Letteratura scientifica selezionata sul tema "Language and languages Study and teaching (Primary) Australia"

Previous studies have largely focused on the importance, problems, and challenges of teaching second languages in Australian schools, but very few have investigated the teaching methods used in the classroom to do so. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the methods applied by teachers who teach Indonesian as a second language in one of the public primary schools in South Australia to enable their Australian students to comprehend the instruction in the Indonesian class. The data were collected through observational field notes and video recordings of three class meetings from two teachers. Evidence gives validity to analysis, and thus the data were analysed using the transcription conventions as proposed by Burns, Joyce & Gollin (1996). The results showed that the most frequently used methods by the teachers in teaching Indonesian to the Early Year level students were TPR (total physical response) and GTM (grammar-translation method). TPR was useful as the act of moving around seemed to help the children remember the vocabulary. Furthermore, GTM helped the teachers clarify the meanings of words and sentences for the students by translating them into their first language, i.e. English. These methods were not taught in isolation but were integrated by the teachers with other methods such as the direct method and audio-lingual method. The reflection of this teaching practice is considered a worthwhile contribution for other teachers who are also teaching Indonesian in other countries and as additional insights to immerse themselves in their language teaching practice. Moreover, considering the benefits of becoming bilingual, such as in communication, culture, cognition, character, curriculum, and economy, schools should provide more training for teachers to help them be able to use the best techniques in teaching the second language to enable and empower them to integrate other languages into their classes.

In determining the implementation and execution of the classroom activities, the teacher’s beliefs plays an important role as one of the fundamental aspects of language teaching. In-depth, the beliefs also influence the learner’s competency and the achievement of learning outcomes. This research aims at observing the beliefs of a Spanish language teacher in a private language school in Australia. Data were gathered through interview and classroom observations. The interview was designed to explore the teacher’s beliefs regarding the language learning approach. Furthermore, the classroom observations were conducted through 1) complete observer observation and 2) complete participants observation. They were carried out to see to what extent the teacher implemented the beliefs into action. Pre-classroom questionnaires on the learner’s background were distributed to know the learners’ background. In the era where communicative approach becomes the axis of language teaching, this study suggests “scaffolding” as an alternative approach to language teaching. The finding indicates that some primary factors affecting the teacher to hold his beliefs are: limited classroom duration, small class size, and the condition of Spanish as a foreign language (FL) in Australia – where learning resources are limited. In the learning condition where the target language (TL) resources found to be scarce, this ‘scaffolding’ approach successfully and effectively equips learners with adequate knowledge of Spanish. Taking the ‘scaffolding’ as the major foundation to develop learners’ linguistic proficiency, this research provides insight regarding the use of ‘scaffolding’ toward language teaching and learning.

This article draws on data from a research study (Torepe, 2011) that investigated the lived experiences of six Māori teachers who recently graduated from the Hōaka Pounamu (Graduate Diploma in Immersion and Bilingual Teaching) course at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. The primary objective was to gain a deeper understanding of the lived experiences and various challenges confronting this group of experienced Māori language teachers working in English-medium, state-funded schools. This article describes the qualitative research methodology that was underpinned by a Kaupapa Māori narrative research philosophy. It then explains why the study's findings support and strengthen those of previous studies conducted in Australia. Most notably, they draw attention to the concept of cultural taxation and the Crown's principles for action on the Treaty of Waitangi. Given the large number of Māori children attending Australian schools and similar challenges confronting Indigenous Australian teachers, this research will be of interest to an Australian audience.

