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Focussing on form in the classroom
Rod Ellis, Shawn Loewen and Helen Basturkmen
Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Abstract
Current theories of second language acquisition emphasise the importance of learners’ attending consciously to form. Similarly, current discussions of communicative language pedagogy stress the need for classroom language learners to focus on form as well as meaning. The study reported in this article is intended to contribute to both theory and practice. It examines the different ways in which teachers and students achieve a ‘focus-on-form’ (i.e. attend to linguistic form in the context of activity that is primarily message-oriented). Based on an analysis of 12 hours of teaching English in a private language school, a coding system is developed to account for the general characteristics of ‘focus-on-form episodes’ (FFEs). The system is then used to provide an account of focus-on-form in the classrooms studied, revealing that nearly half of the total FFEs were proactive rather than reactive and that more than half involved negotiating form rather than negotiating meaning (i.e. they were not triggered by any communicative problem). The paper concludes with proposals for future research.
Key words: communicative pedagogy, focus-on-form, uptake
The relationship between standardised test performance and language learning strategies in English Second Language: a case study
GD Kamper, Institute for Educational Research, University of South Africa
EB Mahlobo, Department of Education, Pretoria
EM Lemmer, Department of Further Teacher Education, University of South Africa
Abstract
The English language proficiency of South African learners is integral to academic achievement, career development and functioning in a multilingual society. Against this background, this article reports on an empirical investigation of the relationship between (1) performance in standardised reading/writing tests in English Second Language (ESL) and (2) the use of language learning strategies (LLSs). The focus of the study on LLSs was determined by the importance of self-directed learning in outcomes-based education (OBE). A literature study investigated the role of and interplay between contextual factors and learner factors in the development of English Second Language proficiency and their relationship with the ESL learner’s language learning strategies. The empirical inquiry comprised a case study of an underachieving Grade 11 learner in a secondary school in KwaZulu-Natal. The latter was chosen on the basis of poor matriculation results. Data gathering took place by means of the application of two standardised tests, the Writing Performance Test in English and the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning, an individual interview using a structured interview schedule and observation in the teaching and learning environment. It was found that a significant relationship between language proficiency (in terms of performance in standardised reading and writing tests) and LLS use can only be assumed with some confidence in respect of memory and cognitive strategies, but not in respect of compensation, metacognitive, affective and social strategies. The implications for language teaching in Curriculum 2005 context are briefly indicated.
Key words: standardised test performance, language learning strategies, English Second Language, KwaZulu-Natal, underachievement, secondary school, case study
Harry Potter (I): ’n Motivering vir die insluiting van die reeks in die onderrig van Afrikaans
Estelle Kruger
Departement Didaktiek, Fakulteit Opvoedkunde, Universiteit van Stellenbosch
Abstract
Many educators have already asked the question, “How should I read and handle the Harry Potter books?”. This article describes several criteria that have relevance for the educator of Afrikaans who has to choose prescribed books for the senior school phase. These criteria are discussed to enter the debate about the value of Harry Potter in the lives of young and developing minds. Firstly, the question is asked whether and how the texts are reader-directed, and secondly, the article focuses on the interaction between the text and the reader and the extent to which reading these books can satisfy the needs of young learners in the puberty and early adolescent phases. Thirdly, the article focuses on the functionality of these books in the education process and fourthly, the possibility that the series can contribute to the quality of education gets attention. Fifthly the communicative potential of the texts in a reader response approach is discussed, and lastly the contextual orientation of the books is explored. Eventually this article will be followed up by a second article to focus on the intertextuality to see what the literary value of the Harry Potter texts is.
Keywords: Harry Potter; youth literature, fantasy; teaching strategies; criteria for evaluation, reader's response
Harry Potter (II): Intertekstualiteit en literęre genres in die reeks
Estelle Kruger
Departement Didaktiek, Fakulteit Opvoedkunde, Universiteit van Stellenbosc
Abstract
This article explores the intrinsic criteria that are applied to discover the literary value of the Harry Potter texts. The aim of the article is to equip educators of Afrikaans in the intermediate and senior school phases with background knowledge by providing an overview of discussions and commentaries on the literary genres in which these texts can be read, as well as examples of relevant intertexts. Educators who have chosen to prescribe these texts for learners of Afrikaans can use the texts to develop learners’ critical literacy by means of problematising the culture and knowledge offered by the texts for readers to weigh and evaluate. The Harry Potter series in Afrikaans offers educators an opportunity to stimulate the interest of Afrikaans-speaking readers in the rich cultural heritage represented by the fantasy, Gothic and school series genres. These texts can furthermore challenge the readers to think critically about the implied intertexts in order to construct their own identity and moral choices. In relation to the aesthetic value of the Harry Potter books, they are firstly discussed as examples of fantasy and how they represent different elements of fantasy. Secondly, Harry Potter can be read in the Gothic tradition, and examples of Gothic elements are shown. Finally, it is shown that the books are a typical school series combination and that they can be read as such.
