scholarly journals Mapping Pathways for an Indigenous Poetry Pedagogy: Performance, Emergence and Decolonisation

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Mavhiza ◽  
Maria Prozesky
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Open Space ◽  
High School English ◽  
Indigenous Identity ◽  
Pedagogical Intervention ◽  
English Classrooms ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
Praise Poetry ◽  
Indigenous Poetry ◽  
Decolonial Pedagogy

Poetry is notoriously unpopular in high school English classrooms all over the world, and English FAL (First Additional Language) classrooms in South Africa are no exception. We report on a pedagogical intervention with Grade 11 learners in a township school in Johannesburg, where the classroom was opened to indigenous poetry and identities by allowing learners to write and perform their own poetry in any language and on any topic. Rejecting essentialist notions of indigeneity as defined by bloodline or “race”, we work with a notion of indigenous identity as fluid and performative, and as inescapably entwined with coloniality. We argue that indigenous poetry, meanings and identities were emergent in the open space created by the intervention. To further explore this emergence, we discuss pedagogy itself as performative, an interaction between teacher and learners in which knowledge is built, stories told and identities sedimented. We focus on what can be learned about possible pedagogical pathways for an indigenous poetry pedagogy from the learners’ performances. We identify the constraints and potentialities for a decolonial pedagogy that arise when the classroom is opened to indigenous poetry, and ideas for what such a decolonial pedagogy would look like. The findings suggest that new ways of thinking about the ethics and politics of poetry in the classroom are required, some general to all indigenous pedagogies, and some specific to local South African traditions of praise poetry.

scholarly journals Enhancing Engagement in Reading: Reader Response Journals in Secondary English Classrooms

1944 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet McIntosh
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Reader Response ◽  
English Teacher ◽  
High School English ◽  
Secondary English ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
English Classrooms ◽  
English Students ◽  
Student Journals ◽  
Positive Results

Writing reader response journals during the act of reading provides ideal opportunities for secondary English students to deepen and expand their understanding of literature. Based on data from three case studies conducted by a former high school English teacher, currently an English educator, this article examines the effectiveness of students recording response entries as they read a novel. Excerpts from student journals illustrate the positive results of combining the acts of reading and writing. Student engagement with text leads to better comprehension and through writing reflective responses, students become more effective readers.

scholarly journals The Effective use of Authentic Materials in the English Language Classrooms

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Parupalli Srinivas Rao
Keyword(s):  
Educational System ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Teaching Profession ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Authentic Materials ◽  
English Classrooms ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
English Language Classrooms

Due to the technological innovations, the twenty-first century has witnessed tremendous changes in all walks of life. The new technology abetted the extant educational system and it gifted the contemporary educational system with a newfangled drift. As a result, there have been several innovations in the field of education and English has no exception. The concept of teaching English has drastically changed and the present generation of teachers as well as the learners depend more on the latest technology that brings a greater change in teaching and learning. In the modern world, the teachers of English have been using a variety of teaching materials in order to satisfy the needs and interests of the learners. In this process, they also go for the authentic materials in addition to the prescribed textbooks with an aim to improve the standards of the learners and to develop their learners’ language skills enormously in the regular English classrooms. According to Peacock (1997), “Authentic materials are more motivating for students, even lower level students, than artificial materials”. Furthermore, Briton (1991 cited in Qura, 2001) states, “Authentic materials relate more closely to learners’ need, for they build a connection between the language classroom and the outside world. The teachers have to use all the available authentic materials such as newspapers, magazines, story books, movies, radio, TV ads, songs, label products, bus or train timetables, realia like phones and dolls so that the learners show more interest towards their leaning. As authentic materials play a vital role in promoting the learners’ learning and creates interests among learners to learn the English language in a natural way with proper motivation, the teachers of English should use these authentic materials in their day-to-day teaching profession. The present paper brings to light to the effective use of authentic materials by the teachers in the English language classrooms. For this purpose, this paper initially discusses the advantages of authentic materials in the field of education. Then this paper brings out the importance of the authentic materials that are used in the English language classrooms. Later, this paper emphasizes primarily on the effective use of the authentic materials and how they assist the teachers in their teaching and also how they help the learners to learn English in a better and easier way. Finally, this paper gives some expedient hints both to the teachers and the learners of English to how improve their teaching and learning skills colossally using the authentic materials in the English classrooms.

Reading Grand Theft Auto: Improvisational Urban Literacy

2020 ◽  
pp. 004208592092302
Author(s):  
Samuel Jaye Tanner
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Narrative Research ◽  
Literacy Education ◽  
Surprising Result ◽  
High School English ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
English Classrooms ◽  
Teacher Decision Making ◽  
San Andreas ◽  
And Gender

This article relies on nonrepresentational narrative research to consider improvisational urban literacy. The author uses narrative to theorize the choice to teach Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in urban high school English classrooms. The author positions this decision as the surprising result of an improvisational, urban literacy pedagogy meant to locate and address issues of race and gender in a video game. This article calls for a broader view of textuality that affirms, supports, and celebrates emergent teacher decision making, as well as practices of urban literacy education that broaden the notion of what constitutes a text.

scholarly journals Integrating Multimodal Arguments Into High School Writing Instruction

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Howell ◽  
Tracy Butler ◽  
David Reinking
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
School Students ◽  
High School English ◽  
Formative Experiment ◽  
English Classrooms ◽  
High School Writing ◽  
Essential Components ◽  
Teacher Students