Purpose When providing professional development for teachers, certain factors should be considered and included to ensure it is effective and enhances teacher practice and outcomes for children in their classes. While this is achieved in many curriculum areas, there has been little written about effective professional development for teachers in relation to Aboriginal education in Australia, enhancing teacher confidence in meeting the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. This paper aims to describe a study concerned with the ongoing development of a professional learning framework empowering primary school teachers to infuse Aboriginal ways of seeing and being into their classroom practice. Design/methodology/approach Design-based methodology, using semi-structured interviews with teachers, allowed for iterative amendment and improvement of the professional learning experiences. A description is provided linking the elements of successful professional development for teachers to the implementation of this study’s professional learning. Findings Key findings are that if the elements noted in the literature pertaining to successful professional learning for teachers are included, change in practice does take place and is sustained, to the benefit of the children they teach. This study demonstrates the vital importance of ongoing collaboration and support for teachers undertaking professional development if they are going to change practice in the longer term. Originality/value The pedagogy described in this paper goes beyond content to an Aboriginal way of teaching children through modelling and how this can be infused into teaching practice.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider the growing interest in oracy and to propose the pedagogy of process drama as an ideal model for the dialogic classroom. Design/methodology/approach – This paper takes the form of an explanatory case study where the author draws on a successful drama/oracy project in a primary school in Brisbane, Australia, to illustrate the connections between Alexander’s five indicators of a dialogic classroom and the process drama in which the students participated. Findings – The application of this process drama as pedagogy for the teaching and learning of oracy has contributed positively to students’ oral communication skills and intercultural awareness. In addition, parents provide positive feedback about student engagement in school and developing self-confidence because “they have something to say”. Research limitations/implications – There was no formal pre-post test for the oral communication skills on this study, instead the researchers developed a draft “oracy” checklist which deserves further interrogation and development. Practical implications – There are implications for the use of process drama as a means of creating and sustaining the dialogic classroom. Teacher professional development would be required to assist the planning and delivery of dramas that allow for the deep and complex learning evidenced in this study. Social implications – This is an ideal vehicle for assisting in the development of empathy, collaboration, emotional intelligence and intercultural understanding. Originality/value – This is an example of an extremely high-quality curriculum plan and implementation. The importance of engaging in implicit and explicit instruction of oral communication for the twenty-first century should not be underestimated. The process drama allows oral language to be foregrounded, with additional learning opportunities from a range of other learning areas, brought together in a coherent and complex model of practice.

The case study in this article offers a descriptive account of challenges involved in teaching Australian Curriculum content in the common teaching context in remote communities where an Indigenous language is spoken as the everyday form of communication and students learn English in what is essentially a foreign language setting. An on-theground description of the work of a Primary school teaching team servesto illustrate the language teaching aspect of delivering Australian Curriculum content in areas such as History, Geography and Science. This aspect of the teaching team’s work is underestimated in the curriculum itself and in the guidance provided to teachers, yet is essential for student learning in this context. While the team draws on students’ L1 and early L2 English proficiency abilities to teach curriculum content, this work is not expedited from outside their classroom. An analysis of current curriculum offerings and the teaching team’s approaches finds that they receive little direction for the extensive language planning required. The findings suggest an urgent need for tailor-made curriculum and teacher guidance which better recognise this dual language context. This article canvases different curriculum settings that would alleviate this situation considerably, not only for this teaching team but for others in similar remote schools.

