English usage in daily life by Turkish students between 15–19 years of age: a scale development study

The purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable scale to assess the level of English usage in daily life by students between 15 and 19 years of age, and to compare these students’ scale scores according to their achievement levels in an English course. Five hundred and ninety-five participants were randomly selected from a universe. Exploratory factor analysis results indicate that the scale has a two-factor structure, which explains 50.1% of the total variance. Exploratory factor analysis is validated by confirmatory factor analysis (NNFI: 0.97; CFI: 0.97; GFI: 0.87; AGFI: 0.84; RMSEA: 0.07; and Standardized RMR: 0.05). Cronbach Alpha coefficients for Factor 1 and Factor 2 were calculated as 0.90 and 0.86, respectively. Test–retest reliability coefficient of the scale is at the expected level (r: 0.86, p<0.001). Item discrimination results indicate that the upper 27% of participants have higher mean rank scores for each item on the scale and on the two factors, and that this difference is significant at the 0.01 level. Results of the study show that students’ level of English usage in their daily life is low, and that the students who use more English in their daily life have a higher achievement level in the English course.     

What do upper-elementary and middle school teachers know about the processes of text comprehension?

Reading and Writing - Teachers’ knowledge of reading comprehension processes is underresearched relative to teachers’ knowledge of word identification and phonological awareness. In...     

From Hope & Glory to Waterloo Road: mediating discourses of ‘crises’ surrounding schools and schooling in British television drama, 1999–2011

Popular television drama is an important discursive site engaging the public with debates about schooling and professional identity. Between 1999 and 2011, external discourses of ‘crisis’ (of academic achievement or students’ mental and emotional health) were mediated as alternative discourses of ‘crisis, failure, and salvation’ in which a Standards agenda predominated, or that of the school as a ‘caring community’. Genre analysis reveals how ‘school’ dramas exploited distinctive narrative types to privilege a particular discourse. Adapting Schatz's (1981 Schatz, T. (1981). Hollywood genres. London: McGraw-Hill. [Google Scholar]) scheme of Hollywood genre types, these dramas are characterised by a narrative strategy of ‘restoration’ of the ‘failing’ secondary (high) school to its public function of raising achievement, or after 2007 of ‘integration’ more concerned with assimilating ‘troubled’ students into the school community. This shift in representation is consistent with, and contributes towards, the ‘rise of therapeutic education’ where the Head Teacher and teacher are portrayed more as counsellor than educator.