Faculty of Education - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 3 of 3
-
ItemAn analysis of education provision to older non-English speaking background youth with minimal or interrupted schooling in the Richmond/Collingwood area( 1987)This study is an analysis of educational provision in the Richmond/Coilingwood area for young people aged 16 to 24 years of age, of migrant or refugee background, who have a history of minimal or interrupted schooling. These students are mostly of Indo-Chinese or Timorese background , and face severe problems relating to their lack of literacy and poor English proficiency. Many of these students are unaccompanied refugees and face economic hardship in Australia. Educational programs running in five postprimary schools, two TAFE colleges and two language centres are examined in light of their relevance to the needs of these students. It emerges from this study that a small number of institutions provide responsive quality programs for this group. There are, however, general problems relating to the low status and marginalization of ESL programs in most of the institutions. These problems are compounded by a lack of funding, unsympathetic administration, ignorance of the issues and difficulties relating to accreditation. In some institutions, no provision at all is made for these students. Needs emerging from these issues may be summarized as follows. A greater awareness of the educational requirements. of this group must be developed. An informed collaborative approach must be adopted to respond to these needs in the form of appropriate ESL programs. Policy and administrative support must be forthcoming to assist in achieving these goals.
-
ItemUses made of students' writing: implications in terms of language and learning( 1980)Students in our schools do a great deal of writing - writing has always been regarded highly in our educational system. We, as teachers, are responsible for giving our students most of the writing that they do and, because of this, we need to answer some pertinent questions: e.g. Do we know why we give our students the writing? Are we aware of where writing fits in the overall learning process of our students? Is what we are actually doing in the classroom with respect to our students' writing the same as what we think we are doing? This study is concerned with questions such as these in order to determine what is current practice, and to critically discuss such practice in terms of its impact on the learning success of students. The relationship between thought and language is intricate, but there is evidence that these have different genetic roots and develop differently; at certain stages, their curves of development meet. Word meanings may be. viewed as the overlap of thought and speech, and it is through word meanings that there is transition from thought to words. Written language requires a higher level of abstraction than spoken language. There is a reliance on formal meanings of words, and more words are needed than with speech, due to the absence of a communicating partner whose knowledge of the current subject can be pre-supposed. The communication is meant for a person who is not present or who may even be imaginary; motives for written language differ from those for spoken language. Different types of language can be discerned. James Britton categorized language as being transactional, expressive or poetic, where the purpose of the language differs in each case. Language closest to the students' everyday speech is expressive, yet there is evidence the predominant language demanded of secondary school students is transactional, and this demand increases as the student moves up the school. If language plays, a central role in students' learning, what are the consequences of this? There is also evidence that, as the student moves through the secondary school, the teacher is seen increasingly as almost the sole audience for the writing. What impact does this have? What then, are the uses made of students' writing? Why do teachers set it? How do they mark it? What uses are made of it by teachers after they have marked it and handed it back? Two research reports are considered in detail which focus on such issues in order to determine what is happening across the curriculum at about middle secondary school level. The first, by Douglas Barnes and Denis Shemilt, made use of an open questionnaire. Factor analysis was employed to establish patterns. Replies were seen as falling on a dimension which was called the Transmission-Interpretation dimension. The researchers further hypothesized by extrapolating from teachers' attitudes to writing in order to reconstruct their attitudes to knowledge and learning. The second research report resulted from a survey conducted by the present writer. A closed questionnaire was circulated to teachers of middle secondary level in twelve schools and the replies were factor analyzed. Two factors were discussed in detail; for both factors, there was evidence that patterns in responses closely matched the pattern obtained by the Barnes-Shemilt study. Having obtained some knowledge of language types expected or demanded, audiences provided for students' writing and the uses made of the written work, the implications in terms of language and learning are discussed.
-
ItemRhetoric and reality: the struggle to achieve school status for language centres( 1988)The Language Centre Program (LCP) has been in existence for more than ten years. Language centres have never had formal status as schools nor as annexes of schools. As a result two major problems have emerged: first, because language centres do not have access to school councils, the usual resources which are made available to mainstream schools are denied them; and second, teachers in language centres lack a career structure comparable to that of their colleagues in mainstream schools. The Victorian Government's social justice strategy allows a focus to be placed on student outcomes. It also provides a framework within which the issue of school status for language centres in the period 1982 to 1988 is considered. There are clear contradictions between rhetoric and reality. Three different committees/working parties have addressed the issue and five key reports have been written in the six-year period. A number of factors explain why it-has been difficult to achieve school status for language centres: the volatility of the LCP itself; the dynamics of Commonwealth immigration policy; the complexity of Commonwealth-State funding arrangements; the nature, composition and outcomes of the committees/working parties which have addressed the issue; institutional inertia; and the changing attitudes expressed by interested parties. The Minister for Education's in-principle endorsement of the third report of the Working Party on Language Centre Status and a significant increase in Commonwealth per capita funding provide a note of optimism. But a clearly articulated New Arrivals Strategy Plan which translates the broad rhetoric of the State's social justice strategy into terms which are meaningful and realistic to the LCP needs to be developed