International student mobility has been increasingly subject to turbulences in politics, culture, economics, natural disasters, and public health. The new decade has witnessed an unprecedented disruption to international student flows and welfare as a consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak. COVID-19 has laid bare how fragile the current transactional higher education model is, in Australia and in other major destination countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. This health crisis hitting international education presents a range of challenges for host universities. In such a fallout, the connection between university communities and international students is more critical than ever. This connection is vital not only to university’s operations and recovery but more importantly, to international students’ learning and wellbeing. This in turn will have longer term impacts on host countries’ and universities’ sustainable international recruitment and reputation as a study destination. Therefore, it is timely to reflect on how we view and conceptualize the way we engage and work with international students. This article presents a new frame for conceptualizing the teaching, learning, and engagement for international students, which emphasizes people-to-people empathy and people-to-people connections. Conceptualize Student Connection Through Formal and Informal Curriculum Dis/connection has been argued to play “an important role in shaping international students’ wellbeing, performance and life trajectories” (Tran & Gomes, 2017, p. 1). Therefore, it is important to frame international student connectedness not only within the context of formal teaching and learning on campus, but also in a broader setting, taking into account the dynamic, diverse, and fluid features of transnational mobility. Some of the primary dimensions of international student connection vital to their academic and social experience and wellbeing have been identified as: • Connection with the content and process of teaching and learning• Bonding between host teachers and international students• Engagement with the university communities• Interaction between domestic and international students and among international peers• Integration into relevant social and professional networks, the host community, and the host society• Connection with family and home communities• Online and digital connection Based on interviews with around 400 international students, teachers, and international student support staff across different research projects, I identified four main principles underpinning effective engagement and support for international students. Most participants stressed the importance of understanding international students’ study purposes, needs, expectations, and characteristics in the first place in order to meaningfully and productively engage with and cater for this cohort (Tran, 2013). Second, effective teaching of and engagement with international students is based on understanding not only their academic needs but also other aspects that are interlinked with their academic performance, including pastoral care needs, mental health, employment, accommodation, finance, life plans, and aspirations. Third, a sense of belonging to the content of teaching and learning and the pedagogy used by teachers is essential to international students’ engagement with the classroom community. In this regard, connection is intimately linked to international students being included and valued intellectually and culturally in teaching and learning, and in being treated as partners (Green, 2019; Tran, 2013) rather than ‘others’ in the curriculum. Fourth, to position international students as truly an integral component of campus communities, it is essential to develop explicit approaches to engage them not only academically and interculturally, but also mentally and emotionally, especially during hard-hitting crises in international education such as the 2019–2020 COVID-19 outbreak, the 2003 SARS epidemic, and the 2001 September 11 attacks. Productive Connectedness The lack of engagement between international and domestic students is often identified as a primary area for improvement for universities that host international students, especially in Anglophone countries (Leask, 2009). While international education is supposed to strengthen people-to-people connections and enrich human interactions, ironically it is this lack of connection with the local community, including local students, that international students feel most dissatisfied about in their international education experience. To support and optimize the learning and wellbeing of international students, productive connectedness is essential. Productive connectedness is not simply providing the mere conditions for interaction between domestic and international peers (Tran & Pham, 2016). These conditions alone cannot ensure meaningful and real connectedness but can just lead to artificial or surface engagement between international students and the host communities. Productive connectedness is centered around creating real opportunities for international and local students to not only increase their mutual understandings, but importantly also to reciprocally learn from the encounter of differences and share, negotiate, and contribute to building knowledge, cultural experiences, and skills on a more equal basis. In this regard, productive connectedness is integral to optimizing teaching and learning for international students. Teaching and Learning for International Students Over the past 15 years, I and my colleagues have undertaken various research on conceptualizing the teaching and learning process for international students, an evolving and dynamic field of scholarship (Tran, 2011; Tran, 2013a, 2013b; Tran & Nguyen, 2015; Tran & Gomes, 2017; Tran & Pham, 2016). Figure 1 summarizes the six interrelated dimensions of teaching and learning for international students emerging from our research: connecting, accommodating, reciprocating, integrating, “relationalizing,” and empathy. Connecting It is critical in effective teaching and learning for international students that conditions are provided to engage them intellectually, culturally, socially, and affectively. Curriculum, pedagogies, and assessment activities should aim at supporting international students to make transnational knowledge, skills, experience, and culture, as well as people-to-people connections (Tran, 2013). Accommodating Effective teaching and learning for international students cannot be achieved without an effort to understand their purposes to undertake international education, their cultural and educational backgrounds, their characteristics, their identities, and their aspirations. Good teaching and learning practices in international education are often built on educators’ capacities to tailor their curriculum and pedagogies to cater to international students based on an understanding of their study purposes, backgrounds, and identities. Reciprocating Reciprocal learning and teaching is integral to international education (Tran, 2011). It is centered around positioning international students as co-constructors of knowledge and educators as reciprocal co-learners (Tran, 2013b). It refers to extending beyond mutual understanding and respect for diversity, to validate and reciprocally learn from diverse resources, experiences, and encounters of differences that international classrooms can offer. This is vital to making international students feel included and valued as an integral part of the curriculum and the university community. Integrating Integrating refers to the purposeful incorporation of international examples, case studies, materials, and perspectives into the curriculum. Strategies to diversify the teaching and learning content and pedagogies are closely connected with de- Westernizing the curriculum and moving away from Euro-centric content (Tran, 2013a). Integrating contributes to enriching students’ global awareness, world mindfulness, and intercultural competence, which are central to internationalizing student experience and outcomes. “Relationalizing” “Relationalizing” is crucial in assisting domestic and international students to develop open-minded and ethno-relative perspectives. Engaging students in a comparing–contrasting and reflexive process about professional practices, prior experiences, and cultural norms in different countries represents a critical step in assisting them to develop multiple frames of reference and build capacities to relationally learn from richly varied perspectives and experiences that an international classroom can offer. Empathy International students’ sense of belonging to the classroom and university community significantly depends on the empathy local teachers and students display toward them. Teachers can develop activities that enable students to develop an understanding and empathy toward what it feels like to be an international student in an unfamiliar academic and social environment, studying in a language that is not their mother tongue. One of the teacher-participants in our research shared an activity she used to help all students develop empathy:I asked for volunteers, I’d speak to them in English and they had to answer in their language. The group had to try and figure out from their body language and tone of voice what they were actually saying to me...But what I try and make them understand that part of the reason we’re doing that, not in English, is because it’s like excluding the local students and it’s making them look like foreigners and to understand the challenge. Conclusion Effective practices in engaging, teaching, and learning for international students enrich the international classroom community and optimize learning for all, including international and domestic students and teachers themselves (Carroll & Ryan, 2007; Tran, 2013b; Tran & Le, 2018). Good pedagogical practices in teaching and learning for international students depend on teachers’ commitment to step outside of their comfort zone and take on a new learning curve (Tran, 2013). It is, however, vital that internationalizing teaching and learning and building intercultural interactions among students from diverse backgrounds and—in particular between international and domestic students—should be prioritized at both program and course development levels, making them explicit in course objectives and assessments (Tran & Pham, 2016). It is crucial to have a coherent whole-institution approach toward a purposeful, transformative, and empathetic internationalization of teaching and learning content, pedagogies, and assessment, one that is supported by the broader institution’s core goals about internationalizing the student experience and graduate outcomes. An internationalized program of learning for international and domestic students alike should prioritize enhancing their abilities to learn from global encounters, abilities to connect and empathize, skills to navigate intercultural relationships, and skills to capitalize on opportunities and also to deal with pressures and challenges. Importantly, the teaching and learning for international students needs to be built on an approach emphasizing people-to-people empathy and people-to-people connections.

