Are We Tolerant Enough to Read Each Other's Culture? Evidence From Three Different Social Contexts

This study investigated the effect of cultural background of second‐language (L2) readers in different social contexts: Israeli Arabs, a minority learning Hebrew in Israel; Israeli Jews learning Arabic as L3; and Arab immigrants in Canada learning English as L2. Participants had to read related and unrelated cultural stories in their L1 and L2/L3. Results revealed that Arab students in the multicultural Canadian context better understood the unrelated cultural stories, while in both Israeli social contexts Arab and Jewish students found it difficult to read unrelated cultural stories. Comprehension results are discussed in light of the role of multiculturalism and ‘melting pot’ policies in shaping minority students’ social orientations.     

Social and cognitive factors influencing the reading comprehension of Arab students learning Hebrew as a second language in Israel

This study investigated the relationship of the attitudes and cultural background of Arab students in Israel to their reading comprehension of stories from Jewish and Arab culture. Participants were 74 eighth-grade Arab students (age 14–15 years) from Israel, learning Hebrew as a second language (L2). An attitude questionnaire, stories from Arab and Jewish culture and multiple-choice questions about each story were used. Results indicated that students scored higher on tasks of reading comprehension with texts from their own cultural setting than with texts from a culturally unfamiliar setting. Furthermore, results of the attitude questionnaire showed that motivation of Arab students to learning Hebrew was primarily instrumental rather than integrative. A conclusion of this study is that problematic social contexts negatively affect L2 learning of minority students. In order to facilitate Hebrew L2 learning, L2 curricula should include Hebrew language texts with content culturally familiar and relevant to the life of Arab learners.     

Cognitive and Social Factors Affecting Arab Students Learning English as a Third Language in Israel

This study investigated the relationship between attitudes, interest, and culture, on the one hand, and reading comprehension in English as a third language on the other. Participants were 70 native Arab students aged 15-16 who were sampled from three high schools in the Haifa area. They were administered an attitude questionnaire, culturally familiar and culturally unfamiliar stories, multiple-choice comprehension questions and an interest questionnaire. The results revealed that the Arab students' attitudes towards English were more instrumental than integrative; and their attitude towards the English learning situation was positive. Further, they were more interested in the familiar cultural story than in the unfamiliar one, and they performed accordingly. In other words, type of text (culturally familiar/unfamiliar) was the only significant predictor of reading comprehension in English. However, when reading scores were regressed on the independent variables controlling for text type, interest was the only significant predictor. Thus, in the Israeli-Arab situation, learner interest and type of text are powerful predictors of comprehension of English as a third language.     

The effects of first programming language on college students’ computing attitude and achievement: a comparison of graphical and textual languages

Background and Context: The relationship between novices’ first programming language and their future achievement has drawn increasing interest owing to recent efforts to expand K–12 computing education. This article contributes to this topic by analyzing data from a retrospective study of more than 10,000 undergraduates enrolled in introductory computer science courses at 118 U.S. institutions of higher education.

Objective: We explored the relationship between students’ first programming languages and both their final grades in an introductory computer science course and their attitudes about programming.

Method: Multiple matching techniques compared those whose first language was graphical (e.g., Scratch), textual (e.g., Java), or absent prior to college.

Findings: Having any prior programming experience had positive effects on both attitudes about programming and grades in introductory computer science courses. Importantly, students whose first language was graphical had higher grades than did students whose first language was textual, when the languages were introduced in or before early adolescent years.

Implications: Learning any computer language is better than learning none. If programming is to be taught to students before early adolescence, it is advised to start with a graphical language. Future work should investigate the transition between different types of programming languages.     

Rhetorical meta-language to promote the development of students’ writing skills and subject matter understanding

Background: Feedback is one of the most significant factors for students’ development of writing skills. For feedback to be successful, however, students and teachers need a common language – a meta-language – for discussing texts. Not least because in science education such a meta-language might contribute to improve writing training and feedback-giving.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore students’ perception of teachers’ feedback given on their texts in two genres, and to suggest how writing training and feedback-giving could become more efficient.

Sample: In this study were included 44 degree project students in biology and molecular biology, and 21 supervising teachers at a Swedish university.

Design and methods: The study concerned students’ writing about their degree projects in two genres: scientific writing and popular science writing. The data consisted of documented teacher feedback on the students’ popular science texts. It also included students’ and teachers’ answers to questionnaires about writing and feedback. All data were collected during the spring of 2012. Teachers’ feedback, actual and recalled – by students and teachers, respectively – was analysed and compared using the so-called Canons of rhetoric.

