‘I guess it scares us’ – Teachers discuss the teaching of poetry in senior secondary English

This article reports on a participant‐centred research project with English teachers in a senior secondary college in Melbourne, Australia. It builds on previous research (Weaven and Clark 2009, 2011), which showed a low take‐up of the opportunities to teach poetry in Victoria's senior secondary English curriculum. This study explores the reasons why teachers of English are unwilling to use poetry texts in their senior classes. The teachers who participated in this study discussed and documented their attitudes towards the teaching of poetry and explored with each other the pedagogical challenges associated with teaching poetry. Their discussions – an analysis of which forms the empirical core of this article – reveal a range of explanations for teachers' reservations about offering poetry to their students. Importantly, these teachers were able to use professional discussion as a means to consider what changes in teaching practice could be successfully developed to facilitate more time spent on the teaching of poetry in senior secondary classes.     

Meaning‐making with colour in multimodal texts: an 11‐year‐old student's purposeful ‘doing’

Colour, a visual element of art and design, is a semiotic mode that is used strategically by sign‐makers to communicate meaning. Understanding the meaning‐making potential of colour can enhance students’ understanding, appreciation, interpretation and composition of multimodal texts. This article features a case study of Anya, an 11‐year‐old student who participated in a classroom‐based research project that explored developing student visual meaning‐making skills and competencies by focusing specifically on a selection of visual elements of art and design in picture books and graphic novels. Excerpts from Anya's interview about her multimodal print text revealed that her intentional use of colour was affected by her participation in the learning opportunities afforded during the explorative study that included overt instruction about making meaning with colour. The semiotic analysis of Anya's use of colour in her multimodal text included a consideration of how the various distinctive features of colour were evident in her work. The article concludes with a discussion of pedagogical and assessment issues associated with teaching students about colour and other visual elements of art and design.     

Headteachers’ readings of and responses to disadvantaged contexts: evidence from English primary schools

Existing research demonstrates the impact of context on school organisation and management, curriculum and pedagogy and on student peer relations. New developments in English education policy will devolve more responsibility for dealing with these issues to headteachers. Headteachers' readings of their contexts and the responses that they make are thus of increasing interest. This paper draws on interviews with eight headteachers of less advantaged English primary schools to explore how they understand and articulate the contexts in which their schools operate and how this knowledge is translated into strategies for organising curriculum, pedagogy and other school processes. These headteachers observed context through the lens of the behaviour of parents and children in relation to school, contrasting it with an assumed middle‐class normality. More critical perspectives on families' social and economic position or on the contribution of school practice to educational exclusion were largely absent. School responses were many and varied but, given the constraints of budgets, market and performative pressures, were unlikely to substantially transform the educational experiences and outcomes of disadvantaged students. We point to the continuing need for more contextualised funding mechanisms and policies to improve schools in disadvantaged areas and also, in the light of devolution to schools, to the need to develop mechanisms of support to headteachers to help them to develop critical understandings of context and to reflect on school process and practices in the light of these understandings.     

多模态教学理论下大学英语有效课堂的构建

文章在分析多模态教学理论和有效教学理论的基础上,探索了利用多模态符号进行切入而贴近生活的导入帮助学生培养学习兴趣,通过创建有现实意义的操练情景,帮助学生自然领悟语法规则,通过提供方法策略指导培养学生跨文化交际能力和批判性思维,从而实现有效课堂构建.     

'No Number Can Describe How Good It Was': Assessment issues in the multimodal classroom

Within an outcomes based educational system built on the principles of redress, social justice, multilingualism and multiculturalism, issues of equity in teaching, learning and assessment are increasingly on South Africa's educational agenda. This article locates itself within debates concerning the politics of representation in mainstream classrooms, in which written standard English is the dominant mode and language through which students' meanings are read and assessed. The authors, consisting of English and Art educators, have been implementing forms of 'multimodal pedagogies' in different classrooms in Johannesburg in a move to challenge the existing narrow constraints of representation permitted in mainstream schooling. Through a case study discussion of a multimodal project with disaffected Soweto youth, the authors argue that new criteria for assessment need to be developed in order to address the complexity of thinking about communication as a multiple semiotic practice and students as designers of meaning. Such criteria place human agency and resourcefulness at the centre of meaning-making, and focus on the recruitment of resources, generativity across modes, linkages and connections across modes and genres, voicing of self, community and culture, the processes of making and reflectiveness, as well as taking account of the 'community of arbiters'.     

