Browsing by Author "Mather, Nazarana."

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An analysis of boys’ and teachers’ experiences in a Grade 6 writing programme, using a positioning perspective.
(2019) Mather, Nazarana.; Rule, Peter Neville.; Sheik, Ayub.
Existing research shows that in South Africa there are reasons for concern regarding the achievements of a large proportion of Grade 6 learners in language learning. The impact of this poor language achievement affects their success rates across learning areas and in higher grades. It has also been found that historically, Grade 6 boys have achieved, and continue to achieve, lower results than their female peers in national language assessments. However, boys’ language learning in the Intermediate Phase in South African schools is surprisingly under-researched, particularly their writing skills development. This study contributes to understanding Grade 6 boys’ writing development by providing descriptions of two English Home Language classroom contexts, in two different schools, in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The study aimed to 1. analyse the strategies, perceptions, challenges and experiences of two Grade 6 teachers’ and their male learners’ teaching and learning of writing in English Home Language; 2. provide a holistic account of the development of the boys’ writing skills, presented in terms of the process genre approach to writing, theories of teacher knowledge and positioning theory; 3. determine the role that formative assessment plays during the stages of the writing cycle; and 4. draw from the findings suggestions for further study and improved classroom practice. To this end, in each school, a cycle of the Grade 6 writing programme, as prescribed by the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) (DBE, 2011a), was analysed. The experiences, perceptions and challenges of the two participating teachers and their male learners were analysed using exploratory and comparative case study approaches. This interpretative, qualitative, theory-seeking case study was bounded by time (2015), space (Grade 6 classrooms in two mainstream schools in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) and theme (how boys and their teachers experience and perceive the learning and teaching of writing and their positions and challenges during these writing lessons). Data were gathered from classroom observations, teacher interviews, activity-based questionnaires and the boys’ written submissions with their teachers’ feedback. Classroom and interview data were analysed from the perspective of positioning theory and the process genre approach to writing, and document analysis was conducted on learners’ written submissions. Although these teachers had similar schooling backgrounds and training and followed the same policy statement (the CAPS), it was found that their scaffolding approaches within the stages of the writing cycle differed significantly. This thesis argues that there are significant links among three key elements: teacher knowledge, teachers’ and learners’ positioning in the writing process, and the quality of the final written product.
Making the CAPS fit : an exploration of the reading development strategies of three Intermediate Phase language educators in a rural KwaZulu-Natal school.
(2012) Mather, Nazarana.; Land, Sandra Jane.
The aim of this study was to explore the reading life histories of three Intermediate Phase (IP) language educators, and how their histories influence their teaching, as part of a larger University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) reading project. Using the life history research approach, the manner in which the participants learnt to read at home before starting school, in Primary and High School and how they were trained to teach reading was examined. By observing their lessons and interviewing them, the effects that their experiences have had on their current teaching methods and their readiness to implement the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) in their phase in 2013, was explored. Research has shown that the literacy levels in South Africa (SA) are reason for great concern. There seems to be an overemphasis on decoding skills with limited exposure to all aspects of comprehension in the lower grades. Thus SA learners struggle to cope as they go on to higher grades where they are expected to read for meaning and read to learn. These problems may be associated with the inadequate training and limited knowledge of teaching reading of many SA educators. Educators who participated in this study seem to define reading as primarily decoding text to speech and view comprehension as a separate entity. In addition to this they do not have a full understanding of the complexities of the comprehension process. By exploring the participants’ experiences of learning to read, their training in teaching reading, and current classroom practices, the effects of the former two were visible on the latter. This study contributes to the larger research project as the participants’ misconceptions and preconceptions created by their own mediocre schooling, substandard and outdated training and inadequate continuous development, were analysed so these could be addressed in workshops designed by the UKZN reading project team.