L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature
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Teachers as action researchers: Towards a model of induction
Get PDFTowards the end of 2006, a group of secondary and primary teachers, in collaboration with university researchers based at the University of Waikato, began a two-year journey where they researched their own practice as teachers of literature in multicultural classrooms in Auckland, New Zea-land. This presentation briefly outlines the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI), which initially provided a vision of teachers, working in partnership with university researchers, researching their own practice with the aim of enhancing the practice of the teaching profession as a whole. Through the eyes of one of the university-based researchers, but drawing on the experiences of four of the teacher participants, this presentation reflects on factors that had a bearing on the successful (or otherwise) induction of these teachers as teacher-researchers in their own right
Vocational students talk about texts in small groups
Get PDFThe study presents a comparison between how three teachers and their students talked about texts – narrative and expository – in small groups during a regular lesson and during two lessons where a new approach of comprehension instruction, Questioning the Author (QtA), was adopted. The students were 17 years old. The majority of them were poor readers and they attended the Health Care Programme. The lessons were videotaped. During the regular lessons, the teachers dominated the text talks and mostly asked retrieve information questions. The students—including the immigrant students—made few inferences and reflections. After the regular lessons, the teachers were invited to participate in seminars led by the investigator where the QtA model was practised before videotaping the second time and the third time. Results showed that during the QtA lessons the teachers´ share of talking time diminished. The teachers´ questions also underwent changes. The number of retrieve information questions decreased and construct message questions increased. The students – includ-ing the immigrant students – read more actively during the QtA lessons. They clearly made an effort to explore ideas in the text and made numerous inferences and reflections
Self-questioning in the literature classroom: Effects on students\u27 interpretation and appreciation of short stories
Get PDFIn this study we examined the effects of self-questioning on students\u27 interpretation and appreciation of complex short stories. Two experiments were carried out, in which tenth grade students from differ-ent secondary schools participated. In Experiment 1 self-questioning instruction was compared to instructor-made questions about stories. In Experiment 2 two forms of self-questioning instruction were compared: an unguided and a guided form. Literature discussions in peer groups formed a substantial part of all conditions. Results showed that (unguided) self-questioning had a positive effect on students\u27 appreciation of literary stories, compared to instructor-prepared questions and to guided self-questioning. The results for quality of interpretation were more diffuse. In Experiment 1 effects on students\u27 story interpretation could not be established. In Experiment 2 a main effect on story interpretation was found for both the guided and unguided form of self-questioning instruction. In addition, students\u27 reading experience appeared to be important for the effectiveness of the unguided self-questioning condition: avid readers tended to benefit more from this condition than infrequent readers. We conclude that an open literature approach, based on ‘authentic\u27 student-generated questions in response to short stories, can be beneficial for students\u27 story interpretation and appreciation
How hearing and hearing-impaired children differentiate emergent writing from drawing
Get PDFThis study compared Italian hearing-impaired and hearing preschoolers\u27 conceptions about writing, by examining how they differentiate writing from drawing. The relationship between emergent writing and verbal language within the two groups was also considered. Twenty-three orally educated hearing-impaired children from 2 years and 10 months to 6 years of age, and 23 hearing controls, matched to the hearing-impaired participants for age, took part in this study. Children were asked to write and draw, to classify their products as writing or drawing, and to recognize what they had drawn or written. Results suggest that hearing children have an earlier understanding of the two notational forms (writing and drawing) and are able to differentiate the traits of the two symbolic systems earlier than hearing-impaired children. This understanding and the discrimination between the two different notational forms could be challenging for orally educated hearing-impaired children. However, once they have differentiated writing from drawing, hearing-impaired children can even develop more precise and stable writing representations than their hearing counterparts. Verbal language seems to be a relevant variable in this construction process
On the development of textual competence in primary education
Get PDFThe aim of this article is to present the results of an action research project, which has been put into practice in Primary Education. This project was intended to develop students\u27 textual competence, considering both comprehension and textual production. Our starting hypothesis was that teaching the schematisation of text types, focusing on linguistic devices that underlie text production, would promote the development of textual competence, leading to the production of more coherent and cohesive texts. In order to test this hypothesis we implemented the project in three phases. First, before the intervention, we collected texts produced by the students. Secondly, we implemented a didactic program designed to develop students\u27 textual competence. Lastly, after the intervention, we collected students\u27 texts once again. Data was analyzed according to categories that confer cohesion and coherence to different types of texts. Narrative, descriptive, and explanatory texts were assessed in terms of 1) building an autonomous text; 2) hierarchisation of information, and 3) textual organisation. Overall, results indicate that students developed their text conceptualisations, their understanding of the different structures of texts, and produced better writing. Indeed, their written work shows a marked progression from the beginnin of the intervention program to the end of the program
Cognitive differences in second language learners and the critical period effects
Get PDFResearch has shown a strong association between psychological, affective, neurological and learning variables, related also with age and gender factors, in the process of acquisition and/or learning of a second language. However, there is a theoretical controversy concerning the way the critical period may affect different aspects of language competence. We developed an assessment instrument to test the phonological awareness and general cognitive achievement in L2, for application in L2 learners and also in monolinguals (natives). The goal is to predict the dimension of age (chronological age, age of acquisition, age of arrival) in the L2 literacy skills development. The data collected pertains to the first phase of a larger study and includes 64 students with migratory experience, acquiring Portuguese as L2. Findings in what concerns the decoding competence and the first language transference will be discussed, regarding particularly the results from some of the tests: alphabetic ordinance, phonemic blending, alliteration judgement and dichotic hearing The achievement observed shows that children present lower levels of accuracy in L2 context than expected, not regarding the positive levels at the alliteration judgment task, which is not an evidence of phonological awareness (in the consciousness sense). Alliteration, and rhyme judgments are symptoms of normative phonological knowledge, which is not necessarily phonological awareness, and is based on the imitation ability toward verbal stimuli. The age factor remains as the main predictor of skill and ability and the mastery exhibited by the adult learners on particular levels of L2 phonology decoding does not confirm the critical period hypothesis, which calls for its revision and for new insights related to education orientations
Interactive readings of children\u27s literature in day care: Microgenetic analysis of the semiopictorial construction.
