Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemThe academic achievements of language centre students at a secondary college( 2001)What are the academic achievements of adolescent new-arrival English as a Second Language (ESL) students at secondary schools in Victoria, Australia? Research on Non-English Speaking Background (NESB) students in Australia has tended to neglect new arrival ESL students. To examine the academic achievements of this important subgroup of NESB students, the current study will highlight the academic achievements of a cohort of Victorian Language Centre students at a Secondary College over six years with interruption to schooling in their first language (L1) as the key variable linked to academic achievement in their second language (L2). Victorian Language Centres provide new-arrival ESL students with the English skills they need to start their secondary educations in L2. The current study examined the academic achievement of two groups of Language Centre students, those who completed their Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) and those who left the Secondary College prior to completing VCE. Their academic results were summarised into spreadsheets for quantitative analysis. Subsequent to the quantitative analysis interviews were conducted with four ESL students from the Language Centre currently completing their VCE studies to provide further insight into the factors that enabled them to do their VCE. Results indicate that the academic achievements of this cohort of ESL Language Centre students are poor and that interruption to education in Ll had a major impact on the students' ability to achieve academically at the Secondary College. The study suggests that L1 education is the key variable influencing the student's ability to acquire the academic language skills necessary to meet the academic demands of secondary education, particularly the VCE. Other factors such as support for learning and strong motivation were found to help students overcome difficulties encountered in their secondary education. However, students who were unable to overcome these difficulties left the College prior to completing VCE. It was concluded that the majority of Language Centre students faced uncertain economic futures once they left the Secondary College. The results of the study suggest that Language Centre students need more support and assistance to enable them to complete VCE or to access educational alternatives to the VCE. This study also suggests that more research into the effect of L1 education on L2 education be conducted as this was found to be the key variable in the students' ability to acquire the academic language skills necessary to meet the academic demands of VCE.
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ItemCritical language awareness and academic writing skills in English for overseas post-graduate engineering students( 2002)This research project examines the problems associated with bringing overseas post-graduate students to a satisfactory level of competence in Engineering Academic Writing in English. Having acknowledged that the teaching of more and more English grammar does not resolve the problem completely, this research project explores the possibility that an intervention program, based on a Critical Language Awareness approach, offers a promising alternative. By bringing to the students' conscious level aspects of their writer identity, which include issues of experience, status and power relations, their interests, values and beliefs, their voice(s), practices and ownership of their writing and issues of accommodation or resistance to change, it is shown that there is limited but promising evidence that student writing can be brought to a satisfactory level. However, as cultural norms are embedded deeply, change cannot be brought about readily.
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ItemA Screenage aesthetic in drama( 2002)This reflective practitioner study was designed to investigate the ways in which screenage culture impacted on the development of students' artistic meaning making in drama. As a teacher researcher I focused on a five week play-building unit that was undertaken by a Year 9 and a Year 10 drama class. The unit allowed the students to introduce elements of screenage culture into their work. The students discussed the development of their plays and these discussions were recorded and analysed. Themes emerged from the initial period of data collection that led me to question the levels of engagement of the planned activity and to consider the quality of aesthetic awareness among the students. In order to provide multiple perspectives, and support the classroom observation data, interviews were conducted with six students and three drama teaching colleagues. The data analysis highlighted the impact of the context on the quality of classroom drama and the importance of encouraging diverse perspectives during classroom discussions in order to develop aesthetic awareness. This study emphasises the need for the teacher to make connections between the teacher's world and the students' world in order to develop aesthetic awareness in the drama classroom.
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ItemThe language learning strategies used by Japanese learners of English in Japan and Australia( 2001)The research on language learning strategies (LLSs) to date has been conducted to investigate what kinds of factors (e.g., gender, language proficiency and motivation) affect learners' LLS choice. Although more people move from one language environment to another, there is little research on whether learners change their LLSs in different cultural environments and on what factors affect learners' LLS choice in cross-cultural environments. The current study is intended to fill this gap. For the current study, forty-six Japanese learners of English studying in Australia were recruited. They were given the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) designed by Oxford (1990) in order to investigate what kinds of LLSs Japanese learners tend to use in both Japan and Australia. In addition, a background questionnaire was used to gather information from learners to explore which factors affect LLS choice in cross-cultural environments. Results indicate that Japanese learners tended to use compensation strategies in Japan, while preferring social strategies in Australia. When they moved from Japan to Australia, they changed their LLSs because of the changed cultural context and the different teaching methods used in Australia. The factors affecting LLS choice were mainly gender, English proficiency and motivation. Gender affected LLS choice in Japan, while the influence disappeared in Australia. High proficiency learners tended to use a wider range of strategies than low proficiency learners. Motivation was the most influential factor on LLS choice both in Japan and Australia. The results of this study suggest that students need to increase opportunities to use English in Japan, both inside and outside the classroom, and to enhance their motivation for English learning.
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ItemPreservice teacher education for the preparation of secondary teachers of english as a second language in Australia( 2003)English as a Second Language (ESL) education in Australia has undergone tremendous changes in the last thirty years or so. Along with the changes in policy, the roles of the ESL teacher have also changed, reflecting the changing socio-cultural, economic and political climate of the time. Several new roles that have emerged can be seen as being particular only to this group of teachers. Student-teachers need to be effectively prepared for the roles that they will take on upon completion of their teacher education programs. This study investigates the effectiveness of one preservice ESL teacher education program, particularly from the perspectives of student-teachers, in preparing them for their future roles as ESL teachers. The study reveals the varied opinions that student-teachers have regarding different aspects of their course di study and the factors which influence their perceptions. It also discusses suggestions of improvement made for such a teacher education program, from the perspectives of student-teachers, their course lecturers and a sample of trained ESL teachers.
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ItemHow may the use of an abstract picture language affect student learning of energy and change( 2002)The teaching of `Energy' as a topic in school science has often been found in the professional and research literature to be incoherent and scientifically inconsistent. Boohan and Ogborn's `Energy and change' booklets are an attempt to outline a new way for teachers in junior science classes to talk about processes that drive everyday changes from the weather to a car moving. They have sought, around the central idea that change is caused by differences, to use easy language and find coherent ways to describe thermodynamic ideas. They developed a set of abstract pictures to make these ideas intelligible. In this phenomenological classroom-based study the experiences afforded two Year 8 classes and their teachers in the same school in Melbourne by the use of Boohan and Ogborn's abstract picture language are investigated. One teacher took a didactic/empirical approach. He taught from his architectonic conceptual map of energy and followed the standard textbook development of forms of energy punctuated by the recommended experiments and teacher demonstrations to illustrate various changes in form. The abstract pictures were used principally in discussion as summative and interrogative tools towards a clarification of the teacher's conceptual overview. The other teacher took a co-constructive experiential approach. She did not use a class text. The Boohan and Ogborn materials were used as gestural tools in the sense of presenting the gist of the embodied understanding- purposes and meaning- of teacher and students. There were some teacher demonstrations but no practical work. The picture language icons functioned as mediating tools in class conversations towards a perception not that certain predefined teacher concepts had been attained but rather individuals had attained confidence to go on from that juncture. The students' responses to the picture language, in class interaction and group interviews, revealed major similarities across these teaching approaches. Many saw the abstract picture language to be a powerful and economic representational or iconic device that afforded them a means of engaging their own embodied socio-cultural understanding of energy and change phenomena. Some were confused by the purpose and meaning inscribed in the icons. Both teachers felt professionally challenged in the employment of the materials and only partly satisfied by their different enactments. Both were engaged and curious about the intellectual, sensational and aesthetic dimensions of their and their students' experience.