Discourse Competence as an Essential Variable in Developing Grade 11 English First Additional Language Learners’ Writing Skills

The capacity of authors to generate coherent articles largely relies on their proficient use of cohesive devices. This chapter examines the utilisation of reiteration by Grade 12 English First Additional Language (EFAL) learners in the Malamulele South Circuit to attain cohesiveness in their written English essays. Cohesion is an essential characteristic employed by educators when evaluating students' essays. Thus, a deficiency in consistency in writing may result in diminished grades or outright failure. The appropriate use of cohesive devices improves the logical progression and interrelation of phrases, paragraphs, and entire writings. This study employed a qualitative research methodology, sampling fifteen essays from a designated school in the Malamulele South Circuit. These essays have been assessed, reviewed, and finalised. Document analysis functioned as the principal method for data collecting. The results indicated that Grade 12 EFAL students in the Malamulele South Circuit employed many forms of reiteration, including repetition, synonyms, and antonyms, to construct cohesive writings. Nevertheless, the study emphasised that these learners frequently generated repetitive and redundant sentences due to their propensity to excessively repeat words and phrases for emphasis. Furthermore, they faced challenges in the proficient use of synonyms and antonyms.

Writing pedagogy in the early years: A study of teacher beliefs, classroom practices and influences

Background: Although the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has significantly subsided, its educational repercussions persist, particularly in rural South African contexts. The abrupt transition to remote learning in 2020 disproportionately affected learners, particularly in under-resourced areas, resulting in significant learning loss – especially in reading among English First Additional Language (FAL) learners. Objectives: This qualitative study aimed to explore how the free voluntary reading (FVR) approach can be used to mitigate the COVID-19-induced reading loss among Grade 10 English FAL learners in a rural Free State school. Method: Grounded in Krashen’s Input Hypothesis Theory, the study adopted the Participatory Action Learning and Action Research methodology to engage two English FAL teachers and ten Grade 10 learners through purposive sampling. Data generated through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and classroom observations were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results: Findings reveal that the FVR approach significantly fostered improved reading confidence, motivation, comprehension, imagination, and vocabulary development. Conclusion: The study concludes that FVR is a viable pedagogical strategy for addressing reading deficits in rural English FAL classrooms. It recommends integrating a reading period into the school timetable and revitalising school libraries to ensure the successful implementation of reading interventions. Contribution: Beyond its role in post-pandemic recovery, this study affirms FVR as a research-supported approach for promoting sustained literacy development in English FAL contexts, thereby contributing to evidence-based practices in language education.

Classroom libraries have an important function in the development of reading abilities for English First Additional Language (EFAL) learners in the Intermediate Phase (grades 4 to 6). This research aimed at exploring the challenges faced by the Intermediate Phase EFAL teachers in establishing classroom libraries in a rural circuit of the Limpopo Province to promote learners’ reading ability. A qualitative grounded theory approach was employed using observations and an interview schedule with semi structured open-ended questions. Nine participants were purposefully selected. The study found that there was limited relevant reading material, a lack of space for setting up a classroom library in overcrowded classrooms, teachers’ lack of knowledge on organising the classroom library books and a lack of strategies on how to control the checking in and out of books. It is recommended that schools should first allocate funds for buying books and seek donations for reading material from public libraries as well as non-governmental organisations. Inservice training should be conducted to equip teachers with the basic skills of organising and facilitating the checking out and returning of classroom library books.

Previous research has produced conflicting results regarding the effects of season of birth and age-position on cognitive attainments. In Northern Ireland the school year divides the summer season into two providing an opportunity to evaluate the relative contribution of season of birth and age-position effects. To investigate the relationship between attainment in literacy skills and month of birth for primary and secondary school pupils and to determine the relationship between motor skills and month of birth in primary school pupils. One thousand one hundred and twenty four primary school pupils participated, and results for key stage 3 (KS3) English and GCSE English Language, for 3,493 Year 10 and 3,697 Year 12 secondary school pupils, respectively, were obtained. Primary school pupils were individually assessed using standardised reading and spelling tests, as well as tests of motor skill. They were also assessed using a standardised group reading test in their class groups. For the secondary school pupils, the results for two year cohorts, in KS3 English and GCSE English language, respectively, were analysed. For the primary school pupils there was evidence of both a season of birth and an age-position effect on all of the cognitive measures, particularly in the early years of schooling. There was, also, evidence of a significant age-position effect at both KS3 and GCSE in favour of the older pupils. For the younger primary school pupils there was evidence of significant age-position effects on both motor measures. The findings from the present study suggest that month of birth may be related to both season of birth and age-position effects. These effects may be compounded, particularly in the early years of primary school, when summer born children are youngest in their year, as in England. In Northern Ireland, age-position effects are also evident in secondary school public examination results, which may have implications for long-term life choices.

IntroductionLiteracy is fundamental for educational achievement, and in the longer term contributes substantially to a range of life skills. Literacy difficulties during the early years of school are associated with...

