An account of second language teaching and learning in a multi-standard farm school classroom, utilising an ethnographic approach
- Authors: Krause, Siobbhan Karen
- Date: 1998
- Subjects: English language -- Study and teaching -- South Africa -- Foreign speakers Rural schools -- South Africa Community and school -- South Africa English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers Education, Rural -- South Africa Black people -- Education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1416 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003297
- Description: Multi-standard classrooms are a distinctive feature of many South African farm schools. This study adopts an ethnographic approach in order to explore how classroom life in one particular Eastern Cape multistandard farm school classroom is shaped by a set of circumstances which influence the nature of teaching and learning in that classroom. The research focuses on the extent to which the difficulties associated with teaching a multi-standard class dictate the teacher's approach to lesson planning and style of teaching and how the resultant pattern of interaction influences language learning within a second language context. Data from a variety of sources, obtained primarily through classroom observations, interviews and questionnaires, is presented. Findings tend to indicate that the demands made on the teachers and pupils in terms of large, multi-standard classes, second language medium of instruction and lack of teaching aids, encourages the use of rote learning techniques which are not conducive to language learning. The pattern of interaction that predominates is a teacher-led series of questions and prompts followed by a chorus response from the pupils. This pattern tends to undermine the communicative aspects of language learning by reducing natural interaction and results in pupil passivity as language learners.
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- Date Issued: 1998
Determining industries' environmental training needs, with special reference to the manufacturing and engineering industries in the Eastern Cape
- Authors: Mabunda, Khensani
- Date: 1998
- Subjects: Manufacturing industries -- Employees -- Training of -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Environmental education -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1900 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006217
- Description: This paper presents the outcome of two case studies and a survey of manufacturing and engineering industries in the Eastern Cape, to explain their environmental education and / or training needs. The methods involved in case studies were interviews, observation and document analysis and for the survey a postal questionnaire. Respondents were generally able to identify their companies' environmental impacts and most thought that education and/training has a role to play in helping them deal with those impacts. While respondents identified environmental awareness for workers as the main role that education and / or training can play, it also has to help management understand its environmental role in dealing with environmental management systems and legislation, as well as supporting education and training. Education and/or training should take both managers and workers beyond the superficial understanding of the concept of environment. In-house and external trainers were identified as potential trainers as this would both overcome a current lack of capacity and make continuity possible when external trainers cease training. Trainers should be environmentally qualified. Respondents have mostly shown support for learning-on-the-job but less so on special environmental courses or including an environmental component in all training programmes. Some training sections consider their sections as already overladen and unable to accommodate other training programmes. The problem is therefore more logistic than environmental.
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- Date Issued: 1998
Graphicacy as a form of communication in the primary school
- Authors: Wilmot, Pamela Dianne
- Date: 1998
- Subjects: School children -- South Africa Visual communication Perception in children Visual literacy Pictures
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1551 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003433
- Description: Children of today inhabit a multi-dimensional world, and in order to communicate effectively in it, they need the ability to utilise four forms of communication namely, oracy, literacy, numeracy and graphicacy. Communicating in graphic form requires an ability to both encode and decode spatial information using symbols, which requires the utilisation and application of spatial perceptual skills and concepts. The acquisition of graphic skills has been influenced by traditional developmental perspectives; increasingly the assumptions underpinning these have been challenged by more recent international research findings. The draft Curriculum Framework for General and Further Education and Training (1996: 18) identifies graphic literacy as one of the critical outcomes of the new South African curriculum. For graphic literacy to be an achievable outcome of the new curriculum, we need to investigate the skills and concepts underpinning this form of communication. The goal of this research is to investigate graphicacy as a form of communication in South African primary schools. However, given the scope of a research project of this nature, it was decided that rather than dealing with graphicacy per se, pictures as the most frequent and concrete type of graphic communication encountered by young learners would be focused on. In seeking to investigate pictures, the first stage of the study is concerned with diagnosing and illuminating children's graphic skill development through identifying: what skills they use; how they use and apply these when communicating through and interpreting symbols; and the difficulties they experience when, firstly, encoding spatial information through a series of practical and drawing tasks; and secondly, when reading and interpreting pictures. The second stage of the study investigates the extent to which children's early childhood experiences may or may not have impeded or enhanced the acquisition of skills necessary for understanding and communicating about space. The research findings, evaluated according to existing and emerging theoretical perspectives on graphicacy, will help to illuminate the current situation regarding the graphic literacy of South African primary school children. The study may contribute to wider international debates about graphicacy as a form of communication and the development of graphic literacy, from a South African perspective.
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- Date Issued: 1998
Using the local environment for outcomes-based education: issues raised for INSET by teachers' perceptions of agents of change
- Authors: Burton, Noreen
- Date: 1998
- Subjects: In-service education and training for teachers Teachers -- Training of -- South Africa Teachers -- In-service training -- South Africa Competency-based education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1818 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003704
- Description: South African education is in the process of undergoing what has become known as a "paradigm shift", requiring a change from the familiar transmission method to outcomes-based education (OBE) founded on social constructivist theories oflearning and teaching. Teachers, (45% of whom are poorly qualified), "will play a pivotal role in the success or failure of this change. There is therefore an urgent need to re-educate in-service teachers in the philosophy, and related methodologies underpinning Curriculum 2005. To this end, in-service education courses need to be developed "which will encourage teachers to reconstruct their beliefs about teaching and learning. INSET programmes in the past were aimed at either "topping up" qualified teachers, or "adding on" for under qualified teachers - neither of which have proved successful. It is therefore unlikely that applying similar methodologies to support teachers in the shift to OBE will meet with success, nor will simply "training" teachers to use the new learning programmes. Government documents on Education Policy are calling for teachers to become reflexive practitioners, able to guide learners in their efforts to achieve the critical outcomes which are intended to develop a competent citizenry of lifelong learners. Therefore, teachers ought to be empowered as curriculum developers in their own right. This interpretative case study hoped to find out from teachers themselves what aspects of an activity-based environmental education course acted as change agents in assisting them to begin the shift to constructivist theories of teaching and learning. A variety of research tools were used, including questionnaires, interviews, journals, narratives and concept maps, all of which provided a rich source of data for interpretation. From what was gained from four participants in this research, tentative suggestions for incorporation into the next cycle of action research in future INSET programmes are made.
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- Date Issued: 1998