Teaching Of First Language Research Articles

Source-Based Writing: Students’ Approaches and Critical Aspects of Learning

This study explores upper-secondary school students’ source-based writing skills and what teachers can focus on to improve these skills. The students who participated were enrolled in university preparatory programmes at a Swedish municipal upper-secondary school. The results are based on 73 texts written by students in the subject Swedish (first-language education) and 11 interviews based on the students’ texts. Before the interviews, I went through the students’ texts and prepared questions about their use of sources. I use phenomenography to describe four different ways of using sources and variation theory to identify four critical aspects of learning this skill. To use sources in the most developed way, students need to be able to discern that: (1) acknowledging sources varies with literacy practice; (2) ideas from sources support arguments in own writing; (3) own ideas are separate from those of others; and (4) sources are compared and evaluated throughout the writing process. These critical aspects can be used to plan the teaching of source-based writing for upper-secondary school students.

Loud Reading Onsets Language Learning

Language teaching generally follows the sequences of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The sequence is the same for both teaching of first language and second language. There might be rare questions about the sequence of the language skills. There are different sub-skills in each language skill. Loud reading is one of them in teaching reading skills. This paper claims that loud reading can initiate language learning, especially for teaching English as a second language. This paper aimed to find out the effectiveness of using loud reading as the first skill for learning a language. This paper used the ethnographic method. The researcher experimented with loud reading skills for the improvement of language learning for secondary-level students in Nepal. Two classes of the schools -classes nine and ten were the participants of the study. The result is interpreted based on board exam results. The research found out that loud reading can be the beginning skill for language learning because it integrates listening, speaking, and reading at a time. It is a skill that includes linguistic, suprasegmental, and paralinguistic features.

The Use of Mother Tongue in Communicating Mathematics: Implication for Teaching and Learning of Mathematics

Mathematics as a school subject is designed to solve the everyday problem created by human activities; these problems are domesticated in the different cultures of man all over the world. However, the performance of students keeps dwindling due to the westernize approach of teaching and learning mathematics. In other to solve this precarious situation this paper advocated the use of mother tongue in the teaching of mathematics. Mother tongue approach here refers to first-language education as a medium of instruction. The use of mother tongue in the teaching and learning of mathematics is meant to address the high functional illiteracy of Nigeria where language plays a significant factor. Using mother tongue to teach the basic concepts of numbers, operations and other concepts of mathematics helps build a strong foundation for the understanding and learning of higher mathematics. This approach is effective not only in getting the interest of students in the lesson but as a springboard in teaching new mathematical concepts, principles and in deepening student understanding on how mathematical operations or processes work. The mother tongue concepts of teaching and learning mathematics in this work shall be based on the following sub-topics: Numeration/Counting System, Basic Arithmetic Operations, Rhymes and Geometric Concepts. The paper completely reduced the Eurocentric mathematics beliefs of students and make them discover how best mathematics can be learning from their mother tongue. The paper recommended amongst others that teachers of mathematics should adopt the use of mother tongue in teaching mathematics in order to improve students understanding of the subject.

Development of a teacher questionnaire on the use of ICT tools to teach first language writing

ABSTRACTThe need for the education system to teach twenty-first century skills produces an emphasis on the teaching of first language (L1) writing on the assimilation into the teaching process of information and communications technology (ICT) tools that promote writing. The purposes of this study are to examine general aspects of the integration of ICT tools into teaching-learning-evaluation processes and the unique aspects of ICT tools relevant to teaching L1 writing. A research questionnaire was developed to examine the disciplinary aspect of teaching L1 writing alongside general aspects of integrating ICT into teaching. The research tool tested on 391 L1 secondary school teachers. The findings show that e teachers perceive themselves as having achieved some mastery of the ICT tools examined and that they agree with positive statements about the value of using ICT tools in L1 teaching. Although they sometimes-to-often use ICT tools to assess their students' writing, they make limited use of them to teach L1 writing. We suggest that there may be a disciplinary barrier to ICT tool use in teaching in the form of a lack of teacher appreciation that ICT tools can greatly promote the teaching of L1 writing.

Wolf cries: on power, emotions and critical literacy in first-language teaching in Sweden

ABSTRACTAdopting a critical literacy perspective in teaching is about how experiences, social contexts, languages, learning and power relations interact in language development. In this article, we explore how students’ critical literacies are enhanced and hindered by emotional power relations in the classroom. We investigate what happens when emotionally charged texts – here texts about wolves in Sweden – are used in lower secondary schools. Drawing on two examples we illustrate different ways of enhancing students’ critical approach to the argumentative text type. The article highlights the affective aspects of teaching, and thus the unforeseeable aspects of classroom interaction. Emotionally, the wolf issue became very different objects for the persons occupying the classrooms. It invoked, e.g. homosocial relations, racist accounts and nationalistic outbursts. The article stresses the significance of teacher intervention but argues that to facilitate critical literacy in emotionally charged classrooms, the circulation of emotions, including teachers’ emotions must be brought to light.

