6.6 Teacher Jane’s story
6.6.6 Findings on Jane’s EFAL pedagogies practice in School 3
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5.0. To what extent does the classroom portray a print rich environment?
5.0 Print-rich learning
environment The room is relatively small for the 54 learners, with a small lockable cupboard loaded with DBE workbooks.A long table with piles of different books on the side, Old numbers, shapes, colours charts, lists of isiZulu and English words, a clock, calendar, life skills pictures, and old drawing of the SA flag by the learners. All these materials were mounted all over the walls, even below the chalkboard and did not look impressive. Coded as 5.2
The next section provides a summative description of Jane’s observed literacy lessons analysis.
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in the above-mentioned aspect of the lessons. Finally there was no improvement in the print- rich environment, as exhibited in row 5, which is highlighted in yellow.
1. Before enrolling for the professional development – ACT programme (February 2014)
According to table 6.9 at the beginning of the professional learning with the ACT programme, Teacher Jane’s presentation in relation to the nine FAL principles observed in February 2014, scored a total of 19 and 21 in the first and second lesson - a weak presentation in the two lessons. Jane’s observed two lessons before she enrolled for the ACT programme illuminate a weak presentation in almost all the principles of teaching English as FAL, with an exception of a moderate presentation on formal approaches to learning FAL (two lessons), building vocabulary in FAL (lesson 2) and on opportunities / strategies offered to support reading and word study (lesson 2).
This implies that prior to enrolling for the ACT, Jane’s teaching practices were not in accordance with the principles of teaching FAL, as stipulated in Module 6. This correlates with a great deal of the South African empirical findings, which indicate that the majority of the FP teachers in the rural areas have limited teacher knowledge to enable efficient teaching of literacy and mathematics (Green et al., 2011).
2. During the professional development – ACT programme (March 2014 to Sept 2015)
After the first semester of the ACT, teacher Jane’s classroom practices observed in August 2015 present a similar pattern of weak presentations in relation to the FAL principles observed in February 2014. The scores show weak presentations in almost all the principles and very weak in lesson 4 on the opportunities/strategies used to support meaningful writing, implying that there was no change in her classroom practices even after learning on the ACT programme for one semester. Her total score was 23 (lesson 3) and 18 (lesson 4), as compared to 19 (lesson1) and 21 (lesson 2) in February 2014 when she started the learning programme.
There is a moderate to weak presentation of the principles of development of bilingualism, receptivity to acquiring FAL, approaches to formal learning and the acquisition of FAL, and a very weak presentation on opportunities/strategies to support reading and word study. There was no strong presentation of any of the FAL principles during the 18 months of learning. This implies that after her enrolment with the ACT programme, learning took place and Jane
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acquired some knowledge and skills she might have not been able to explicitly apply in the class (another context). Thus, Jane did not gain substantial new knowledge and skills related to the principles of FAL, to enable sustainable classroom practice changes, as shown by the total scores in table 6.8
3. At the end of the professional development – ACT programme – (October 2015) By October 2015, the teachers had covered the entire ACT intended curriculum (eight modules) and were very busy revising for the final examination of the TL programme. A similar presentation was observed for teacher Jane’s scores, with a moderate presentation of most principles while very weak opportunities/strategies were used to support meaningful writing.
Opportunities and strategies to support reading and word study were also poorly presented in lesson 6 and were coded as a very weak presentation.
With regards to classroom environment, there is a clear indication that Jane’s classroom practice regarding FAL principles remained the same, which was a weak presentation, as observed during the 18 months. She did not change the classroom environment to promote a much more print-rich environment than was observed at the beginning of the study. Although she claimed to have improved the quality and quantities of the classroom display over time during the Aug 2015 interview session, the way she organised the posters and the quality of the posters displayed still persisted as a weak presentation, according to the criteria used for FAL principles.
Overall, Jane seems to have made insignificant changes in her classroom practices in relation to the nine principles of teaching FAL. She may have reflected on the conceptual knowledge from the ACT programme, but not much was put into specific enactment. This implies that Jane may have understand the methodologies, but did not put them into practice during the 18 months as specified in Module 6 (LG 6).
Interviewer: How does the school help you to improve reading and writing in this grade?
Jane: We network with other teachers for support, especially in the learning activities. If I have a problem in my class, I can go to my colleagues in order to find a solution.
Interviewer: Is there a situation you remember of how your colleagues helped you for your English lesson?
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Jane: I went to Teacher Mary (pseudonym). I asked her for help on how to teach verbs to the pupils. She told me to have the learners do some actions and ask them to name the actions that they are doing and write the words the kids say on the board. Then afterwards, I asked the pupils to read from their books and pick out verbs from what they read.
This implies that learning from the programme did not explicitly enrich her prior knowledge on how to teach reading and writing in FAL. The next chapter’s findings and descriptions from Jane’s interviews about her professional learning and pedagogic experiences further support the above claims.