Background: Teachers are responsible for curriculum implementation and transformation. Therefore, they are viewed as the primary agents of change in teaching and learning. As agents of change, they are responsible for being innovative and creative in their teaching and learning in their English First Additional Language (EFAL) class. Objectives: The study aimed to explore South African teachers as agents of change in teaching EFAL in their Grade 3 classes. Method: This study adopted a qualitative research approach with an interpretivist paradigm. The researcher wanted to explore teachers’ lived experience as agents of change in the Foundation Phase class. A case study design with purposive sampling was used. Results: The findings revealed that teachers understood their roles and responsibilities as change agents in their classrooms. They agreed they were responsible for implementing the curriculum to improve basic literacy skills among EFAL learners. Conclusion: The study found that teachers, as agents of change, needed support in continuous professional development to implement the curriculum. They also highlighted the need for help from their school management teams. Contribution: This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of the EFAL teacher. They are no longer mediators of learning but agents of change in teaching, learning and curriculum adaptation. Their roles go beyond imparting knowledge to learners. They are developers and mediators of critical thinking, decision-making, communication, use of technology and relationship-building skills.

Background: It is common the idea that the responsibility for learning mathematics worked in the first years of schooling rests solely with the teacher at this stage. This is a mistake since these contents run throughout basic education, and it is important that teachers at other levels understand the mathematics of the early years of elementary school. Objectives: The article aims to discuss the knowledge of mathematics undergraduate students about mathematics in the early years of elementary school. Design: The theoretical and methodological support is based on the assumptions of cultural-historical theory (CHT), which shows that the subject develops and impacts the reality where he/she lives by interactions with others through the acquired knowledge. Setting and participants: The study space consisted of workshops on the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, carried out in the project “Knowing the mathematics taught in the early years” and the participants were seven undergraduates from the mathematics degree course. Data collection and analysis: The empirical data were systematised by the organization of the episode "Understanding the teaching of basic mathematics", composed of four scenes. Results: They reveal that when it comes to teaching mathematics in the early years, students show a weakness in relation to basic mathematical knowledge and didactic knowledge to teach them. Conclusions: Although the results come from a specific context, we concluded that it is important for mathematics undergraduates to be able to discuss mathematics teaching in all stages of basic education.

Grammatical cohesion plays a crucial role in the construction of coherent and effective written communication. It refers to the way linguistic elements within a text are interconnected to create a sense of unity and flow, facilitating the readers’ understanding of the text. In essence, it encompasses various linguistic devices and techniques that establish a relationship between sentences and paragraphs, guiding readers through the text. Halliday and Hassan’s Theory of Cohesion, which proposes that effective use of cohesive devices allows writers to construct logical connections between propositions, thus contributing to the text’s overall cohesiveness, strengthened this investigation. A descriptive qualitative approach, embedded in an interpretive paradigm, underpinned this paper. Semi-structured interviews were administered to 6 English First Additional Language (EFAL) while document analysis, in the form of essays, was used to collect data from 36 conveniently chosen grade 10 EFAL learners in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Thematic analysis enabled the author to categorise the data into themes, which formulated the findings of this inquiry. Outcomes of this inquiry indicated that learners’ essays lack grammatical coherence due to their inadequate knowledge about the use of grammatical cohesive markers, resulting in lengthy and disjointed sentences. Learners’ restricted acquaintance with these structures could derail efforts aimed at producing comprehensible discourse. It is recommended that the Text-based Approach, which can help learners understand grammatical cohesion indicators by exposing them to real texts, should be the subject of professional development. This study will contribute to the development of learners’ good writing skills, which enable them to be communicatively competent.

The inaccurate estimation of language difficulties by teachers suggests the benefit of a short-language measure that could be used to support their decisions about who requires referral to a speech-language therapist. While the literature indicates the potential for the development of a short-language measure, evidence is lacking about which combination of language tasks it should include. To understand the number and nature of components/language tasks that should be included in a short-language measure for children in the early school years. Eight language tasks were administered to participants of the Early Language in Victoria Study (ELVS) at ages 5 (n = 995) and 7 (n = 1217). These included six language tasks measured by an omnibus language measure (which comprised a direction-following, morphological-completion, sentence-recall, sentence-formation, syntactic-understanding and word-association task) and a non-word repetition and a receptive vocabulary task, measured by two task-specific language measures. Scores were analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA), the Bland and Altman method, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. PCA revealed one main component of language that was assessed by all language tasks. The most effective combination of two tasks that measured this component was a direction-following and a sentence-recall task. It showed the greatest agreement with an omnibus language measure and exceeded the criterion for good discriminant accuracy (sensitivity = 94%, specificity = 91%, accuracy = 91%, at 1 SD (standard deviation) below the mean). Findings support the combination of a direction-following and a sentence-recall task to assess language ability effectively in the early school years. The results could justify the future production of a novel short-language measure comprising a direction-following and a sentence-recall task to use as a screening tool in schools and to assess language ability in research participants.