Results: While the teachers recalled the given feedback as mainly positive, most students recalled only negative feedback. According to the teachers, suggested improvements concerned firstly the content, and secondly the structure of the text. In contrast, the students mentioned language style first, followed by content.

Conclusions: The disagreement between students and teachers regarding how and what feedback was given on the students texts confirm the need of improved strategies for writing training and feedback-giving in science education. We suggest that the rhetorical meta-language might play a crucial role in overcoming the difficulties observed in this study. We also discuss how training of writing skills may contribute to students’ understanding of their subject matter.     

ANXIETY AND ACHIEVEMENT IN A MULTICULTURAL SITUATION

Oral reading comprehension test scores are generally determined by a variety of factors, not only by task difficulty and examinee proficiency, but also by stimuli extraneous to the testing task itself — such as group vs. individual testing situation, scorer method and bias, and examinees’ sociolinguistic background, motivational disposition, and anxiety during the test.

By giving the same examination under the same testing conditions to students, teachers and administrators generally believe that they are thereby being fair in their testing practice. However, if the same test situation debilitates the motivation and performance of some groups while increasing the motivation and performance of others, the assumption of fairness in standardised test procedure may be only illusory. Indeed, while stimuli in the test situation appear to be held constant from the examiner's point of view, they may interact with background variables to differentially affect levels of test performance (Cole and Bruner, 1970).

Two types of anxiety effects have been differentiated in the literature, namely debilitative and facilitative effects (Alpert and Haber, 1960).

The present study sets out to examine the effects of the following factors on oral reading comprehension test scores: (a) anxiety under varying test conditions, (b) students’ gender, (c) students’ native language, (d) the testing situation (individual vs. group), and (e) the relative difficulty of the English language texts.

Two studies were conducted during an advanced English reading course at Haifa University to examine these issues. Study One, based on a sample of 170 students, was designed to examine the affective, cognitive, and sociolinguistic correlates within the test situation. No meaningful relationship was observed between students’ attitudes and test performance. Study Two, using 112 students, was undertaken to examine the roles of anxiety, sociolinguistic background, and text difficulty within the oral testing situation in greater depth. Test scores were affected by gender and ethnic affiliation but not by text difficulty, reported level of anxiety, or group vs. individual testing situation.     

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PRIOR ECONOMIC EXPERIENCE OF PRIMARY EDUCATION STUDENTS

In a previous paper (AEHE vol. 17(2) pp. 69‐88) Alistair Ross explored student teachers’ backgrounds and economic experiences, relating this to their economic and industrial understanding.

In this complementary paper he draws on the work of his research group and its EATE‐sponsored project to examine student teachers’ attitudes to economic issues and to their perceptions of teaching as work. In particular, the paper discusses students’ attitudes to the English and Welsh national curriculum cross‐curricular theme: economic and Industrial understanding (EITJ).     

Open and distance education as social practice

This paper explores distance education as social practice by drawing on theories of communication and sociolinguistics. Language is fundamental to all social situations including open and distance educational contexts. It is through language that teachers construct texts which indicate student learning intentions; and it is through language that students reconstruct these intended meanings and give expression to them.

The paper argues that success as an open or distance education teacher or student is dependent on expertise in the linguistic demands of the educational context. Though some of these demands are common with traditional forms of education, open and distance contexts add another level of complexity. In particular, the paper advocates a consideration of discourses as fundamental.     

School and campus interaction: a Canadian experiment in teacher preparation

Milburn, D. “School and campus interaction: a Canadian experiment in teacher preparation,” Revue ATEE Journal 3 (1980) 147‐155.

Information on the School Campus Interaction Programme (SCIP); an experiment in teacher education at the Faculty of Education of the University of British Columbia, Canada. SCIP aimed at closer interaction between the practice school and the university faculty and its students. This was achieved by giving students continuous school experience throughout the year, whereas students were always accompanied by and working with their teachers. The continual presence of the didactics professors in the practice school proved to be especially beneficial for the students as well as the schools. All participants in the programme reacted very positively to the programme.

The time spent in the practice school was increased largely at the expense of the available time for didactics, which was a matter of concern for the faculty members. However, this decrease in time for courses in didactics was found to be beneficial not only for the whole training course, but for those courses as well.     