South Africa's history of segregation and the privileging of English and Afrikaans as the only languages of teaching and learning beyond primary schooling, make the post-apartheid period a complex one, especially in light of the Constitutional commitment to multilingualism in the 11 official languages. Research on literacy and language teaching contextualises the impact of curriculum and language policy initiatives aimed at improving learner performance. We review research concerning the transition from the study of first additional language (FAL) as subject, to the use of FAL as the language of learning and teaching (LoLT). Also considered are major studies on learner performance nationally and South Africa's comparability globally. The impact of home language (HL) literacy development on performance in English as the LoLT links to research on language development in teacher education programmes, and shows connections between the capacity of teachers to develop languages for literacy and LoLT and learner success. Research on the development of early childhood literacy in the HL demonstrates the positive impact on literacy development in the LoLT.

University language teaching in Australia has undergone significant changes over the past few years in spite of considerable constraints. Many institutions have responded positively to the changing needs of their students with new courses, study abroad programs and summer schools. This paper focuses on some recent innovations taking place in language teaching at the University of Melbourne. These relate to both policy and practice and include the establishment of a School of Languages. Taken as a whole these innovations constitute an important step in the development of a coherent university language policy and provide new directions in language teaching at this University.

Abstract This paper compares two sets of data from the same year, 2001 – the numbers of students taking languages other than English at primary and secondary level, and census statistics for the home use of languages other than English. The data draws attention to languages that are taught principally in day schools and those taken mainly in after hours programs, and to variation between States and between education systems. While it is acknowledged that the strong presence of a language in the community is not the only reason for offering it in schools, the paper demonstrates that some important international languages are now among the major community languages and that some of them are marginal in the mainstream education systems in Australia. The presence of large numbers of speakers will facilitate the utilization of community resources in language teaching. Consideration needs to be given especially to Arabic, Vietnamese, Mandarin and Spanish, community languages with increasing numbers, the first two especially among the young.