This paper aims to present results of research conducted with graduates of the Pedagogy course, with training in early childhood education and early years of elementary school and its role in school management. Highlights that the training required to act in school management was a long time given to the course of Pedagogy. This training was the restructuring of the curriculum of the course, from the opinion of CFE 252/69, which printed the license administration, supervision, orientation and inspection giving the school the title of graduate education specialist. This model was subjected to considerable criticism by polarizing the training of teachers and pedagogue and fragment the pedagogical work. Such criticisms have contributed to the course Pedagogy to take over the training of teachers for early childhood education and early years of elementary school. Locally the graduates of this training in school management act, this suggests that discuss the implications of training, focused on the teaching of early childhood education and early years of elementary school, to act in school management. To this end, the discussion focuses on building a common national base for training of teachers and how they drive the configuration of the of the Pedagogy course. So, evidence that the unfolding of this process alters the landscape of the work of the pedagogue in school, especially in schools of the state of Parana, whose job as a teacher pedagogue is occupied by public tender by the licensee in Pedagogy.

The current study considers grade repetition rates in the early years of schooling in Queensland state schools with specific focus on the pre-schooling year, Prep. In particular, it provides empirical evidence of grade repetition in Queensland state schools along with groups of students who are more often repeated. At the same time, much of the educational research literature, drawn mainly from the United States, argues that grade repetition has limited, long-term value and may be harmful (Jimerson, 2001, 2004). Little is known about grade repetition rates or the groups of children who may be repeated in Australian schools as almost all research on grade repetition has been done overseas. To better understand grade repetition in Australia, the study draws on data from the Queensland Government's Department of Education and Training (DET), which looks specifically at grade repetition rates in Queensland state schools. While grade repetition rates remain low in Queensland states schools, the possible negative academic, social and emotional consequences for students who are repeated warrants serious re-evaluation of this long-term, early intervention practice in Australian schools. An alternative strategy would include promotion of all students to the next year level with a range of interventions to enable groups of low achieving students meet minimum national standards.

Writing is a key area of literacy in the early years, however writing receives less research attention than reading despite its impact on students’ learning generally, and literacy development specifically. Writing skills have also been shown to be quite stable−good writers in the early years stay good writers in the later years. Therefore it is critical to better understand the aspects of writing central to development that might support teaching and learning. In this paper we share findings from the analysis of 500 writing samples from 250 students. The students were in Year 1, which is the second year of school in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia. Samples were collected at two points in time (approximately four to five months apart) and analysed using a writing analysis tool developed by the authors in an earlier stage of the study. The results reported and discussed here show levels of attainment and changes in students’ writing in the areas of text structure, sentence structure, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation and handwriting, and also highlight relationships between these dimensions as students develop increasing control over writing. Socio-educational advantage, gender differences, and findings specific to children who learn English as an additional language are also reported. The findings have implications for practice in the early years of schooling. They also offer a conceptualisation of students’ early writing based on an analysis process that integrates the authorial and secretarial dimensions of writing and provides teachers with relevant data to plan instruction.

Research has identified successful transitions from middle to high school as critical for students’ academic success. Identifying risks and protective factors associated with challenge or success in the early years of high school is crucial, especially for African American students who are disproportionately represented in the ranks of adolescents who underachieve in academics, receive school discipline sanctions, and drop out of high school. The present study examined risks associated with perceived discrimination and the protective function of school racial support and two aspects of African American adolescent identity (identification with academics and racial centrality). This study followed a sample of 46 low-achieving African American students through the first 2 years of high school. Findings showed that over and above the negative influence of discrimination and levels of ninth-grade classroom engagement, students’ identification with academics in the ninth grade was a strong predictor of tenth-grade classroom engagement. This finding points to the promise of identification with academics as a protective factor which could help adolescents reach their academic potential.

Background: Research in the history of mathematics education makes it possible to identify the links between manual practices and the teaching of geometry in the early years since the insertion of the subject Handwork, at the end of the 19th century, to the present time. Objectives: Analyse the interconnections between manual practices and the teaching of geometry developed by the school culture of primary education in São Paulo, since the early Republic. Design: The curricular regulations of the state of São Paulo and the national guidelines – PCN and BNCC – and school manuals that circulated in each historical moment are mobilised together with the results of research already developed in the area. The documents were collated and analysed to produce an understandable and sustainable historical narrative, based on evidence and controls. Data collection and analysis: The study inventoried research results and analysed teaching programs in the State of São Paulo, national guidelines at the end of the 20th century, and school manuals from different periods. Setting and participants: The research sources are documentary, most of them available in the UFSC Digital Repository. Results: The documental examination indicated that manual practices actively participate in the school culture and cause changes, from time to time. Handwork change its status from a school subject to a geometry teaching methodology, intended for the early school years, which we observe to this day. Conclusions: This research concluded that the understanding of the historical perspective contributes to reflection on the current educational problems, on the debate about how to mobilise tools for geometry teaching, questioning the feasibility or not of handwork acting as an appropriate methodology for the first explorations of geometric properties.