The Story So Far: gender,literacy and social regulation

This article examines ways in which language practices in the classroom — particularly those involved with the reading and writing of stories — are gendered literacy practices. It argues that stories are closely identified with structuring the meanings by which a culture lives, and that popular and familiar stories rely upon dominant versions of femininity and masculinity to be understood or ‘read’. The article suggests that story genres are ‘gendered’ in the way in which they organise sequences of events, in the discursive fields from which they draw, and in the character‐traiting paradigms they prefer. The claim is made that when children write stories they enter into a form of social regulation implicit in the cultural conventions of popular narrative forms. Story‐writing is seen to be a social, ideological activity which often masquerades as personal expression. The article argues that the gendered nature of classroom literacy practices will be more obviously recognised if classroom language approaches are framed from within critical discourse theory and theories of subjectivity; and if the constraints posed by generic conventions and the cultural devaluation of many feminine’ genres, are more deliberately confronted and addressed in the classroom.

Telling fairy stories, even telling good fairy stories very well ... simply doesn't count. The positions of real power and influence in our society necessitate command of genres for which boys’ educational experience provides an appropriate preparation and girls’ doesn't ... girls’ genre competence at primary school is not merely irrelevant but positively disabling. (Poynton, 1985; p. 36)     

Perceived teacher affective support in relation to emotional and motivational variables in elementary school science classrooms in Turkey

Background: In recent research, affective learning environments and affective support have been receiving increasing attention for their roles in stimulating students’ learning outcomes. Despite its raising importance, little is known about affective support in educational contexts in developing countries. Moreover, international student assessment programmes (e.g. PISA and TIMSS) reveal poor science proficiency of students in most of those countries, which provokes the question of how to make positive changes in students’ perspectives and attitudes in science.

Purpose: In the current study, the purpose was to investigate the relations among perceived teacher affective support (PTAS), academic emotions (academic enjoyment, academic anxiety, and academic hopelessness), academic self-efficacy and behavioural engagement in elementary school science classrooms in Turkey.

Sample: A total of 633 fourth- and fifth-grade students in eight elementary schools in Istanbul, Turkey were participated in the study.

Design and methods: A self-report questionnaire was administered to participating students. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

Results: Findings showed that PTAS was both directly and indirectly related to the given variables. PTAS was found to be significantly positively associated with students’ academic enjoyment, academic self-efficacy and behavioural engagement and significantly negatively related to their academic anxiety and academic hopelessness in science classrooms. An important finding is that the total effect of PTAS on behavioural engagement, a factor strongly associated with academic success in all disciplines, was as strong as the effect of students’ perceived academic self-efficacy beliefs in science.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that PTAS may help promoting positive emotions and motivation among students in science classrooms, eventually leading to more desirable attitudes and achievement outcomes in science. Teacher affective support deserves greater recognition from researchers, educational policy-makers, administrators and teachers to build better learning conditions for all students.     

English Language Teaching in Malaysia Today

This article examines the changes in English Language teaching in Malaysia since its independence in 1957. It traces the problems encountered as the methodology for teaching English changed from a structural‐situational approach to a communicative approach. To illustrate the paradigmatic shift from knowledge‐based rote learning to self‐access learning that promotes independence and life‐long learning, and to produce manpower that can think creatively and critically, the Smart Schools Project and the extensive reading programmes are discussed.

     

Biotechnology learning in Slovenian upper-secondary education: gaining knowledge and forming attitudes

Purpose: One area of science that will increasingly influence our society is biotechnology. An increasing number of modern biotechnological applications have provoked consideration of the ethical and social issues; therefore, it is important that the public is well-informed about them. Formal education in upper-secondary schools should help students to become biotechnologically literate citizens. There is little published research data on Slovenian high-school students’ knowledge about and attitudes towards biotechnology, as well a lack of curriculum evaluation data.

Methodology: This study combines two research approaches. The first part is content analysis of current upper-secondary education programmes in Slovenia, in which all curricula were reviewed about 15 selected biotechnological topics. The second part of the research focused on assessing students’ knowledge of traditional and modern biotechnology and exploring their attitudes towards modern biotechnological methods and their products. The sample included 1163 students aged 17–18 from three different types of schools located in 12 different regions of Slovenia. A questionnaire to measure knowledge and attitudes was designed.

Results: The research results revealed that selected biotechnological concepts appeared most frequently in the curri- cula of bio-technical gymnasia. These students also showed the 30 highest level of knowledge and the most positive attitudes. Furthermore, a clear correlation between students’ knowledge of and attitudes towards modern biotechnology was found. On the other hand, no significant differences in attitudes to the state- ments, which dealt with ethics, were found among the students 35 involved in the research.

Conclusion: Biotechnology teaching in upper-secondary education in Slovenia is obviously very diverse and dependent on the programme.     

