotaped, involving analysis of the same short story with six different teachers and classes (107 students, grade 8, German “Gymnasium”)
For what benefit? Grammar teaching materials in upper primary Danish L1
Get PDFThis article contributes new insights into grammar teaching in Danish L1 by examining the three most frequently used learning materials concerned with grammar in upper primary school in Danish L1. An analysis of the why, what and how in the three materials shows that they state a prescriptive purpose, pay particular attention to spelling and punctuation rules, and suggest a repetitive grammar teaching approach. The analysis also shows that recent pedagogical trends such as process writing and genre pedagogy are not reflected in these popular upper primary Danish L1 grammar teaching materials. Thus, the article sheds light on an under-researched content area in L1 education in Denmark, and it aims to contribute to a qualified debate about the role of grammar teaching and grammar teaching materials in L1 education, in dialogue with existing empirical research
‘It is a dialect, not a language!\u27—Investigating teachers\u27 beliefs about Mewati
No full textThere is a paucity of research on dialect awareness among teachers, particularly in South Asia. This paper investigates teachers\u27 beliefs about Mewati, a vernacular language variety spoken by the Meo people living in Haryana, India. Data was collected primarily through detailed semi-structured interviews from local native Mewati speaking Meo and non-Meo teachers working in rural government and urban private schools. Nearly all teachers expressed unfavourable beliefs towards Mewati and discouraged its use in the classroom. This despite teachers candidly admitting students struggle, often as late as the eighth grade, with the standard language(s) of Hindi and/or English adopted as the medium of instruction. Viewing this as a rite of passage all students must go through, teachers normalized the status quo by calling it a ‘natural\u27 and ‘transitory\u27 phase. This article argues, however, that these teachers\u27 beliefs and practices leave students struggling for far too long during their crucial years of learning and development. 50% of students leave school before reaching the eighth grade in India (UNICEF, 2005). These high dropout rates found across Mewat and India more generally could partly be explained by student alienation. Part of this alienation is a result of disregarding students\u27 first languages which are stigmatized as ‘dialects\u27
Positioning students as linguistic and social experts: Teaching grammar and linguistics in the United States
Get PDFLanguage study has traditionally been situated within the L1 classroom. However, the study of the structure of language—grammar—diminished in U.S. schools, beginning in the mid- to late-20th century, for a variety of reasons, some of which are summarized here. Because of the misunderstandings about what grammar is and the controversies surrounding its teaching in the L1 classroom, in the United States at least, it can be beneficial to focus on linguistics instead of grammar. In this article, I offer an overview of the ways in which the study of language has been incorporated into primary and secondary schools in the U.S. When the focus is on teaching “linguistics” instead of just grammar, narrowly defined, not only do students gain a great deal of grammatical knowledge, but there are also other benefits. Students may be empowered by their own unconscious knowledge of language; they learn to employ scientific methodology to analyze language data; they come to understand the systematicity of all language varieties; and they can work themselves to reduce the discrimination that comes with a focus on a privileged variety of standardized grammar
Grammar teaching 91-19: An analysis of the Portugese curricula
Get PDFThe scope of the present study is the discourse about grammar, as a curriculum component, in the syllabi and learning outcomes for Basic and Secondary Education in force in Portugal from 1991 to 2019. The corpus includes thirteen curricular documents that conveyed the prescribed curriculum for Portuguese L1. A comparative study guides the analysis of the curricular dis-course, focusing on three issues: (i) the concept of Grammar, (ii) the place of Grammar among other curriculum components, namely Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Reading, and (iii) the degree of explicitness in grammar instruction. Three dichotomies (dependence / autonomy, prescriptivism / descriptivism, and language skills / reflective thinking), addressed in research, cross over the discourse about Grammar in the official documents. The results show different frames for Grammar conceptualizations, place and type of instruction, in a pathway from a de-pendent to an autonomous curricular component, and from instrumental goals to a balance between language skills enhancement and reflective activity
Persistence of interference from L1 Arabic in written Hebrew