Writing and pseudo‐writing from Internet‐based sources: implications for learning and assessment

In recent years, plagiarism has been on the increase across the Western world. This article identifies Internet access as a contributory cause of this trend and addresses the implications of readily available Internet sources for the teaching and assessment of writing in schools. The basis for the article is a previous study showing a wide incidence of plagiarism in the Internet‐based writing of students in three classes at upper secondary school level in Norway. I relate the students' choices to writing as a cognitive process and as a cultural practice. My basic assumption is that the students' writing is work. It is this work we have in mind when we relate writing to learning and when we assess students' skills on the basis of their written texts. Access to the Internet changes the premises for this work because writing can be replaced by ‘pseudo‐writing’. ‘Pseudo‐writing’ is a work reducing writing practice, which neither excludes nor coincides with what we traditionally associate with plagiarism in schools. The main point in this article is that when students have access to the Internet during essay writing, the result is unavoidably a product of both writing and pseudo‐writing. Internet access thus leads to greater uncertainty about the role writing plays in student learning and makes it more difficult to take written assignments into account in assessing students' school results and effort.     

Constructing Macbeth: Text and Framing in a Secondary Urban Classroom

This study focuses on a secondary English classroom in an East London school, and the multimodal nature of the students’ construction of the literary heritage text Macbeth, specifically in their dramatic reinterpretation of Act 1, Scene 7, where Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth to pursue his ambitions and kill the current king, Duncan. From this classroom event, this study goes on to explore how a social semiotic reading can reveal insights into school students’ learning and recreation of this text.     

The Relationship Between Undergraduate Attendance and Performance Revisited: Alignment of Student and Instructor Goals

We revisit the relationship between attendance and performance in the undergraduate university setting and apply agency theory in the instructor–student context. Building on agency theory propositions in the educational setting advanced by Smith, Zsidisin, and Adams (2005) , we propose that the student and instructor must align goals to promote the student's achievement of performance learning outcomes, and attendance functions as a behavior‐based alignment mechanism to encourage the convergence of faculty and student interests. Further, we propose that attendance does not equally affect lower‐ and higher‐performing students and that absences are also negatively related to students' cumulative grade point average. We test these hypotheses with data from undergraduates enrolled in management courses at a state university in the southeast. Our results show that attendance is positively related to exam performance, there are more pronounced negative effects of an absence for lower‐performing students than for higher performers, and absences are negatively related to a student's cumulative grade point average. We discuss the implications of our findings for students, instructors, and universities as well as practice in teaching and learning.     

Cognitive styles and instructional design in university learning

Changes in conceptualization and measurement of the verbalizer–visualizer dimension led us to re-examine the hypothesis that students learn best when instructional material matches their cognitive style. First-year psychology university students (n = 41) studied information on three personality theories presented in text only, text+picture, or text+schematic diagram format, demonstrated recall and comprehension of each theory, and completed an adapted cognitive styles questionnaire. Spatial and object visual scale scores were not correlated, but the latter showed a significant though relatively weak negative correlation with verbal scale scores. Recall could be predicted from students' verbal and object visual scores when presentation format matched these cognitive styles. All three styles significantly predicted students' comprehension, but only when they matched the presentation format. The results support the distinction between spatial and object visual styles, and provide evidence that learning outcomes improve when instructional material is matched to students' cognitive styles.     

Teacher expectations and student literacy engagement and achievement

Notwithstanding the complex and dynamic nature of teaching and learning in schools, over four decades of research findings have consistently revealed a correlation between teacher expectations and student achievement. Focusing on teacher expectations for the narrative structures created by young children, this article features a discussion of data gathered during a multifaceted study with 7‐ and 8‐year‐old students. The overall purpose of the case study research was to explore the development of student understanding of elements of visual art and design and diverse narrative structures in picturebooks. For the culminating activity of the research, the students had opportunities to apply and transform their knowledge of the instructional foci when they composed their own multimodal print texts. Analysis of the students' narrative structures revealed the multiple forms of metalepsis, the purposeful breaking of storyworld/narrative boundaries, evident in their writing and artwork. In addition to a discussion about the socially situated nature of the children's multimodal text‐making, the article includes a consideration of the importance of teacher expectations with respect to student literacy engagement and achievement.     

中职英语口语教学策略探究

加强中职学生的口语训练,提高英语应用能力是中职学生英语学习的基本要求。目前,中职英语口语教学仍存在学生口语表达能力差异大、教学缺乏真实的语言环境和材料等诸多问题。文章探索多种教学策略在中职英语口语教学中的具体应用,突出中职英语教学的实用性和针对性,以期提高学生在职场和生活场景下的综合语言应用能力。     

Orchestrating debate: a multimodal analysis of classroom interaction

This paper examines the ways in which the interpretation of a literary text is constructed through social interaction in a multi‐ethnic urban secondary school English classroom. The focus is on the literacy experiences of Year 10 students (age 14 to 15 years). We take a multimodal approach to understanding social interaction around texts and show that higher‐order literacy skills are realised and constructed through the configuration of talk and writing with a range of other representational and communicational modes, such as gesture, gaze, movement, and posture. We suggest that despite the exhaustive regulation of literacy and school English, some English teachers, while still curriculum and examination focused, have found strategies that give them space to make connections between texts and the experiences of their particular student intake. They do so in ways that link to wider social and moral issues, drawing on their own and their students' life experiences, to make cultural connections with the texts studied. The paper shows how a multimodal analysis of social interaction facilitates and extends understanding of the teaching that is taking place.     

