Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemLearner access to language research( 2008)This is a study of how my class of learners perceived the relationships between English language learners, teachers, and researchers, during a five week Intensive Academic Preparation ELICOS course at an Australian university. As a starting point, it seizes on the fact that learners, unlike teachers and researchers, are rarely, if ever, encouraged to engage with language research as a potentially valuable resource for language learning. Noting the dearth of literature surrounding this topic specifically, this study focuses on the appropriateness of various practitioner inquiry models for a naturalistic exploration of my own classroom. The approach taken is one of Exploratory Practice, which is a set of guiding principles motivated by a strong ethicality towards learners and teachers. Using everyday pedagogical activities as data collection methods, such as group discussions and summaries as well as individual written pieces, this study reveals three important characteristics of my learners: a sense of pride in their personal knowledge of English language learning, an understanding of themselves as individuals within the language learning process, and a deep concern with the practical aspects of learning English. Meanwhile, my learners generally portray the relationships between learners, teachers, and researchers as hierarchical and unidirectional, with researchers and research on top. Overall, the study suggests that there is some value in providing access for my learners to language research, and in the conclusion to the study I make some recommendations for future research centring around ideas of learner identity, teacher/learner understandings of roles, and the place of the individual language learner within language learning.
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ItemInteractions between first and second language writing skills in Macedonian bilingual children in Australia( 2009)The theoretical belief arising from the interdependence hypothesis suggests that there is a common underlying proficiency in bilingual literacy development, particularly with respect to literacy skills, strategies and knowledge transfer across different languages. According to this view a strong establishment in one language not only develops skills in that language, but also facilitates the development of a second language. The aim of this research was to look at the interactions between literacy in Macedonian and English and to analyse the role of the first language literacy in second language acquisition in two dissimilar languages. Although the research explored the relationships between first language (Macedonian) and second language (English) writing skills, strategies and knowledge, the influence of motivation and the performance in English were also discussed. Namely this research investigated the skills and strategies that Macedonian bilingual children use for writing in Macedonian script and whether these strategies have a positive or negative transfer to English literacy. This research also analysed the writing behaviours, and attitude towards the two languages and how they affect the transfer of literacy skills and strategies. To address the aim of this research and gain an in-depth understanding about bilingual children's language acquisition and development a qualitative case-study method was employed. The subjects for this research were six nine year old children from a Macedonian/ English bilingual school. They were asked to write recounts in both languages, Macedonian and English, in order to investigate the transfer of skills, strategies and knowledge across both languages. The think-aloud protocols were used to look into the writing process and to categorise the types of writing strategies that the children can transfer from Macedonian to English literacy. This method was used to observe children's writing processes while writing and simultaneously discussing what thoughts were going through their mind. The childrens' attitudes towards learning in two languages were discovered by using semistructured interviews. The official results from the literacy assessment conducted at the school were also analysed and compared. The discussion of findings from the six children focussed on the transferable skills and strategies and the relationship between Macedonian and English writing. This research confirms that writing behaviours and strategies that the children displayed were consistent across both languages, even though the languages have different writing systems. In fact this research provided a better understanding of children's biliteracy development from an early age in a bilingual setting. Results of the study indicated that there is an interdependent ability between the first language and the second language writing and that there is a positive transfer of skills, strategies and knowledge from Macedonian to English. Therefore the conclusion is that the development of the stronger language literacy (Macedonian) facilitates literacy development in the second language (English) and that access to two languages from an early age and the possibility of learning those languages can facilitate literacy development.
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ItemFilm as cultural resource for tertiary learners of English in Vietnam( 2009)The goal of English learning in Vietnam today is linguistic proficiency and competence in intercultural communication. Despite the consequent need for access to native-speaker cultural meanings for developing Vietnamese tertiary students of English to this standard, to date the existing instructional conditions have not accommodated this need. The problem lies largely in the use of decontextualised language learning, traditional methodology and, inappropriate textbooks. This study was designed to begin resolving this problem by examining the potential of a target language feature film, "Million Dollar Baby". The aims were to ascertain the affordances of the film for providing access to the designated learners to native-speaker meanings of language, how these might be realised, and at what cost. A theoretical framework of language and culture drawing from the work of Hymes, Halliday, and Bourdieu was established as the basis on which principles and strategies for examining and teaching the fi lm were developed. Firstly, three cultural themes were identified that were significant in the film and of likely continuing value to learners. Secondly, discourse analyses of key scenes manifesting each theme were made using published resources and the opinions of native speaker informants. Thirdly, a set of lessons were trialled with representative volunteer learners in Vietnam, in which the film was shown and the language and cultural aspects of one key scene for each theme taught through an integrated process of informed discussion, embodied experience and personal reflection. The classroom experience was videoed and also documented in teacher and student journals, supported by interviews. Analysis reveals that film can offer a diverse set of language and culture resources for teaching classroom-bound students to access the cultural base of the meanings of language in use. It suggests that a scaffolded process of both guided cognitive exploration and physical experimentation modeled on an actual scene is necessary if students are to perceive and recognise native-speaker meanings as intended. The demands on both teacher and student were not inconsiderable, but were highly rewarding and the results suggest careful exploitation of a suitable film may be a rich seam to follow for developing learners' intercultural competence far from any real social interaction in the target language.
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ItemStudents' experiences of the transition from bilingual to mainstream instruction( 2007)The benefits and effectiveness of bilingual programs (immersion programs) have been widely recognized world-wide. Accordingly, the number of bilingual programs has been increasing, particularly in recent years. Although a number of researchers have reported positive outcomes from bilingual programs based on measurable evidence, evaluation of bilingual programs from the students' point of view has been very limited. This study aimed to provide a greater understanding of how the Japanese-English bilingual school graduates from different cultural and language backgrounds perceive their bilingual school experience and their present mainstream secondary school program. By comparing and contrasting these two programs, the students described what they appreciated and the advantages and disadvantages of the bilingual program for them. Moreover, they also expressed their experience of transition to a mainstream secondary school. This study has identified that the different cultural and language backgrounds of the students are not a big issue for the students and they described a number of advantages of bilingual schools. However, they also identified that sometimes the varied levels of Japanese competency among the students in the bilingual programs caused a lower motivation for some students. Although none of the students had any difficulty adapting to the mainstream secondary school, they are frustrated by their present LOTE classes as the content is not at an appropriate level for them and they are often treated as a "special" person in class due to their high level of Japanese skill.