This thesis details research on the first phase of curriculum reform (1999-2004) in a government primary school in Western Australia. The purpose of the study was to examine what progress had been made with the implementation of the Curriculum Framework (1998). The research focussed on Music, Health and Physical Education, and Languages Other than English as specialist teachers working with the Curriculum Framework (1998). Teachers and school administrators, as frontline practitioners, considered their experiences and perceptions of daily practice and provided their perspectives on curriculum reform. The hypothesis formulated for the study was that with the introduction of the Curriculum Framework (1998) the delivery of these three subjects could be further improved. This study argues that successful curriculum performance of these three subjects traditionally considered 'specialist programs' may be more fully supported by becoming aware of the forces influencing Australian curriculum discourse and delivery. Subject knowledge endorsement in this study refers to the transfer of valued knowledge in Western Australian educational systems. It is proposed that if teaching professionals articulated the substance of their educational beliefs and experiences with regard to subject knowledge meaning, place and value, curriculum delivery in primary schools may progress more effectively. Positive learning experiences for all students can be provided through the encouragement of communication and collegiality together with relevant and accessible professional development. These measures can also be supported by mounting whole-school primary programs that engage with beliefs about Music, Health and Physical Education, and Languages Other Than English through collaborative networks and learning communities. Accordingly, curriculum delivery can come within reach of the seamless curriculum anticipated by reform (Curriculum Framework, 1998:6-7). In this qualitative interview study, the frontline participants included generalist teachers, specialist teachers and school administrators. These educational practitioners were asked to participate in an in-depth, semi-structured discussion that explored their perceptions of specialist teaching and knowledge while employed at Deep Sea Primary School in 2002. They teachers also commented on how these perceptions may be linked to their experiences of socially constructed and established notions of valued knowledge. The findings of this study indicated that the progressive implementation of these three subjects or specialist's areas were characterised by subtle historical, economic, political and social forces. This thesis suggests that, these largely obscured external forces together with individual yet, taken for granted perceptions of what is perceived as valuable knowledge work together to position curriculum rhetoric and curriculum enactment that reflect established perceptions of the knowledge hierarchy. Teachers and administrators at the school often operated within the structures and meanings of conventional teaching practice of subject knowledge as determined by dominant culture in Australia. The findings indicated that school culture in a time of reform re-traditionalised hierarchical patterns of subject knowledge organisation and evaluation. Accordingly, current subject knowledge endorsement in terms of specialist teaching often worked to the benefit of established power relationships typical of post-industrial market economy in Australia. The findings also indicated that issues pertaining to curriculum prioritisation were influenced by institutional, group and individual experiences of subject specialist knowledge. Poor perceptions of these three subjects could also be generated by experiencing inflexible and inadequate yet established funding and resource patterns in educational systems. Frontline teachers, their school-based roles and responsibilities attached to the teaching and learning of the three specialist areas were typified by rigid school organisation and job structures together with condensed teaching time and community backing. This thesis argues that progressive, outcomes education requires an articulate and supportive school culture, more funding and the genuine maintenance of quality Music, Health and Physical Education and Language Other Than English teachers. In addition, curriculum implementation would benefit from the promotion of constructivist-orientated student activities within specialist programs.