Get PDFIn line with educational issues involved in emergent literacy practices in preschool, in particular those concerning comprehension processes, this paper focuses on picture-based narrative comprehension during an interactive reading session of a wordless picture book, involving a group of children aged three and their teacher. Children are asked to make inferences about the meaning and outcome of the story, a procedure which gradually elicits their responses on how events link together, thus enhancing their capacity to use prior and implicit knowledge to build the story meaning. Moreover, this study highlights the importance of interaction for developing comprehension. Data collected was analysed following didactic microgenesis, an analytical approach showing that knowledge built during interaction depends on the joint construction of a zone of common meaning by which teacher and children try to adjust to each other. In order to help the process of merging different meanings of the story built online, a text written by researchers, following the narrative structure of the story, was read by the teacher after the picture-based reading. This led us to examine through interactional analysis which semiotic cues were used during recall on the following day, as an additional measure of knowledge construction
The literature classroom: Spaces for dialogue
Get PDFThe following article constructs an account of the pedagogy of a teacher of literature in an Australian secondary school. It provides a small window on her professional practice, and draws on a range of data, including notes made by a ‘critical friend\u27 as she observed the teacher giving lessons over several days. The participating teacher shared her lesson plans and engaged in conversations with her critical friend, as well as writing reflections about her teaching. In addition to recording classroom observations, the critical friend wrote extended reflections about what she had observed, sometimes in response to the teacher\u27s ensuing reflections about the success of the lessons. The study thus arises out of a professional dialogue between the teacher and her critical friend, and it attempts to convey a sense of their continuing conversation, as they reflect on what they have learnt from their collaboration. The article captures not only the professional learning which the teacher and her critical friend experienced through their ongoing dialogue, but the exchanges that occurred in this teacher\u27s classroom, as her students engaged in interpretive discussions in response to the text they were studying. The very best literature classrooms—so this article maintains—enable students to engage in exploratory talk (Barnes, 1978), where the very notion of ‘literature\u27, as an esteemed body of texts, is open to interrogation. The students in this classroom appropriate the language of literary analysis in a dialogical way (Bakhtin, 1981), making this language their own through their discussions of the work of a distinguished Australian writer. The protocols for classroom observation that were followed derive from the International Mother Tongue Education Network (IMEN), which positions teachers and academics as collaborators in research on the teaching of L-1, with the aim of facilitating comparative research on mother tongue education in various national settings. Rather than judging the work of individual teachers, the aim is to create opportunities for them to reflect on their teaching and to articulate their views and values in dialogue with educators in other countries. The goal of the following article is not simply to present the results of a research project, but to prompt readers to enact the interpretive activities at the heart of this inquiry into the teaching of literature. This article is itself a vehicle for others to join in a wider conversation about the teaching of literature across national boundaries
Literacy teaching in the L1 curriculum of Greek secondary education: An essay
Get PDFThis paper presents a study of the formal current L1 curriculum for lower secondary education in Greece. The aim of this study is to examine the ways literacy is defined and language is conceived by this curriculum. For this purpose Hasan\u27s (1996) literacy classification/taxonomy (partitioning into recognition literacy, action literacy and reflection literacy) was used. Curriculum was chosen to be studied because it is a fundamental, formally established educational text, deeply political. The analy-sis shows many internal inconsistencies of the curriculum under study. Besides, the way action literacy is promoted (through its close connection to the recognition literacy) reveals a strong tendency of the curriculum for knowledge reproduction and social conformism. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings and some thoughts not only about the said curriculum but also about the wider society whose product it is