Writing for Change: Developing Class One textbooks and readers in Andhra Pradesh,Southern India

Ongoing work in Andhra Pradesh Primary Education Project (APPEP) (Southern India) has resulted in the production of a new Class 1 textbook, teacher textbook and eight supplementary readers. These important and innovative new classroom materials have been produced as a result of training and workshops involving resource persons from the Telugu Academy, Telugu University, State Centre for Educational Research and Training and lecturers in District Institutes of Education and Training. Additionally, for the first time, primary school teachers were co‐opted on an equal basis to work on the materials.

The textbook, which constitutes the only learning material in Class One, is designed to teach children to read and write in Telugu. Previous research showed that children at the end of Class 2 were mostly unable to identify letters or words out of the context and order in which they appeared in the textbook. The current state textbook was basically a writing primer, teaching writing in alphabetic order with reading rarely going beyond single words or sentences.

The new textbook incorporates the necessary ‘reading context’ using rhymes, short stories and dialogue to encourage shared reading with the teacher before individual letters are learned. The order of introduction of the letters for writing has been based on research showing generalisable shapes in letters; alphabetic order is learned as a separate item. The pictures in the book were designed to promote discussion and develop prediction and an understanding of story structure. The content was matched to the child's developmental and psychological needs.

The teacher textbook incorporates ideas for extending learning into activities and exercises and consists of the children's textbook interleaved with teacher guidance. The evaluation shows that this teacher guidance has been used and valued by the teachers.

The eight supplementary readers are at four levels. Level One is for shared reading with the teacher and includes folk stories, songs and a story about a family. Level Two are picture books with simple captions and sentences using only the letters and words already learned by the child. Level Three progresses to more extensive stories including some information based stories. Level Four revisits Level One for independent reading of the same books.

The books have been trialled in 50 sample schools matched on a number of variables to 50 control schools. A pre‐reading test was administered to all children and a post‐reading test measured learning gains. Case studies of the books in use in classrooms were also undertaken. The evaluation to date shows significant learning gains amongst the children in the sample schools, a high degree of teacher satisfaction and interest and approval from parents and children. A resource team including teachers has been trained for further renewal of textbooks throughout the primary years.

This work has been funded by the Overseas Development Administration and they will fund the provision of eight supplementary readers in all Class One in schools throughout the state in 1996. After revision the textbook will be implemented by the Government of Andhra Pradesh.     

Project Models for Language Teachers

The following is a report on our findings when working with classroom logs and diaries in seminars on socio‐cultural knowledge, in which students are expected to collect and process information according to the principle of guided‐learning autonomy in open project work. The classroom log provides the guidance required by the various target groups, and the diaries record the students’ emotional and personal observations on their own learning processes. Both logs and diaries have proved to be valuable in teacher training, where the objective was to intensify classroom learning so that the lecturer can the more easily assume the role of a meta‐cognitive guide and an external monitor in the learning process. Transferred to other areas of study this method may also be of use to work with similar projects in the schools.

     

UNDERACHIEVEMENT IN CULTURALLY DIFFERENT GIFTED CHILDREN

The paper examines issues related to underachievement in culturally different children. For a specific cultural group, the Canadian Inuit (Eskimo) people, the inappropriateness and inadequacy of the frequently used intelligence‐achievement discrepancy for identifying underachievement are demonstrated Approaches for assessing underachievement and giftedness in culturally different children, without reliance on standardized and inappropriately normed tests, are considered As well, a number of cognitive strategies programs are noted as having potential for remediation of learning difficulties in culturally different, underachieving, gifted children. The ultimate goal is identification of culturally different children, reduction or elimination of underachievement, and development of their full potential.

     

Contact with Mainstreamed Disabled Children and Attitudes Towards Disability: a multidimensional analysis

Attitudes towards disabilities of 156 hearing students who experienced different levels of contacts with mainstreamed hearing impaired students were evaluated by a multi‐dimensional questionnaire, the Disability Factor Scale—General. Forty‐four subjects were studying in the same classes with hearing impaired students (high level of contact), 57 students were studying in the same school but not in the same classes with the hearing impaired students (moderate level of contact) and 55 subjects did not have any contact with hearing impaired children.

Subjects who had a moderate level of contact expressed more negative attitudes than subjects of the two other groups on a scale which measured the tendency to advocate segregation of disabled people and to hold a derogatory approach towards them. Subjects of the group with a moderate level of contact tended to attribute more functional limitations to disabled persons than subjects who had a high level of contact. No differences were found between attitudes of subjects who experienced high level of contact and of those who had no contact.

These results are discussed in relation to the characteristics of the different contact situations which the three groups of subjects had and the affective, behavioural and cognitive‐evaluative components of their attitudes.