An Exploration of the academic reading strategies of first year English Education students at a South African university

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-123
Author(s):  
Tsebe Wilfred Molotja ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Reading Strategies ◽  
English Education ◽  
First Year ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Academic Reading

scholarly journals Effects of reading strategy instruction in English as a second language on students’ academic reading comprehension

2021 ◽  
pp. 136216882098523
Author(s):  
Deborah Yapp ◽  
Rick de Graaff ◽  
Huub van den Bergh
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Reading Strategies ◽  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Reading Strategy ◽  
Education Students ◽  
L2 Reading ◽  
Academic Reading ◽  
Vocational Studies

The ability to read in a second language (L2) for academic purposes is essential for higher education students. Dutch colleges increasingly use materials in English or teach in English. This can be challenging for L2 readers, especially students entering higher education from vocational studies, who may have less experience with L2 academic reading. Teaching L2 reading programmes containing explicit instruction of reading strategies may benefit higher education students in L2 academic reading, particularly since reading strategies learned in the first language (L1) may not transfer to the L2. In this 7-week L2 reading strategy intervention, 801 first-year polytechnic students learned to use seven reading strategies that were effective according to a meta-analysis of L2 reading strategy studies. Data regarding students reading skills were collected over one academic year, from three treatment waves, using a regression discontinuity design. Three tests of equal difficulty were given to participants. In each wave students completed reading tests several weeks before the intervention, at the beginning and directly after the intervention. Results show that in all three waves the improvement in reading comprehension scores between the second and third measurement (due to the experimental course) significantly exceeded the increase between the first two measurement occasions. Although the intervention was shown to be effective, the effects were to some extent mediated by the previous education level. This study supports the explicit instruction of strategies in L2 reading for students in higher education and welcomes more research into L2 reading strategy interventions for students from vocational backgrounds.

Use of the “Famous Sayings” Test in South Africa

1971 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harald-Edwin Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
College Of Education ◽  
First Year ◽  
Education Students ◽  
African Students ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Education Group ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
The Mean

The Famous Sayings test consists of four measures: (CM) Conventional Mores, (HO) Hostility, (FF) Fear of Failure, and (SA) Social Acquiescence. The test was applied to two samples of South African students, 338 College of Education students whose data were analyzed according to sex, education and age; and a nearly all male group of 110 first-year students of the Department of Architecture, whose data were combined for analysis. The mean scores for each total group on two of the four scales, CM and SA, were considerably higher for the college group. The correlations among four scales for the two groups were similar and significant ( p ≤ .01). The item-analyses (internal consistency) performed for both groups show similar reliability coefficients for CM and SA but lower reliability for College of Education group on FF and HO. On the whole, the measures are sufficiently reliable and independent for screening purposes.

scholarly journals Affinity Spaces and Ecologies of Practice: Digital Composing Processes of Pre-service English Teachers

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Howard
Keyword(s):  
Communication Systems ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
English Education ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Cultural Literacy ◽  
Student Experiences ◽  
Traditional Schools ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Unique Experience

English educators are responsible for preparing pre-service and in-service teachers to consider the ways in which people engage in meaning making by using a variety of representation, interpretive and communication systems. Today new technologies are radically changing the types of texts people create and interpret even as they are influencing the social, political and cultural contexts in which texts are shared. This research project was designed to immerse pre-service English education students in the creation of multimodal, multimedia texts as part of a digital composing workshop. For the purposes of this paper, three student experiences were drawn from a group of twelve pre-service English education students participating in the project. Each student represents a unique experience from which we may draw insight and direction as English educators. Despite the ever present barriers to integrating afterschool (Prensky, 2010) literacy practices into traditional schools and to ensure what we are teaching has the important element of “life validity” ( Mills, 2010) and reflects the evolving socio cultural literacy practices of contemporary society, English educators  must provide authentic, engaging opportunities for pre-service teachers to learn about and through multimedia, multimodal digital technologies.

scholarly journals Onderwysstudente se parodieë as hibridiese tekste: ’n navorsingsverslag

Literator ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-108
Author(s):  
E. Kruger
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Context Dependency ◽  
Research Report ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Education Students ◽  
No Man's Land ◽  
Teacher Education Students

Parody as hybridic text: research report Parody can be seen as one of the techniques of selfreferentiality through which a consciousness of the context dependency of meaning is revealed in an aesthetic way. This article explores the theoretical background of parody as literary style against which the researcher challenged a group of teacher education students in a research programme to generate their own parodies. The task required that they choose a well-known fairy tale and use its structure to mock their own society. Students of another group were asked as the writers’ peers to read the stories in order to engage in a dialogue between encoder and decoder in the process of reception. The educational aim of the programme was to equip students to reflect critically and react creatively to social, political and economic issues that surround them. Furthermore, the researcher wanted to discover how these texts would generate a flexibility, fluency and hybridity in relationship with the students’ cultural identity and how they would project their own liminality in a no-man’s land between youth and adulthood. Analysis and interpretation of the parody texts revealed themes of late capitalism, materialism and consumerism, as well as typical student cultural manifestations of language usage and some of their existing attitudes toward the South African political society in post-apartheid. The students’ parodies have intertextual density with imitation and subversion of the original text contexts and values. The writers used a variety of stylistic techniques to generate double-voiced narratives as manifestation of literary creativity.

Overconfidence of vocational education students when entering higher education

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark P. Bowden ◽  
Subhash Abhayawansa ◽  
John Bahtsevanoglou
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Further Education ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
First Year ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – There is evidence that students who attend Technical and Further Education (TAFE) prior to entering higher education underperform in their first year of study. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of self-efficacy in understanding the performance of students who completed TAFE in the previous year in a first year subject of microeconomics in a dual sector university in Melbourne, Australia. Design/methodology/approach – The study utilises data collected by surveys of 151 students. Findings – A student’s self-efficacy is positively associated with their marks in a first year subject of microeconomics. However, the relationship between final marks and self-efficacy is negative for those students who attended TAFE in the previous year suggesting that they suffer from the problem of overconfidence. When holding self-efficacy constant, using econometric techniques, TAFE attendance is found to be positively related to final marks. Research limitations/implications – The findings are exploratory (based on a small sample) and lead to a need to conduct cross institutional studies. Practical implications – The research points to the need for early interventions so that TAFE students perform well in their first year of higher education. It also points to potential issues in the development of Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) programs. Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the inter-related impact of attendance at TAFE in the previous year and self-efficacy on the subsequent academic performance of TAFE students.

scholarly journals Do High-Achieving Students Benefit From Honors College Participation? A Look at Student Engagement for First-Year Students and Seniors

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 217-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angie L. Miller ◽  
Amber D. Dumford
Keyword(s):  
Student Engagement ◽  
General Education ◽  
First Year ◽  
Integrative Learning ◽  
Education Students ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
General Education Students ◽  
Honors College ◽  
Faculty Interaction ◽  
College Participation

This study investigates findings from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), comparing various aspects of student engagement between honors college and general education students. Responses from 1,339 honors college students and 7,191 general education students across 15 different universities suggest a positive impact for honors college participation on reflective and integrative learning, use of learning strategies, collaborative learning, diverse discussions, student–faculty interaction, and quality of interactions for first-year students, even when controlling for student and institutional characteristics. For senior students, honors college participation was related to more frequent student–faculty interaction. Potential experiential and curricular reasons for these differences are discussed, along with implications for educators, researchers, parents, and students.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document