Get PDFAs the official and predominant public language in Israel, Hebrew is taught in Arab minority schools, most-ly by L1 Arabic-speaking teachers. Active acquisition of Hebrew accelerates in the immersion conditions of high education. I explore the persistence of very common interference errors in various linguistic domains, as established by teachers\u27 written corrective feedback, and the correlation between persis-tence, error salience and a general learner effect. From a corpus of 56 Hebrew essays written by 9th graders, 11th graders and undergraduate students in southern Israel, the 14 most frequent interference errors were isolated and incorporated in a compiled test essay, which was then given to 13 L1 Arabic-speaking teachers of Hebrew to correct. The salience of each item was established by the percentage of teachers correcting it; each was also graded for its status as a general learners\u27 error. Statistical analysis showed a significant correlation between each of these two measures and persistence over the time period studied. This corroborates a multiple effect approach to persistence. Localized errors of phonolo-gy, orthography, and morphology generally declined faster than syntactic errors, which persisted espe-cially in structures that occur in L1 Hebrew, marked for discourse-pragmatic effects
Envisioning history: Shaping literacy practices in the teaching of the early modern period in grade 6
Get PDFThis article aims to contribute knowledge of how literacy practices are actively shaped in the teaching of history. One teacher and her two groups of Grade 6 students were followed during a content area spanning 12 weeks that focused on the Vasa era in Swedish history. The collected material consists of field notes, transcripts of peer group and whole-class interaction, samples of students\u27 writing, and documented teaching material. Based on theoretical frameworks of literacy and classroom interaction, the analysis of the findings shows how the teacher, using resources such as texts, images, and one epi-sode of a documentary series, facilitated the students\u27 initial immersion in the historical period and sup-ported their developed understanding. The teacher is shown to employ a dialogic communicative ap-proach while also introducing more abstract and content-relevant perspectives. Although the teacher positioned the students to consider representations of key historical figures, opportunities to critically analyze texts as historical sources were limited. The implications for shaping literacy practices in ways which promote Grade 6 students\u27 development of disciplinary literacy in history are discussed
Written language in children with weak reading skills: The role of oral language, phonological processing, verbal working memory and reading
No full textThis study investigated patterns of written language and the relation of oral language, phonological pro-cessing, verbal working memory and reading to written language in early writers with weak reading and/or spelling in grade 2 (n = 39). In grade 3, the students participated in an assessment of oral and written language. A resolved group with age-typical oral language, phonological processing and reading (n = 11) performed better than their unresolved peers (n = 28) on almost all written language measures. Spelling, text length, grammatical accuracy and vocabulary diversity were the most challenging aspects for the unresolved group. Oral language correlated significantly with the composite written language score, text length and vocabulary diversity, while phonological processing was related to grammatical accuracy and working memory to the composite written language score and spelling. Word reading and reading comprehension were not related to any written language measures. Regression analyses con-firmed that oral language contributed significantly to the variation in the composite written language score, text length and vocabulary diversity. The results emphasize the importance of oral language for written language in early writers with (a history of) weak reading and/or spelling
Evaluating textbooks for primary grade reading instruction: A usable heuristic for L1 education
Get PDFAcross a large number of countries, reading textbooks is widely used in primary grade reading instruction. In Denmark, a quantitative study has shown that one single reading textbook (The first reading) strongly dominates the primary grades classrooms. The first reading presents itself as a learning material that covers all aspects of reading instruction, and that is based on recent research on primary grade reading. This article presents a set of criteria for the analysis and evaluation of textbooks for primary grades reading instruction, based on an overview of recent research studies on reading instruction showing that a balanced approach is the most successful (i.e. a combination of technical and meaning-oriented elements). The criteria are exemplified by analysing The first reading with the purpose of answering the question of whether it is actually research based as claimed. The analysis shows that the technical elements are systematically supported by The first reading, whereas the meaning-oriented elements are either left out or treated in an overridingly drill-based manner. In conclusion, it is argued that the set of evaluative criteria might constitute a helpful professional tool for teachers in relation to the challenging task of using textbooks as part of a balanced reading instruction