We conducted a formative experiment investigating how an intervention that engaged students in constructing multimodal arguments could be integrated into high school English instruction to improve students’ argumentative writing. The intervention entailed three essential components: (a) construction of arguments defined as claims, evidence, and warrants; (b) digital tools that enabled the construction of multimodal arguments; and (c) a process approach to writing. The intervention was implemented for 11 weeks in high school English classrooms. Data included classroom observations; interviews with the teacher, students, and administrators; student reflections; and the products students created. These data, analyzed using grounded-theory coding and constant-comparison analysis, informed iterative modifications of the intervention. A retrospective analysis led to several assertions contributing to an emerging pedagogical theory that may guide efforts to promote high school students’ ability to construct arguments using digital tools.

scholarly journals Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices Regarding Assessment in English as a Foreign Language Classrooms in Vietnam

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuan Ha ◽  
Nam Tran ◽  
Ngoc Tran
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Curriculum Innovation ◽  
High School English ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Intended Curriculum ◽  
Teachers Beliefs ◽  
Language Classrooms

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) has generated worldwide popularity as a curriculum innovation, and extensive research has investigated various aspects of the approach. However, little is known about the implementation of classroom assessment in TBLT curricula. This study investigated high school English as a foreign language teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding assessment in a curriculum innovation context in Vietnam. Data comprised in-depth interviews with six teachers, as well as testing documents. The findings revealed a strong impact of the high-stakes exams on teachers’ testing beliefs in that they focused explicitly on linguistic items in the assessed content and forms of assessment. These beliefs were accurately reflected in their testing practices. However, both the teachers’ beliefs and practices were contradictory to teaching principles and the expectations of the intended curriculum. These findings suggest that in-service teacher professional development programs are necessary for innovations like TBLT to have a real change in the classroom.

scholarly journals Research That Is Real and Utopian: Indigenous Knowledge as a Resource to Revitalise High School Poetry

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Botha ◽  
Phillippa Yaa De Villiers ◽  
Robert Maungedzo
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
South African ◽  
Research Team ◽  
English Teacher ◽  
English Poetry ◽  
Indigenous Knowledges ◽  
School Based ◽  
The University ◽  
Indigenous Poetry ◽  
Funded Research Project

This article presents the reflections of a research team from the ZAPP-IKS project. ZAPP (the South African Poetry Project) undertook a three-year NRF-funded research project titled “Reconceptualising Poetry Education for South African Classrooms through Infusing Indigenous Poetry Texts and Practices”. The research on which we report here was undertaken as part of that project. The team consists of an English teacher, a poet and an academic. Together, they attempted a research intervention at a Johannesburg secondary school. The article presents their reflections on the challenges, successes and potentials of the attempted research intervention, which was intended to energise and inspire the teaching of English poetry by drawing from and developing indigenous knowledges and principles. Presented as a play, a praise poem and a conventional academic analysis by the school-based teacher, the university-based poet, and the university-based academic, respectively, the article offers diverse analyses as an illustration of how research relationships may be understood, experienced and represented in various ways. These analyses draw implicitly and explicitly on conceptualisations of indigeneity and indigenous knowledges, as well as decoloniality, with the conventional academic analysis making use of Erik Olin Wright’s concept of real utopias to frame its understanding of the project and the other two perspectives on it. Together they invite readers to challenge and transform the conventions that govern educational practices, research and representation, but caution against naïve idealism when doing so.

scholarly journals The Film Life of Pi as a Multimedia Tool in English Language Classrooms of Engineering Colleges in Gujarat- An ESP Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Barnali Chetia ◽  
◽  
Dharna Bhatt ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Initial Contact ◽  
English Classrooms ◽  
Ang Lee ◽  
Multimedia Tool ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Observation Method ◽  
English Language Classrooms

ESP advocates the designing of special courses instead of one multi-purpose course, to suit the needs of different courses of students. The curriculum of English as a course in Engineering Institutes differs from other disciplines in Arts, Commerce and Science colleges. Use of films as a multimedia tool and as an ESP approach in English classrooms of Engineering Institutes has become inevitable. For many students, films are their initial contact with English-speaking culture and a fun way to relax and also learn at the same time. The present study tries to examine the use of films as a multimedia tool in the English language classrooms of Engineering Institutes of Gujarat. The film Life of Pi by Ang Lee is considered as a major instrument for the present study. The study was conducted on a sample of 315 students pursuing their B.Tech in different Government Engineering colleges of Gujarat, India. The study was accomplished by using the survey and observation method. The survey questionnaire was used as a major instrument for the data collection of the study. The results suggests that Films as a teaching tool motivates student to learn English in second language classrooms and also helps them to understand and enhance their second language skills.

scholarly journals Using Features of Indigenous Poetry and Music in the Oral Performance of Some Praise Psalms in Isizulu

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
June Dickie
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Text ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Praise Poetry ◽  
Indigenous Poetry ◽  
Poetry And Music

Translation needs to be accessible and acceptable to the receptor community. In the case of the Zulu people, the medium of communication most accessible to the majority is oral performance. Thus biblical text needs to be translated in a way that is prepared for the ear and not the eye. To be acceptable, the translation should sound like “my language,” using indigenous forms and contemporary vocabulary. When translating biblical psalms into isiZulu, they should sound like Zulu songs or poems, with all the richness of performance texture that is part of the long history of Zulu oral art. With this goal in mind, and given the tradition of Zulu praise poetry and the passion Zulu youth today have for poetry, a study was conducted in which young Zulu people, taking cognizance of their Zulu traditions in poetry and music, applied these to the translation and performance of some biblical praise psalms. The results show the value of focusing on orality, indigenous poetics, and performance in communicating effectively the message of some praise psalms.

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