This thesis details research on the first phase of curriculum reform (1999–2004) in a government primary school in Western Australia. The purpose of the study was to examine what progress had been made with the implementation of the Curriculum Framework (1998). The research focussed on Music, Health and Physical Education, and Languages Other than English as specialist teachers working with the Curriculum Framework (1998). Teachers and school administrators, as frontline practitioners, considered their experiences and perceptions of daily practice and provided their perspectives on curriculum reform. The hypothesis formulated for the study was that with the introduction of the Curriculum Framework (1998) the delivery of these three subjects could be further improved. This study argues that successful curriculum performance of these three subjects traditionally considered “specialist programs” may be more fully supported by becoming aware of the forces influencing Australian curriculum discourse and delivery. Subject knowledge endorsement in this study refers to the transfer of valued knowledge in Western Australian educational systems. It is proposed that if teaching professionals articulated the substance of their educational beliefs and experiences with regard to subject knowledge meaning, place and value, curriculum delivery in primary schools may progress more effectively. Positive learning experiences for all students can be provided through the encouragement of communication and collegiality together with relevant and accessible professional development. These measures can also be supported by mounting whole-school primary programs that engage with beliefs about Music, Health and Physical Education, and Languages Other Than English through collaborative networks and learning communities. Accordingly, curriculum delivery can come within reach of the seamless curriculum anticipated by reform (Curriculum Framework, 1998:6–7). In this qualitative interview study, the frontline participants included generalist teachers, specialist teachers and school administrators. These educational practitioners were asked to participate in an in-depth, semi-structured discussion that explored their perceptions of specialist teaching and knowledge while employed at Deep Sea Primary School in 2002. They teachers also commented on how these perceptions may be linked to their experiences of socially constructed and established notions of valued knowledge. The findings of this study indicated that the progressive implementation of these three subjects or specialist’s areas were characterised by subtle historical, economic, political and social forces. This thesis suggests that, these largely obscured external forces together with individual yet, taken for granted perceptions of what is perceived as valuable knowledge work together to position curriculum rhetoric and curriculum enactment that reflect established perceptions of the knowledge hierarchy. Teachers and administrators at the school often operated within the structures and meanings of conventional teaching practice of subject knowledge as determined by dominant culture in Australia. The findings indicated that school culture in a time of reform re-traditionalised hierarchical patterns of subject knowledge organisation and evaluation. Accordingly, current subject knowledge endorsement in terms of specialist teaching often worked to the benefit of established power relationships typical of post-industrial market economy in Australia. The findings also indicated that issues pertaining to curriculum prioritisation were influenced by institutional, group and individual experiences of subject specialist knowledge. Poor perceptions of these three subjects could also be generated by experiencing inflexible and inadequate yet established funding and resource patterns in educational systems. Frontline teachers, their school-based roles and responsibilities attached to the teaching and learning of the three specialist areas were typified by rigid school organisation and job structures together with condensed teaching time and community backing. This thesis argues that progressive, outcomes education requires an articulate and supportive school culture, more funding and the genuine maintenance of quality Music, Health and Physical Education and Language Other Than English teachers. In addition, curriculum implementation would benefit from the promotion of constructivist-orientated student activities within specialist programs.

The primary goal of this project is to offer Taiwanese teachers diverse innovative literacy instruction and assessments to motivate students' reading processes. Sample curriculum/lesson plans are included.

This action research explores ways of adapting Task-based language teaching for teaching grammar to Primary six Hong Kong students while maintaining the structural Presentation-Practice-Production approach. It integrates two kinds of focused tasks into the intervention. They are Consciousness-raising tasks and Practice-based tasks. It investigates learners‘perceptions of those two tasks on English grammar learning by collecting questionnaires and conducting interviews. After the first cycle of the intervention, the researcher analyzed the data, students‘performance and works in order to make adjustments for the second cycle. Qualitative and quantitative techniques were employed to collect data from high, average and low-achieving students. It was found that students were positive towards Consciousness-raising tasks, Practice-based tasks and the intervention. They were generally satisfied with the chances provided for individual and group learning, teacher‘s PowerPoint presentation, teacher support and task sequencing. Implications for future research encompass investigation on the intervention‘s emphasis on a sequence of focused tasks to learn the form, meaning and use of target structures for leading learners to attain accuracy, fluency and complexity in second language acquisition. Most importantly, it suggests that teachers have to be flexible and design suitable tasks according to the target structures, students‘ability and learning style as well as available resources.
published_or_final_version
Education
Master
Master of Education

The main objective of this study was to investigate patterns of language use in a bilingual dual-taught classroom, and the impact of bilingual dual teaching on language development and language choice in young children (ages 7-8). The study was conducted in an immersion English/Putonghua classroom at an international primary school that adopts the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program. English and Putonghua are the mediums of instruction although most students in the school come from Cantonese speaking Hong Kong-native families. The school is unique in this way because most students are learning two second languages simultaneously, in a classroom where there are two language (English and Putonghua) teachers, and both languages can be used at the same time. The study takes a qualitative approach with methods of data collection including a filmed observation of a bilingual lesson, a discourse analysis of the lesson transcription, and semi-structured post-lesson interviews with four members of the class. Results from the study found that English emerged as the dominating language. Transcript analysis also revealed that code-mixing and code-switching emerged as consistent patterns with purposeful functions. Furthermore, it was found that students tended to respond to speakers in the language that was used to initiate the talk, and that even during bilingual lessons, students tended to speak in English when nominated by their English teacher, and in Putonghua when nominated by their Chinese teacher. All students agreed that their language proficiency in English had improved due to more practice at school and regular use in the home.
published_or_final_version
Education
Master
Master of Education