Keywords: Harry Potter; evaluation criteria; intertextuality; fantasy; Gothic novel; school series; critical literacy
Sleutelwoorde: Harry Potter; beoordelingskriteria; intertekstualiteit; fantasie; Gotiese spanningsverhaal, skoolreeksboeke; kritiese geletterdheid
Paradigms of curriculum design: Implications for South African educators
Sioux McKenna
Centre for Higher Education Development, Durban Institute of Technology
Abstract
This paper provides an overview of the four major research paradigms and suggests that they provide useful ways of looking at curriculum design. It proposes that worldviews can be roughly delineated along similar categories to those of research and that the fundamental differences between these four paradigms is a major factor accounting for the different ways in which educators approach the task of curriculum design. The paper uses quotes from course evaluations to illustrate these differences and to question how educators with each of the four worldviews would use student evaluations as a means of course improvement.
Key words: Research paradigms, curriculum design, student evaluations, academic development
Error treatment in students’ written assignments in Discourse Analysis
Philip H. Mhundwa
Communication and Study Skills Unit, University of Botswana
Abstract
In an attempt to highlight the need for lecturers to adopt clear strategies for treating language usage errors in written assignments, the writer of this article analysed selected students’ essays to determine some of the error handling strategies that can be used at tertiary level. The suggestions made at the end of the study were based on the analysis of data collected from student’s written work in Discourse Analysis. Although there is generally no consensus on how lecturers should treat students’ errors in written assignments, observations in this study enabled the researcher to provide certain strategies that lecturers can adopt.
Key words: Error treatment; error handling; corrective feedback, positive cognitive feedback; negative cognitive feedback; global errors; local errors; Terminable Units (T-Units)
A journey in Megokgo ya lethabo and “Tubatse”
M.J. Mojalefa
Department of African Languages, University of Pretoria
Abstract
When Groenewald (1993a: 20) examined Northern Sotho novels, he realised that certain authors have written about a journey. They have used it in different ways to achieve different aims and objectives. Groenewald is the first to emphasise the importance of a journey when an author to reveal and display his intentions in writing such a work of literary art uses it. This will be examined in full so that the importance of the journey as used as a technique can be realised. In Megokgo ya lethabo, (1992) Lentsoane uses a journey technique to resolve problems brought about by Dikgoneng’s marriage. On the other hand, Mahapa (1968) uses the journey technique to contrast modern and traditional ways of living. By so doing, he creates problems because a modern philosophy of life and a traditional attitude to life are two different things.
Ge Groenewald (1993a: 20) a sekaseka dipadi tša Sesotho sa Leboa o lemogile gore go na le bangwadi ba bangwe bao ba ngwadilego ka leeto. Ba diriša leeto ka ditsela tša go fapafapana go fihlelela maikemišetšo le dinepo tša go fapafapana. Groenewald ke wa mathomo wa go gatelela bohlokwa bja leeto ge mongwadi a le diriša go utolla le go tšweletša maikemišetšo a gagwe ka mešomo yeo ya bokgabo. Taba yeo e tla tsinkelwa ka botlalo gore bohlokwa bja leeto bjalo ka ge le dirišitšwe bokathekniki bo tsupollwe. Mo go Megokgo ya lethabo (1992), Lentsoane o diriša thekniki ya leeto go rarolla mathata a go hlagišwa ke lenyalo la Dikgoneng. Ka lehlakoreng le lengwe, Mahapa (1968) yena o diriša thekniki ya leeto go fapantšha bophelo bja sebjalebjale le bja setšo. Ka go dira bjalo, o hlola mathata ka gobane tsela ya selehono ya bophelo le mokgwa wa bogologolo wa bophelo ga di nwešane a mokgako.
