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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ItemHuman capital : a case study of the AMEP( 1995)This study is an investigation of the Human Capital Approach to education in Australia. It examines whether or not the Commonwealth Government is steering education towards the incorporation of policies that invest greater emphasis and resources into human beings as contributors to economic productivity than it invests in their cultural and aesthetic value. The study incorporates the philosophies of the Human Capitalists and how successive Commonwealth and State Governments apply these philosophies in education policy formulation - particularly the provision of English language to adult migrants through the Adult Migrant Education Program in Victoria. The methodology used is a questionnaire of closed and open-ended questions distributed to AMEP teachers. The researcher duly followed up the questionnaire with interviews of four AMEP teachers in an endeavour to shed more light on the reasons behind the responses given by teachers in the questionnaire. The researcher undertook an analysis of the responses in order to investigate whether or not the Commonwealth Government gives primacy to economic objectives of the migration program over its social, cultural and linguistic objectives. The findings are that the AMEP teachers surveyed believe that the Commonwealth Government does emphasize economic objectives over all other objectives of the migration program. A Human Capital approach to education, reflected in the application of Economic Rationalism, is apparent in Australia's education system according to AMEP teachers surveyed and that such has been the case since the late 1970s. The literary works of Schultz, Smith, Dawkins, Piore, Crittenden, Benovat, Green, Pusey, Kennedy, Marginson and Grubb are included in this study. These works form the literature review of the Human Capital approach. As well, the Reports chaired by Karmel, Williams, Kirby, Fitzgerald and Campbell, and a variety of Commonwealth Reports and Working Party Papers into various aspects of education in Australia are represented in an investigation of the application of the Human Capital approach to education in Australia's main education policies. The findings of this research are that the Human Capital approach to education is influencing the AMEP and that this has wider implications for the national education system in Australia. Almost all AMEP teachers surveyed believe the AMEP no longer follows its own National Plan, in which it spells out its aims and objectives, but pursues the Commonwealth Government's primary objective of pursuing the economic aims and benefits of the migration program.
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ItemFace-to-face : cross-cultural communication with Somali-speaking parents( 2008)This research thesis reports on an investigation of cross-cultural communication at one Victorian primary school, at which the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of the staff and a sizeable proportion of the parents differ markedly. This qualitative, case study investigated the perspectives of one group of parents, all from a Somali speaking background, and school staff about the current levels of cross-cultural communication and how these key stakeholders believed home/school links could be improved. Data for this investigation were gathered from parent participants through group and individual interviews, some of which were conducted in Somali with the assistance of a bilingual research assistant. Consideration of these participants' vulnerable social status (Liamputtong, 2007), was an important aspect of this research process thus ensuring these parents, seldom heard within the school environment, had the opportunity to express their opinions and relate their experiences of cross-cultural communication with school staff. The data collection process, therefore, provides a model for excellent cross-cultural communication between an institution, such as a school, and a marginalised parent community. Written questionnaires, comprising open-ended and some ranked questions were used to investigate staff perspectives of cross-cultural communication. This was followed by a group interview with some staff members in which issues were discussed with greater depth. This research project revealed that the low-levels of cross-cultural communication noted at this school are not an indication of the level of goodwill held by Somali-speaking parents and school staff. On the contrary, all participants expressed a strong desire to learn more about the other and for communication levels to improve, recognising the importance of strong home/school links in improving educational outcomes for students. Through the suggestions, opinions and experiences of participants, a series of recommendations are made in this report, so that the momentum of improved communication, initiated by the research project, might be continued at the school, or within similar educational contexts.