Task-based language teaching has a high profile within contemporary ELT. There are, however, few empirical studies of how teachers actually implement tasks in Chinese primary school contexts. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring how four teachers in two primary schools in Nanhai, Guangdong implement communicative activities in a top-down national innovation. This study involves three areas of investigation. The first area describes classroom practice. A particular focus is on activity types and the degree of communicativeness of activities. The second area analyzes how the practice reflects the general understanding of task-based pedagogy: the extent to which classroom activities are congruent with features of task? The third area concerns factors influencing communicativeness of lessons. Extensive data are drawn over a period of an academic year with four selected teachers (Betty, Rose, Paul and Jane). A total of 55 observations were conducted. Methods of documenting classroom data include a quantitative instrument based on COLT observation scheme (Communicative Orientation of Language Teaching) and qualitative field notes. The tool used to analyze the degree of communicativeness is derived from a well-recognized framework proposed by Littlewood. 64 semi-structured interviews were conducted to gauge participants’ perception of task-based teaching. Teachers, school principals and focused-group students were interviewed. The main findings are as follows. It is found that Betty and Rose use mainly focus-on-forms activities, Paul uses meaning-form-focused and Jane meaning-focused activities, suggesting, respectively, a low, medium and medium-high degree of communicativeness. Further analysis of activity features indicates that Betty and Rose’s teaching are teacher-centered, decontextualized and without a clear communicative goal and outcome, and thus not congruent with task features. Paul’s activities share features of non-communicative teaching and TBLT. Paul tried to integrate some communicative elements in his approach, although the majority of Paul’s activities still focus on the practice of language form. Jane’s activities, message-focused, student-centered and contextualized, reflect general features of tasks. Three sets of contextual and participant factors are found to influence TBLT implementation in the two case schools: 1) contextual, 2) teacher factors and 3) those related to pedagogical practice, including planning and instructional factors. The significance of this study is threefold. Firstly, I propose an adapted version of Littlewood’s communicative framework. This version contributes to the existing literature as it is a useful tool to analyze communicativeness of classroom activities in school context. Secondly, this study extends our knowledge of the kind of factors that influence TBLT implementation. Lastly, this study adds insights into character teachers cope with changes in the new English curriculum and the kind of classroom activities in Nanhai primary schools. It is hoped that these findings carry some resonances in other EFL contexts in East Asian Region.
published_or_final_version
Education
Doctoral
Doctor of Philosophy

As language revival and revitalization rapidly become primary modes of community-based work in Aboriginal Australia, the need for a theoretical foundation for the linguistic scenarios that emerge is becoming increasingly evident. Language revival presents a new situation for analysis, as languages are simultaneously researched, learned, and developed in a single overarching and ongoing process. This brings to the fore the need to account for and implement vernacular approaches to language as well as disciplinary ones, as the languages are simply not available for objective academic study outside of community-internal motivations, processes, and analyses. To this end, the authors aim to develop a research methodology and epistemology that can benefit from ways of knowing and learning privileged in Aboriginal communities, as well as those of academic linguistics. The meeting points of these can be explored through collaborative community-based ventures, and in direct response to current developments in language revival itself.

Few women contributed to documenting Indigenous Australian languages in the nineteenth century. Brief accounts are given of six settler women who did so: Eliza Dunlop (1796–1880), Christina Smith (‘Mrs James Smith’; 1809?–1893), Harriott Barlow (1835–1929), Catherine Stow (‘K. Langloh Parker’; 1856–1940), Mary Martha Everitt (1854–1937), and Daisy May Bates (1859–1951). Their contributions are discussed against the background of forty-four other settler women who contributed to language study, translation, ethnography, or language teaching. Reasons for the relative absence of women in language documentation included family demands, child raising, and lack of education, money, and patrons, as well as alternative causes such as women’s rights. Recording Indigenous languages required metalinguistic analytic skills that were hard to learn in societies that lacked free education. Extra obstacles for publication were remoteness from European centres of research, and absence of colleagues with similar interests.