Key words: Technique, journey technique, traditional attitude to life, modern philosophy of life
The effect of tertiary study at an English medium university on the written English of speakers of Black South African English
Jean Parkinson
Science Faculty, University of Natal
Abstract
Increasing numbers of South African students speak a variety of English known as Black South African English (BSAfE). Lectures, notes and textbooks are in Standard English, and might be expected to influence the written English of students. Students are under pressure to produce “correct” English, as assignments and exams containing too many non-standard constructions may be misunderstood by lecturers or possibly viewed as ungrammatical and thus worthy of fewer marks. This article finds little change in the variety of English used by science students in response to exposure to standard South African English over a period of two to five years. It speculates that this may reflect a positive attitude towards BSAfE influenced perhaps by the use of BSAfE by government officials and a rapidly growing group of successful middle-class South Africans. Secondly, it finds a high level of variability in use of the constructions studied. It suggests that this may be because much of the English heard by students remains BSAfE, reinforcing variability in the grammars of the participants. Finally, this high level of variability indicates that it is too early in the development of BSAfE to talk of restandardisation of English in South Africa.
Keywords: Black South African English, restandardisation, language variability, grammatical accuracy.
‘Small’ and ‘grand narratives’ of English teaching and social agency in South Africa post-1994
Devi Sarinjeive
Department of English, Vista University (VUDEC)
Abstract:
At Vista in recent times in order to be relevant lecturers in the English Department have had to extend the literature, theory and academic reading and writing repertoire to include new modules, such as ENG5009: Reading and Writing Skills for Business English . Students study the workings of groups in business, how to identify and manage conflict situations, conduct meetings, compose notices, agendas, minutes, reports and presentations and how to manage time and the rules of grammar. In this paper I seek to show that from a postmodernist perspective ENG5009 is to some extent a response to the local context, a Lyotardian ‘small narrative’ (‘petit recit’) in its own right and, simultaneously, traceable to the ‘grand narratives’(‘grands recits’) of English produced and reproduced continuously since its inception as a field of study. Moreover, as a ‘grand narrative’ post-apartheid offspring, ENG5009, the type of English now demanded both locally and globally, will be shown to be complicitous with ‘neo-colonialism’.
Keywords: small and grand narratives, English the subject, English as literacy, social agency
L’autobiographie comme introduction ŕ la critique dans l’enseignement du français langue étrangčre (niveaux avancés)
Elisabeth Snyman
French Department, Rand Afrikaans University
Abstract
Curricula designed for the teaching of French as a foreign language usually exclude literary theory, which is considered as a meta-science reserved for first language speakers only. This article postulates that postgraduate (i.e. Honours) students of French as a foreign language should also be introduced to the underlying theories of their discipline. The theoretical debate which surrounds autobiography is proposed as a point of departure to initiate the student into the field of literary criticism. This essay suggests a case for autobiography as a field of study to which a student can relate with greater ease. Theoretical and critical reflection on literature, which is by definition an activity of a highly abstract and academic nature, would thus become more accessible to students whose French is still far from perfect.
Keywords: autobiography/autobiographie; teaching of French as a foreign language/ enseignement du Français Langue Etrangčre; literary criticism/critique littéraire
Some aspects of success performing in departments preparing candidates for language teacher recruitment in the French secondary education system
Guy Tchibozo
Centre de Recherche sur la Formation, IUFM d’Alsace (Fran
Abstract
In France, secondary teachers are public sector employees. Becoming a language teacher in secondary education is subject to passing public competitive entry examinations. Preparation for these examinations is provided in College Departments, which are essentially assessed on the basis of their success performance in the exams. This paper analyses the determinants of Departments’ success performance. We first present the broad lines of the French system of language teacher recruitment in secondary education. Next, by means of statistical analysis of data from a survey on Departments, we isolate significant determinants of success performance. Finally, from this analysis, we derive some strategic implications for the management of Departments’ success performance.
Keywords: Assessment, Educational administration, Language teacher induction, Language teacher preparation, Performance analysis
Linguistic Aspects of Intercultural Communication
Svetlana Ter-Minasova
Dean, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Moscow State University
Abstract
The paper deals with linguistic issues hampering intercultural communication. These issues are:
1. Collocational or lexical-phraseological constraints of speech production. This means that any word in any language has its own, characteristic only of the language in question, set or reserve of words with which it is compatible
2. Difference in semantic and stylistic connotations.
Words of different languages with the same meaning (that is referring to the same object or phenomenon of reality) may have different connotations determining their use in speech.
For example, the English word crimson and the Russian word bagrovy as colour terms refer to the same part of spectre but the Russian word has strong negative connotations unlike its English “equivalent”.
3. The socio-cultural factor is a great problem of communication because it is invisible and often forgotten. Every nation has its own cultural vision (picture) of the world underlying its language picture which may lead to conflicts of communication.
Keywords: Linguistic Aspects of Intercultural Communication.