Mentoring for effective teaching of writing in the primary school

Effective mentoring in English is considered paramount to a preservice teacher’s development as it presents real-life contexts for pedagogical understandings. This study provided qualitative data (questionnaire) and quantitative data (survey) on 24 mentors’ perceptions of their mentoring for teaching English and in particular teaching writing. These mentors are cooperating teachers who had mentored second-year preservice teachers (mentees) from one Australian university. Qualitative data indicated that developing a good rapport in a mentor-mentee relationship keeps lines of communication open in order to assist the mentee’s learning. In addition, the mentor’s modelling of teaching writing, demonstrating specific writing strategies, and providing positive yet constructive feedback were considered successful mentoring strategies, while a mentee’s lack of content knowledge, inadequate personal writing skills, and not knowing how to multi-task with many students may contribute towards a mentee feeling unsuccessful as a writing teacher. Mentors advocated methods for enhancing mentoring practices, which included university-facilitated professional development, linking syllabus content and teaching approaches, and sharing pedagogical content knowledge with colleagues. The quantitative data presented mentors’ perceptions of their attributes and practices across five factors for mentoring (i.e., Personal Attributes, System Requirements, Pedagogical Knowledge, Modelling, and Feedback) with 67% or more of these mentors (n=24) agreeing or strongly agreeing they provided all the 34 items associated with the survey. The factor System Requirements had the lowest percentage range (67-71%) while Feedback had the highest range (83-100%). However, mentees may not agree with their mentors’ perspectives, hence, further research comparing the two perspectives may lead towards targeting more effective approaches for mentoring the teaching of writing

Pedagogies of Design and Multiliterate Learner Identities

In an era of multiliteracies, teaching and learning have become knowledge performances at multiple levels. Instead of a singular, linear focus upon print technologies, the techno-oriented philosophy of teaching aims at providing a rhizomatic network of texts where there is a close link between, and often an overlap of, different designs—linguistic, visual, spatial, and gestural—to construct the multiliterate learner. In this paper, I discuss the role of multimodal literacies in a primary classroom, affirming the role of multiliteracies and decentring the pre-dominance of linguistic at the cost of other designs. While the print media are acknowledged as significant to literacy, the multimodality of print is enhanced through visual and spatial design (Kenner, 2004). Through graphic examples of ICT applications of designs in a primary classroom, I demonstrate that students are operating through multitextual and digitextual (Everett, 2003) practices. What follows is the complex positioning and re-situating of teacher and learner identities engaged in learning through the knowledge processes of experiencing, identifying, applying and critiquing concepts (Kalantzis & Cope, 2004). In particular, I argue that within the diversity of present day classrooms, the digital oriented, multiliterate learner is implicated in constant identity construction by drawing upon macro and micro social practices. I conclude by reiterating the significance of new technologies and new literacy practices as essential to the construction of new learner identities

Entrepreneurial Literary Theory: A Debate on Research and the Future of Academia

Across the world at present, researchers and teachers are being exhorted to become entrepreneurial. Universities are being restructured accordingly. The debate presented in this book considers what that involves and portends for academia. Literary studies are often regarded as the most resistant to – unfit for – entrepreneurial purposes. Literary research is therefore taken as a baseline for this debate. The uneasy place of literary research within profit-driven academia is revealing of the prevailing conditions for scholarship in all areas. Questions that are raised and discussed here include: What does doing research for the public good mean? What is the relationship between profits and benefits from research? What are applied and basic research? Are concepts of academic freedom and disinterestedness meaningful? What is the relationship between corporate and academic research? Are skills and knowledge different? Can pursuits like close reading and text interpretation be made profitable? What is literary value and how can it be measured? Can the literary system be modelled to profitable ends? Can university teaching be automatized? What are the differences between a standard publication agreement and a scholarly publication agreement? How can digital and open-access academic publication be made profitable? Does the academic monograph have a future? What sorts of knowledge and skills inform entrepreneurial leadership

