Crossing boundaries: facilitating conceptual development in relation to culture in an English for academic purposes course
- Authors: Dison, Arona
- Date: 1998
- Subjects: Compensatory education -- South Africa , English language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Foreign speakers , English language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Foreign speakers -- Psychological aspects
- Identifier: vital:2345 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002627 , Compensatory education -- South Africa , English language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Foreign speakers , English language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Foreign speakers -- Psychological aspects
- Description: This research was undertaken as the first cycle of an action research project. The aim was to develop a course within the English Language 1 for Academic Purposes (ELAP) course at Rhodes University, which would facilitate the conceptual development of students in relation to the topic of Culture. The implementation of the course was researched, using students' writing, interviews, staff meeting discussions and video-taping of certain classes. Ten students volunteered to 'be researched'. The types of initial 'commonsense' understandings of culture held by students are outlined and the conceptual development which they underwent in relation to Culture is examined. Students' perceptions of the approaches to learning required in ELAP and the Culture course in particular are explored. The involvement of the ELAP tutors in the course and in the research was a learning experience for them, and this became-another focus of the research. The findings of the research support the argument for using challenging subject matter in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses, provided that the learning process is carefully scaffolded. An underlying assumption is that ways of thinking and learning in university courses need to be explicitly taught to students and the study concludes that lecturers of mainstream courses could also learn from the findings of research such as this. The study also shows the potential power of participatory action research to involve practitioners in research and enhance their understandings of aspects of their practice. Finally, it notes the need to value subtle developments in students and to see them as being part of a longer term process.
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- Date Issued: 1998
Teaching disciplinary discourse and implementing language-across-the-curriculum at tertiary level problems and prospects
- Authors: Caldwell, Candice Anne
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: Rhodes University. Dept. of Psychology , Compensatory education -- South Africa , College students -- Study and teaching , College teachers -- Training of -- South Africa , Curriculum evaluation -- South Africa , Discourse analysis , Language arts -- Correlation with content subjects , Learning
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2340 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002622
- Description: The premise of this thesis is that "learning", particularly in terms of students and universities, is capable of being seen as a specific and developed culture. This study is a contribution to the ethnography of that learning, the ultimate aim being to produce a descriptive theory of learning as a cultural system. This research was conducted within the context of the recent proposals made by the South African Commission on Higher Education. The proposals relevant to this study were, broadly, increased access to higher education and national funding for academic staff development programmes. There are, however, serious obstacles in the way of realising the aims of the higher education system outlined by the NCHE. Given the limited time and resources available for higher education development, it is imperative that the major flaws and obstacles in the system be identified and addressed as soon as possible. In view of this need, it was the concern of this study to conduct research which would assist in the designing of staff development programmes for academics teaching in English-medium tertiary institutions, like Rhodes University, where more than half the intake of first-year students already speaks English as a second, or other, language. Founded on the social constructionist view of knowledge, the aim of the study was to identify the needs of academic staff as well as the possible obstacles to the implementation of a "Language Across the Curriculum" policy. A genre-centred, ethnographic approach was used to access a disciplinary discourse community (the Psychology Department) in order to describe the practices of the community as well as to analyse the community's orders of discourse, particularly those which occurred at points of contact between lecturers and first-year students. It is argued that staff development programmes should promote the use of collaborative learning, which implies a reframing of the roles of both academic staff and students.
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- Date Issued: 1997
The integration of academic skills/support programmes into university department structures: a case study in the sociology of education
- Authors: Drewett, Michael
- Date: 1993
- Subjects: Education, Higher -- South Africa , Compensatory education -- South Africa , Education, Higher , Education -- Philosophy , Rhodes University. Academic Development Programme
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSocSc
- Identifier: vital:3327 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003115
- Description: This research focuses on the extent to which the Rhodes University Academic Skills Programme (ASP), now known as the Academic Development Programme, is able to act as an agent of progressive change within Rhodes University. In so doing it concentrates on the potential of the strategy of integrated academic development for dealing with the academic needs of university students within the context of South Africa as a society in transition. The candidate considers the inability of structuralist educational theory to account for the potential of human agency at the site of formal education. It is shown that structuralist theories provide deterministic and pessimistic accounts of the role of institutions of formal education. In support of this contention this study explores the history of ASP at Rhodes University, demonstrating that significant change in student academic development has already taken place. ASP has contributed to change within the said University through challenging traditional notions of academic development. This thesis suggests that the non-structuralist critical theory of Jurgen Habermas provides a more holistic account of ASP than do structuralist theories of formal education. Through the incorporation of Habermas's theory of communicative action a process of critical integration is explored, showing that a strategy of integrated academic development has the potential to involve all those who have an interest in university education through a process of rational discourse. This potential is strengthened by the fact that many students and staff have expressed an awareness of the need for an integrated academic development strategy. This thesis subsequently explores the possibility of there being a process of democratic and rational discourse which could lead to a progressive integration programme in the Rhodes University Department of Sociology and Industrial Sociology. This thesis stresses the contested nature of the integration process within departments. It is indicated that Habermas's critical theory is able to account for the changes which have taken place in the past and which are presently under way. It is argued that it not possible to predict future outcomes, but that if ASP pursues a process of rational discourse, it will indeed be able to stimulate a critical integrative approach to academic development in the Rhodes University Department of Sociology and Industrial Sociology.
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- Date Issued: 1993