Faculty of Education - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 3 of 3
-
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.
-
ItemThe cognitive styles, learning strategies and vocational interests of South-East Asian and Australian students( 2003)Many factors are involved in the way an individual gains an understanding of Mathematics. Their cognitive style, i.e. way they code information for further processing in the brain, is one of these. The learning strategies that they use when a mismatch exists between their preferred style and the material presented to them is another. Riding and Rayner (1998) have developed a model for the whole learning process which contains two dimensions of cognitive style, the Wholist/Analytic and the Verbaliser/Imager dimensions. In the same way as individuals have different preferred cognitive styles, they also express different vocational interests. Holland (1985) developed a model for describing and assessing these vocational interests, the RIASEC model. Cultural factors may influence both an individual's preferred cognitive style and their vocational interests. This study investigates the effect of cultural factors in both these areas, looking particularly at the cultures of South-East Asia and Australia and the cognitive styles and vocational interests of students undertaking a first year university Mathematics course. Cultural differences were found in both areas. Students from South-East Asia (27 males and 17 females) tended to have a more visual cognitive style than Australian students (27 makes and 16 females), particularly when they learnt to read first in a character-based language. In accordance with the values of their Confucian-heritage background, the students from South-East Asia scored more highly on Holland's Conventional scale than did Australian students. In this study, support was also found for several aspects of Riding's Cognitive Control Model. One of these was the use of a Complementary cognitive style as a learning strategy when a mismatch occurred between an individual's preferred learning style and the material presented to them.
-
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.