Transforming practice in Design and Technology: evidence from a classroom-based research study of students' responses to an intervention on inclusive design

This article offers evidence from a classroom-based research study in English secondary schools which developed an innovative approach to teaching in Design and Technology based on inclusive design (also known as universal design). The research evidence highlights how creative, problem-solving approaches in Design and Technology can be used to provide authentic, engaging learning experiences for students. This study, entitled ‘Designing our Tomorrows', introduced secondary school teachers and students to the principles and practices of inclusive design through an intervention using specially designed resources. In this article, findings from the study's qualitative pre- and post-intervention interviews are presented to illustrate how this type of approach can stimulate students' creativity and understanding of design.     

Text genre as a factor in the formation of scientific literacy

Learning using primary literature may be a way of developing a capacity for scientific ways of thinking among students. Since reading research articles is a difficult task for novices, we examined the possible benefits of learning using primary literature versus secondary literature, particularly with respect to their influence on the creation and formation of scientific literacy. We report on a comparison between four groups of high school students, each with differing degrees of prior knowledge in biology, who read a domain‐related text written in either the scientific research article genre (adapted primary literature) or the popular‐scientific genre (secondary literature). Although there was no significant difference in the students' ability to summarize the main ideas of each text, indicating that there was no eminent distinction in their content, we found that students who read adapted primary literature demonstrated better inquiry skills, whereas secondary literature readers comprehended the text better and demonstrated less negative attitudes toward the reading task. Since the scientific content of the two texts was essentially identical, we suggest that the differences in students' performances stem from the structure of the text, dictated by its genre. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 403–428, 2005     

English teachers of deaf and hard‐of‐hearing students in French schools: needs,barriers and strategies

This paper deals with English teachers who work with deaf and hard‐of‐hearing (D/HH) students. In France deaf students are required to attend foreign language classes – mostly English classes. The purpose is not to teach them British sign language (BSL) or American sign language (ASL), but written and/or spoken English. Indeed, sign languages are distinct from spoken languages and differ from country to country: there is no universal sign language. English teachers of the deaf are mostly hearing people. They work either in mainstream or special schools. Most of them have no specific qualifications. In this context, they are faced with the tremendous challenge of how to adjust their teaching to their students’ impairment and at the same time develop the latter's knowledge and skills in English. In order to analyse teaching practices in English classes, questionnaires, interviews and in‐class observations in several special and mainstream schools were conducted. Findings show that different teaching strategies are used in order to make English lessons accessible to D/HH students: teachers have to adapt their teaching language and also use written and visual supports to accommodate D/HH students. Obviously teacher training needs to be improved.     

文字云图的英语阅读教学设计与实践——以文字云图工具Wordle为例

文字云图是通过文字云图工具制作而成的反映文字频率的可视图的一种形象比喻,可以作为一种有效的文本分析工具应用在教学中。文章梳理了国内外文字云图应用研究现状,指出国内该领域研究的不足。并以英语阅读教学为切入点,从文字云图的可视化表征、生成线索词、语义和表象的双重表征等优势分析了文字云图应用在英语阅读教学中的可行性,以Wordle为例选择高中英语教材中的一节课"Harry Potter"进行了研究设计与实践,研究结果表明文字云图的使用能够调动学生的兴趣,给学生的英语阅读带来积极的促进作用。     

Incorporating Ethnographic-Based Techniques to Enhance Assessments of Culturally Diverse Students' Written Exposition

This article focuses on the need to include ethnographic-based approaches in the writing assessments of culturally and linguistically diverse populations. The inclusion of such approaches can help teachers gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of learning for all students and realize how students' social and cultural lives mingle with the assessment process and with their academic learning. In Part 1 of the article, I describe an investigation of the assessment of students' informative essays using a single-method, holistic approach. English teachers rated essays written by eight ethnically diverse fifth- and sixth-grade students using an array of rhetorical and linguistic measures - including overall quality, coherence, sentence-level mechanics, and use of an organizational structure. Findings indicate that, within this paradigm of assessment, culturally and linguistically diverse students may be penalized for preferring rhetorical patterns that differ from the mainstream academic patterns rewarded in schools. In Part 2, I describe an investigation of the assessment of the same eight students' informal informative essays using a multifaceted approach, including ethnographic techniques and micro- and macrolevel text analyses. Findings suggest that the multifaceted approach provided a more accurate picture of the students' expository language resources. In the final section, I demonstrate how the ethnographic-based techniques provide illustrative evaluation data useful for forging a fit among the language resources and functions of writing for culturally and linguistically diverse students and their assessment and instructional needs.