Hard health and soft schools : research designs to evaluate SLT work in schools

While systems approaches are useful for evaluating speech and language therapists' (SLT) work in individual school contexts, there is a need to undertake studies detailing in a replicable format the interventions offered to children and for studies at all levels to assess whether these interventions work, using validated scientific techniques. There is a demand for such studies to meet the National Health Service objective of using evidence-based approaches, which offer the best interventions available. Education researchers are being asked to address similar issues, and an overview is given of the type and levels of research used in the two sectors. It is suggested that health and education research are moving closer together and that SLTs in schools should undertake exploratory, group and cohort studies to further develop effective therapies

Differentiated instruction in teacher education : a case study of congruent teaching

Teachers are supposed to use forms of differentiated instruction to anticipate the differences among their students. However, the adaptation of teaching to the diversity of the group often takes place with difficulty. Teacher education is blamed for not preparing student teachers adequately for differentiated instruction. Several authors suggest that congruent teaching in teacher education might be an adequate solution to this problem. This case study aims to investigate the (congruent) realization of differentiated instruction in teacher education using ethnographic tools. The results indicate that the observed teacher educator demonstrated limited forms of differentiation, largely without providing meta-commentary. Therefore, she is not a role model on the subject of differentiated instruction in the view of student teachers. These results are discussed in depth, and form a basis for further research and suggestions for practice in teacher education

Formando las contribuciones del aprendiente en el aula de idioma extranjero: Una perspectiva desde el análisis de conversación

Indexación: Scopus.The present study sought to demonstrate the importance that the shaping of learner contributions has in the provision of opportunities for participation and learning in the EFL classroom. A particular set of interactional features that can shape learners' utterances were examined: scaffolding, requests for clarification and confirmation checks. These features have been found to promote language participation and learning from a classroom discourse perspective (Walsh, 2002; Walsh and Li, 2013; Can Daskin, 2014). The study was also informed by the sociocultural concept of learning as a social affair that is achieved through participation (Lantolf, 2000; Donate, 2000; Mondada & Pekarek, 2004). A Conversation Analysis (CA) methodology was used to analyse two extracts collected in EFL classrooms at a language institute in Santiago, Chile. Findings suggested that when teachers shape their learners' contributions by means of scaffolding, clarification requests and confirmation checks in a pedagogical environment that promotes conversation, participation and learning will likely be enhanced. © University of Chile. All rights reserved.El presente estudio intentó demostrar la importancia que la forma de las contribuciones lingüísticas tiene en la provisión de oportunidades de participación y en el aprendizaje en el aula. Se examinó un conjunto particular de características interaccionales que pueden dar forma a los enunciados de los alumnos: andamiaje lingüístico, solicitudes de aclaración y comprobaciones de confirmación. Se ha demostrado que estos rasgos interaccionales promueven la participación y el aprendizaje desde una perspectiva de discurso en el aula (Walsh, 2002; Walsh y Li, 2013; Can Daşkın, 2014). El estudio utilizó el concepto sociocultural del aprendizaje como un logro social conseguido a través de la participación (Lantolf, 2000; Donato, 2000; Mondada & Pekarek, 2004). Se utilizó una metodología de Análisis de Conversación (CA) para examinar dos extractos recogidos en aulas de inglés como lengua extranjera en un instituto de idiomas en Santiago de Chile. El análisis sugirió que si los profesores forman las contribuciones de sus alumnos adecuadamente y en un ambiente pedagógico que busque desarrollar fluidez, la participación y el aprendizaje serán facilitados.https://lenguasmodernas.uchile.cl/index.php/LM/article/view/4922

Using Toulmin’s Argument Pattern in the evaluation of argumentation in school science

Toulmin's definition of argument has been used by researchers as a theoretical perspective on argument and as a methodological tool for analysing episodes of oral argumentation. An adaptation of Toulmin's framework used by researchers has informed a professional development programme for teachers. Research on the impact of the programme on pedagogic practice shows that Toulmin-based materials are advantageous in helping teachers to conceptualise argument and model it for students. However focus on the process of argumentation limits any consideration of the content and quality of evidence. Toulmin's framework can also be used to evaluate student outcomes when using argumentation software