From exclusivity of the standard language to critical discursive flexibility in first-language teaching: the Slovenian case

From exclusivity of the standard language to critical discursive flexibility in first-language teaching: the Slovenian case

Toward the Exporting of Japanese First-Language Education

Toward the Exporting of Japanese First-Language Education

A phantom to kill: The challenges for Chinese learners to use English as a global language

Very recently, the former spokesman of China's Ministry of Education launched a public attack on the national fervor for English learning in his personal blog (Xinhua News, 2013). He forcefully argued that too much time and energy has been spent on learning English as a foreign language, which has seriously jeopardized Chinese citizens’ first-language education, and called for the cancellation of English lessons in the primary school curriculum. Following this, the Beijing municipal commission of education announced its plan to reduce the English section of the National University Entrance Qualifying Exam (or gaokao) from 150 points to 100 points in major cities by 2016 so as to downplay the importance of English in the education system. A further report states that education authorities are also considering scrapping mandatory English lessons before the third grade. Shandong and Jiangsu provinces, as well as Shanghai, may remove English from the gaokao entirely (The Guardian, 2013).

Students' Argumentative Writing Skills in Science and First-Language Education: Commonalities and differences

The ability to build arguments is a crucial skill and a central educational goal in all school subjects including science as it enables students to formulate reasoned opinions and thus to cope with the increasing complexity of knowledge. In the present cross-sectional study, we examined the domain-specificity of argumentative writing in science by comparing it with a rather general type of argumentation as promoted in first-language education and with formal reasoning to gain insight into different forms of argumentation on theoretical and empirical levels. Using a paper-and-pencil test, we analyzed written argumentations and the reasoning abilities of 3,274 Grade-10 students in German secondary schools. Correlation and multiple regression analyses as well as a qualitative analysis of students' answers to a subset of tasks in the domains of science and first-language education were conducted. Results showed moderate relations between argumentation in science, argumentation in first-language education, and reasoning. Half of the variance in argumentation in science was explained by individual differences in argumentation in first-language education and reasoning. Furthermore, the examination of written arguments revealed differences, for example, in students' weighing of pros and cons. We assume that the familiarity of the underlying scientific information may play an essential role in the argumentation process and posit that it needs to be investigated in more detail. Overall, the study indicates that investigating the argumentational abilities of learners in first-language education and reasoning abilities can help to shed light on the domain-specificity of argumentation in science.

Exploring syntactic structures in first-language education: effects on literacy-related achievements

A quasi-experimental study with 256 German sixth-grade students examined the effects of exploring syntactic structures on literacy-related achievements. The core feature of the instruction was that students had the opportunity to deal with syntactic structures directly, not mediated by analytic operations. Instruction covered six lessons targeting two types of syntactic contrasts (syntactic category contrasts, noun case contrasts). The results indicate that students profited from the instruction in their ability to use a marker of syntactic structure in written German, the capitalization of nouns. As to the ability to use the same marker to interpret text read, students of different achievement levels seem to have been differently affected. No effects were found for reading comprehension in general and spelling at the word level. The findings suggest that students' recognition of syntactic categories was enhanced even in contexts other than those they were familiarized with in the instruction. However, it was not enhanced when they worked on a task that was completely new to them.

Variations in Native Speaker Competence: Implications for First-language Teaching

Experiments were carried out to determine if variations in adult native speaker performance arise from variations in working memory capacity (Just & Carpenter, 1992) or variations in procedural grammatical competence (Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995). Three groups of 18-year-old native speakers of English were tested on comprehension and recall of English Complex NP constructions. Two groups were 'low academic ability' (LAA) students and one group were 'high academic ability' (HAA) students. Pre-test HAA levels of recall and comprehension were much higher than those of the LAA groups. One LAA group underwent training to improve sentence recall and then carried out a post-test involving recall and comprehension. Levels of recall, but not comprehension, rose to HAA levels. The second LAA group underwent training to improve comprehension and then carried out a post-test involving recall and comprehension. Levels of both recall and comprehension rose to HAA levels. Contrary to the working memory hypothesis, the results support the view that variations in adult native speaker performance arise from variations in procedural grammatical competence. Some implications of this conclusion for the teaching of first-language grammar during the school years are outlined.