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ItemThe emergence of consonants in severe to profoundly hearing impaired pre-school aged children using hearing aids or cochlear implant( 1997)The Nucleus 22 Electrode Cochlear Implant is being implanted in young, severe to profound hearing impaired children with the anticipation that spontaneous speech production will develop more in line with what is expected in normal hearing children This study investigated the early emergence of consonantal sounds in the spontaneous speech production of two groups of pre school aged children. The first group consisted of five children implanted with the Nucleus 22 Electrode Cochlear Implant and using the Multipeak Speech Processor (MSP). The second group of five children wore electronic hearing aids and had at least some aided thresholds in the speech spectrum. The consonantal inventories of each subject, collected over a thirteen month period, were compared within the subject groups, between the subject groups and also to literature discussing consonantal emergence in children with normal hearing. All subjects in this study were found to have increased the number of consonants in their consonantal inventories by the end of the thirteen month period. This result indicated that both devices were of some use to the subjects. Neither group showed a consistently larger increase in the number of new consonants that had emerged by the final inventory. The assortment of consonants emerging in the consonantal inventories of the subjects was also investigated and found to vary more on an individual basis rather than a group basis. However, the results did show that more implanted subjects had the consonants /s/, /w/ and / / in their inventories by the end of the study. More aided subjects had / / and /h/ in their consonantal inventories by the end of the study. Although being an average 12 months older than the aided subjects, more implanted subjects had consonants in their inventories that required the perception of high frequency cues. This study also showed two other interesting trends. Firstly, both subject groups had individuals that did not progress as well as expected. Secondly, the implanted subjects produced the unvoiced stops /p,t,k/ and the unvoiced fricative / / more often than the aided subjects.
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ItemSpecific strategies that can be applied to teach reading in English as a second language to children from different home language backgrounds in Uganda( 2005)The study examined the literature review about strategies that can be applied to teach reading in English to second language learners. Three `training' videos, containing model lessons for teaching English to students in Australia whose first language is not English, were also analyzed to provide an in-depth picture of how some strategies are executed in the classroom context. The aim of the study was to explore and identify particular strategies that can be applied to teach reading in English to children who acquire English as a second language in Uganda. Qualitative exploratory research was conducted to explore the strategies that can be applied to teach reading in English to children from different home language backgrounds in Uganda. Content analysis technique was established to collect data from videotaped model lessons for teaching English to students in Australia whose first language is not English. Using an observation framework, the data was collected and analysed in reference to: strategies carried out in the classroom contexts, teacher's role in language instruction and literacy activities in which learners were involved. The findings suggested particular strategies for teaching reading in English to second language learners with more emphasis on getting meaning out of text. Further, the teacher's role in language instruction was recognised to be vital in teaching reading in English to bilingual students. The results also showed that second language learners effectively learnt to read in English in language contexts that encourage peer-peer and teacher-learner interactions. The study concluded with a discussion of the results and their implications to the teaching of English as a second language to bilingual children in Uganda.
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ItemA new wave of migrants in our classrooms: teenage refugees from south Sudan and their perceptions of learning English in Australia( 2005)Worsening civil conflict in Sudan since the turn of the century has directly led to a dramatic increase in the number of Sudanese refugees arriving in Australia. Teachers are now faced with the challenge of creating an effective learning environment for a new group of migrants with whose needs, experiences, attitudes and approaches to learning they are largely unfamiliar. New and ongoing research is imperative so that teachers may appreciate the learning needs of a people whose individual and cultural experiences are so different from those of migrants from Eastern Europe and Asia who have preceded them in their move to Australia. This study aims to investigate and gain insight into the ways in which teenage refugees from south Sudan, now living in Melbourne, experience the learning of English as a second language (ESL) in Australian classrooms. The research also aims to understand their major cultural and individual characteristics, and to ascertain how these qualities shape their perceptions of learning ESL. The research takes the form of qualitative study, which involves observation of the student participants in their natural classroom setting, followed by individual interviews with seven Sudanese learners and two of their classroom teachers. Through a collection of individual case studies, this research explores the perceptions of the English language learning experiences of the seven participants. Adopting a grounded theory approach to the study allows the researcher to follow leads presented by the data, without being bound by rigid hypotheses. Based on relevant literature and previous studies, a number of initial assumptions about the Sudanese as learners were identified at the outset of the study. The findings of this research, however, contest and therefore problematise these earlier conclusions. Results indicate the observed learning behaviour of participants, as well as the insights gained through their interviews, may not be not consistent with the current stereotype of the Sudanese learner in Australia. In other words, findings indicate that the classic stereotype of the Sudanese learner is not accurate for this age group. Because of this, a disparity exists between students' expectations of pedagogy, and their teachers' actual styles and practices. It is intended the findings may offer teachers a better understanding of the Sudanese experience. Further, it is hoped that these new insights will and identify areas of classroom pedagogy that can be improved in order to create a more effective learning environment which addresses the needs of their newest group of students.