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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ItemEvaluating a peer mediation program : the perspectives of key stakeholders( 2006)Peer mediation has developed as a popular means of responding to and managing conflict in schools. Advocates of peer mediation assert that it is an effective method of encouraging students to resolve conflict constructively and can encourage responsible citizenship. This study emerged as a result of the researcher's involvement in a peer mediation program in a large regional girls' secondary college. The study explored the perspectives of key stakeholders (students, teachers and parents) on the impact of the peer mediation program and sought to establish what benefits, if any, were derived from the existence of the program. Specifically, the research focused on whether the program was supported, accepted and used by the school community and whether the perceptions of the program were congruent amongst different stakeholder groups. The study also investigated what outcomes were experienced by the trained mediators themselves. Factors which might encourage or limit students' use of the program were also explored. Data was collected prior to the training of a specific cohort of mediators and in the following year from key groups: the trained students, other students within the school setting, staff and parents. The findings indicate that the presence of a peer mediation program was seen to have a considerable positive effect on school climate by teachers and parents and that, in many cases, it produced positive outcomes for students. The most meaningful outcomes of the specific study, however, appeared to be the benefits for the trained mediators themselves, in terms of the development and enhancement of self confidence and life skills. The implications of the findings for the peer mediation program in the case study school and for other schools implementing peer mediation programs are discussed in this report.
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ItemCommunicative activities for developing English speaking proficiency in Thailand( 2005)This study investigated the effectiveness of the two communicative activities, Information-gap and Role-play, in developing students' speaking proficiency in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. It also provides an understanding of the dynamics of the learning process in the language classroom which resulted in students' progress in speaking. The study comprises a piece of reflective practice in the teacher-researcher's own practice, drawing on an integrated set of qualitative methods to gather data from all involved. This study was conducted in a normal language classroom of thirty-eight students in Thailand, and nine participants were targetted: 3 High, 3 Medium and 3 Low, based on language proficiency levels. Three research questions guided the study: (1) Can Thai students be assisted to use communicative activities, Information-gap and Role-play so as to overcome their weaknesses in speaking English?, (2) What most assists in the creation of meaningful situations?, and (3) What assists with the breaking down of affective barriers to participating in the two communicative activities? Data were gathered from four sources: Speaking Tests as Pretest and. Posttest, student diaries, teacher's journal and ethnographic interviews. The Speaking Test . used as both Pretest and Posttest was analysed by using mean, standard deviation and t-test Dependent measures to test the difference in students' English speaking proficiency between before and after the two communicative activities program. Results of this study reveal that using the two communicative activities, as an: innovative program had a significant impact on improving EFL students' speaking proficiency. Meaningful situations were established using pairwork and group work, both important features of Communicative Language Teaching in the language classroom. This novel classroom organisation created a positive atmosphere,. reducing affective barriers to language learning. Moreover, the dynamic classroom initiated a cycle of student progress in the language learning process which formed the basis of their progress in speaking English competently. Quantitative and qualitative data mutually supported the positive conclusions of the study. Based on the findings, recommendations have been provided for teachers in arranging the EFL speaking classroom. The Information-gap and the Role-play, are highly recommended as effective methods in the improvement of students' speaking proficiency. Additionally, this study attempts to conceptually establish a hierarchy in the relationship of these two activities that will be the most effective for assisting EFL learners in Thailand, at least, to achieve proficiency in spoken English. This study also proposes key factors that teachers must take into account in their attempt to achieve the goal of successfully teaching speaking skills in large EFL classrooms. In particular, it suggests - that when teaching materials designed for the two named activities are introduced to EFL teachers at all levels of education in Thailand, they may achieve success. There is a great deal the teacher must and can do to bring about success in this field. These include designing the materials carefully and arranging the classroom in new and challenging ways, ways which are, nonetheless, compatible with the realities of modern Thailand. Most particularly the teacher must be able to support the learners in their initial endeavours, as they begin to work in very different ways to those they have been used to, within themselves about their own spoken English; in how they work with their friends and classmates; and, especially, in how they relate and work with their teacher. Encouraging them to get through the challenges this offers by taking the time to consciously reflect on what is going on, was shown to be one way this could be done successfully.
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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.