Official-Language Minority and Aboriginal First-Language Education: Implications of Norway's Sami Language Act for Canada

Norway has given official-language status to the languages of its aboriginal peoples, the Sami, yet Canada has accorded that status only to English and French, the languages of the colonizers. In Norway, the 1992 legislation giving major language and cultural rights to the Sami has had a major impact on Sami education. This Norwegian experience has significant implications for official-language minority and aboriginal first-language education in Canada, shedding light on such important topics as minority teacher educa- tion, minority first-language pedagogy, curriculum texts, community attitudes to minority languages, language support services, school administration, devolution of control, cultural incorporation, and the maintenance of cultural identities. As a result, in this article I question the appropriateness of official policies and language practices in Canada. La Norvege a accorde le statut de langue officielle aux langues de ses peuples autochtones, les Samis. Cependant, le Canada n’a accorde ce statut qu’a l’anglais et au francais, langues de ses colonisateurs. En Norvege, la legislation de 1992, accordant des droits linguistiques et culturels majeurs aux Samis, a eu un impact considerable sur l’education de ceux-ci. Cette experience norvegienne qui comporte des implications significatives pour l’education relative a la langue officielle des minorites et a la langue maternelle des autochtones au Canada, jette un eclairage sur des sujets importants pour les minorites tels: la formation des maitres, la pedagogie relative a leur langue maternelle, les attitudes de la communaute a l’egard des langues des minorites, les services de soutien linguistiques, l’administration scolaire, la devolution du controle, l’incorporation culturelle et le maintien des identites culturelles. Par consequent, je remets en question dans cet article le bien-fonde des politiques officielles et des pratiques linguistiques au Canada.

Why Write If You Don't Have To: A Rationale for Writing in the Hebrew Language Classroom

Volume 9, No.3 Spring 1991 WHY WRITE IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO: A RATIONALE FOR WRITING IN THE HEBREW LANGUAGE CLASSROOM1 Adina Ofek Adina Ofek chairs the Hebrew Department at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and teaches in the Department of Jewish Education. Her research interests are second language acquisition , teaching methods and learning strategies in reading comprehension, and the preparation of educators for day schools and synagogue schools. From 1988 to 1990 she has served on the ACTFL committee that wrote the guidelines for proficiency in Hebrew, and is currently a member of the Education Testing Service committee writing the Hebrew language achievement test. 83 There is a consensus among teachers and researchers alike that writing is the most difficult and the last skill to be acquired even in the natural continuum of first language acquisition. Teachers tackle the question of how to teach writing, but despite their efforts and despite the various theories that have been developed in this area only a small fraction of native speakers achieves mastery in writing. Even this measure is only achieved after a long process of study and practice. If this is the case with native speakers, who have most of the language resources at their disposal, it is even more evident among learners of a second language whose vocabulary and linguistic knowledge are limited. Furthermore, from outcomes of research in the area of writing in a second language, we learn that not only linguistic deficiencies (morphological, syntactical, lexical, and rhetorical) hinder the chances to succeed in writing in the target language.2 Various intellectual deficiencies, for which we as Hebrew teachers can rarely compensate, also influence the ability to write. Indeed, experience has taught us that in most cases, students who write well in their first language will also do better in Hebrew writing. 1This article is based on an earlier version co-authored with N. Krohn (in Hebrew ) published in Hed-Ha'Ulpan (Fall 1990). 2See S. Folman, 1988. 84 SHOFAR Regarding the question of the need to write in the target language, it is difficult to defend the teaching of this skill.·Except for specific cases of students who intend to live in Israel or study there, or those who prepare for study or a career in the field ofJudaica, most students of Hebrew do not feel a real need to express themselves in written Hebrew. While it might be nice, of course, if they could write a note or a letter in Hebrew, it is not an imperative. Another reason that the teaching ofwriting in Hebrew is marginal is the short time available to teacher and student alike. It does not make sense to foster a skill that does not fulfill a strong practical need and whose achievements in performance will not be very high relative to the efforts invested in acquiring it. Finally, one cannot ignore the fact that the correction of written assignments takes up a great deal of the teacher's time. Despite all that has been said so far, looking at writing from a different point of view would demonstrate the many advantages of using writing in the process of language teaching. We should look at writing not as a skill by itself but rather as an activity that can assist in the language acquisition process: writing reinforces all functions of the language and creates a basis for transfer and integration between them. Writing also serves as an alternative learning route and an efficient tool for diagnosis and evaluation. In the following pages we shall discuss each of these advantages in detail. Reinforcement of Other Functions and Transfer In first-language teaching what is most prominent is the relationship between reading and writing, but mutual reinforcement occurs also between writing and speaking and writing and listening in second-language teaching. Even though it is common practice to define reading as a receptive skill, whereas writing is considered a creative one, the literature has recently emphasized the similarities rather than the differences between the two. This change in emphasis occurred mainly as a result of the shift in researchers' point ofview from the product to the process.3 Thus, by analyzing...

Toward a Homosocial Theory of Sex Roles: An Explanation of the Sex Segregation of Social Institutions

Occupational segregation of women is a major reflection of the generalized segregation that characterizes all aspects of Western social life. It is the visible sign of a massive institutional substructure on which we are most likely to founder unless we are able to find a way around it. Two of the papers in this section deal with macrosociological segregation patterns that link different institutional sectors of society: Safilios-Rothschild addresses the question of sex segregation in the articulation between the institutions of the family and the occupational world; Gates explicates the ways in which the legal institutions buttress the segregation of the domestic and occupational domains. The Laws paper, operating on a different level of analysis, looks at different theoretical approaches to women's segregated involvement in the labor force.