Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemThe new English : an analysis of ideology in the professional literature of English-teaching, 1963-1978( 1982)This thesis focusses upon the professional literature of English teachers in Victoria in the period 1963-1978. Its concern is, firstly, to identify and delineate the distinctive features of the successive ideologies of English teaching which emerged in the literature during those years, focussing in particular upon 'the New English'. Secondly, it seeks to suggest reasons for their emergence, by examining contemporary socio-economic, political and institutional developments, to which the theory of English teaching has been responsive. Although writers in the professional literature presented themselves as spokesmen for classroom English teachers, their rationales and pre-occupations were not widely shared or successfully communicated. Therefore, the theories of English teaching which are identifiable in the literature do not represent the changing practices of teachers, but rather a succession of 'attempts by theorists to direct and control those practices. They also reflect the changing composition and configuration of a particular segment of the intellectual field over a period of time. Some aspects of the changing ideology of English teaching are thus the product of quasi-autonomous internal processes of self-reflection and debate within the profession. However, the major purpose of this analysis is to demonstrate how more widespread historical developments called forth a specific range of responses amongst theorists, whose role was one of intellectual management of those developments. It is claimed that the New English merits attention both because of its congruence with broader structural changes and because of the challenge it offered to existing forms of control over both teaching practice and the production of theory itself.
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ItemThe public examination of English in Victoria : a study of one external influence on the secondary school English curriculum( 1980)The secondary school English curriculum was determined by groups outside schools during the period 1944-1974. External domination of teaching content and methodology was ensured by a system of Public and Matriculation Examinations which empowered agents of the universities to prescribe courses and to assess students' performance in those courses. The University of Melbourne exercised these functions through its Professorial Board and the Schools Board before relinquishing its powers to the Victorian Universities and Schools Examination Board in 1965. Statute and tradition allowed these bodies to establish themselves as a centre apart from schools, and to legitimise their authority through the institutionalised processes of prescription, examination and review of performance. The effect of these processes was to subordinate schools, teachers and pupils. There was immense inertia in the Victorian system of external prescription and examination. Courses and examination papers remained essentially unmodified for long periods. Significant development in the conception and content of English courses occurred, effectively, only at Year 12 in response to social and educational pressures which had previously led to the withdrawal of Public Intermediate and Leaving Examinations. Broadening the goals of H.S.C. English did not, however, signal diminished control over curriculum from the centre. The fact of competitive examinations at the end of secondary schooling continued to shape content and methodology in the earlier years. Competitive examinations engendered in schools, teachers and pupils a narrow conformity, the results of which can most clearly be seen in the failure of the Class A system to produce school-based curriculum initiatives of any substance. The effect of external prescription and examination of English courses was profound. Relationships between teachers and pupils were strongly mediated by the system, reducing the autonomy of both by subjugating their intentions to the instrumental demands of evaluation. So much of a student's 'life chance' depended upon examination success that teachers and taught were continually constrained to focus their attention on the tasks expected in examinations. Fragmentation, in line with the different sections of examination papers, rather than integration became, therefore, the organising principle for teaching aimed at developing those techniques believed to be essential for success in the examination game. External examinations dictated that the English classroom was a place where pupils met to prepare for their encounters with examinations rather than to explore the nature and richness of experience through literature and their own use of language for real ends. The system of Public and Matriculation Examinations established in 1944 was a potent influence on the secondary school English curriculum. The system rested upon a powerful, conservative centre whose legitimacy was so thoroughly entrenched that it was able to admit reform only on its own terms. Thus, it was possible after twenty-five years of relative stasis to negotiate evolution in the details of the school English curriculum without alteration to the essential power relationships. After thirty years, English teachers were still without autonomy. Year 12 English courses continued to exert the pressures and to exact the dependence which had constrained mother tongue studies throughout secondary schools since 1944.