6.4 Teacher Anne’s story about the pedagogies practices
6.4.6 Findings on Teacher Anne’s EFAL pedagogic practices in School 1
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oral sentences in FAL 4.0. To what
extent does the teacher use balanced strategies and routines that supports meaningful reading and writing?
4A.Strategies and routines that support meaningful word study and reading
For the comprehension and identification of adjectives they only used the flash cards and meaning-based approach to reading the text. To strengthen the letter-sound relation, they read one rhyme at the beginning of the lesson and a short song during the lesson (to get their attention).
Coded as 4A.2 4B.Strategies
and routines that support meaningful writing.
She modelled a neat and well written chart and list of words to the class.
In the last episode, learners were instructed to write the incomplete sentences on the chalkboard and fill the missing adjectives. They worked individually and the teacher monitored the task, marking and helping those who were struggling. Coded as 4B.3
5.0. To what extent does the classroom portray a print rich environment?
Print-Rich learning environment
The teacher had increased or changed most of DBE charts for IsiZulu and English sounds and words, life orientation charts on hygiene and health, and numeracy charts on additions, subtraction and numbers. The teacher’s written works and learners’ creative works dominated the classroom displays. The class had a reading corner with several displays too, games, counters, home items, reading books and the big book stand.
The back of the class also had storage shelves with learners’ workbooks and other reading books in piles, and the basal readers were also displayed. On the right side, were the learners’ utensils and drinking water. Coded as 5.4.
Similarly, I generated a table for each of Anne’s six lessons and developed a rich summative description of the classroom findings to illustrate how their EFAL pedagogies changed within the 18 months of learning from the ACT programme. The next section offers the Anne’s classroom summative findings.
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Table 6.5: The extent to which Anne’s practice reflects the principles of teaching English as a FAL
Criteria used for coding the FAL principles (Module 6)
Period of classroom video recording Feb 2014 Aug 2014 Oct 2015
L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6
1A: Development of Bilingualism 2 2 2 2 2 2
1B: Receptivity to acquiring FAL 3.5 3 3.5 4 3 3
2A: Formal approaches of learning FAL 4 3 3 4 3 3
2B: Natural approaches to acquiring FAL 3.5 3 4 4 3 3
3A: Development of listening and speaking skills 3 3 3 4 3 3
3B: Building vocabulary in FAL 3 3 3 3 3 3
4A: Strategies to support reading and word study 3 4 3 4 4 3 4B: Strategies to support meaningful writing 2 3 3 3 2 3
5: Print-rich environment 3 3 4 4 4 4
Total scores 27 27 28.5 32 27 27
4= Strong presentation/score - Total 4 x 9 = 36. 1 = Very weak presentation/score - Total 1 x 9 = 9.
The first column shows the nine aspects derived from the principles of teaching English as FAL with the columns L1 to L6 showing the results from the classroom data observed. Column L4, highlighted in blue, shows the EFAL lesson with the highest score, while row 1A (highlighted in yellow) represents the aspect which had an anomalous presentation (Anne used English as LoLT). Lastly the green highlighted row (5) display well-presented aspects of the lessons during the three phases of data collection. Prefix
Next are the summative descriptions of Anne’s observed EFAL lessons.
1. Before enrolling with the professional development - ACT programme (February 2014)
According to the criteria used, the possible total score was 4 x 9 = 36 for a lesson, where a score of 36 was ‘ideal’ and a score of 9 was recognised as weak presentation of all criteria.
Table 1 shows that at the beginning of professional learning with the ACT programme in 2014, Teacher Anne presented an above-average teaching performance during the two observed lessons with scores of 27 and above for the nine principles of teaching FAL. Anne’s two lessons that were observed before she started learning from the ACT programme illuminate a moderate presentation (score of 3 for each aspect) in relation to receptivity to acquiring FAL, explicit use
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of natural approaches to acquiring FAL and provided moderate opportunities/strategies for children to build new vocabulary, supported meaningful reading, writing and print-rich classroom environment. Therefore, she was already teaching according to many of the principles taught in Module 6. However, she scored 2 (weak presentation) in three aspects: the development of bilingualism (both lessons), strategies of developing listening and speaking skills (lesson 1) and opportunities/strategies used to develop meaningful writing (lesson 1). The latter two aspects improved to moderate presentation in lesson 2. This means that these three principles of FAL were not strongly present in her practice when she enrolled for the ACT programme.
2. During the professional development – ACT programme (March 2014 to Sept 2015)
During the teacher learning process, in the two video recorded lessons in August 2015, Anne presented an improvement in most of the FAL principles. Apart from developing bilingualism which was weak (score of 2) in her classroom practice, all other areas of presentations were mainly at moderate and strong levels. The total score for lesson 3 was 26.5 for the nine principles coded, whereas lesson 4 presented the score of 32 in all the principles, as shown in Table 6.5 The constant weak presentation on the development of bilingualism in Anne’s video recorded lessons would be attributed to the fact that the LoLT in school 1 is English and thus, Anne’s practice according to the school values was to emphasise the use of English at the expense of IsiZulu. According to Hill (2010), the National Education Evaluation &
Development Unit (NEEDU) and the National Report 2012 (Taylor et al. (2013), there are schools where learners use the LoLT (e.g. English) throughout the grades but do not speak this LoLT as their mother tongue in the South African context.Department of Basic Education (2013b) suggests that such schools should have teachers who devote a substantial amount of time teaching the FAL at the FP. However, this principle should be applied cautiously since the first principles of bilingualism in the South African context insist on teachers fully developing the HL and FAL of the learners at the FP (Hill, 2010; Lenyai, 2011)
3. At the end of the professional development - ACT programme (October 2015) By Oct 2015, the teachers had covered the entire ACT intended curriculum (eight modules) and were very busy revising for the final examination of the ACT programme. Lessons 5 and 6 illuminate an insignificant change (score dropped by 6), in relation to the previous lessons observation in February 2014 and August 2015. However, moderate presentations of the FAL
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principles were coded, except for bilingualism and the strategies used to support meaningful reading and writing.
The development of bilingualism did not show any change over the 18 months. Anne did not focus on developing bilingualism when she was first observed teaching, neither did she do so at the end of ACT programme. She barely code switched because the LoLT of school 1 is English and HL was only used when elaborating or clarifying a difficult concept to the learners.
That explains Anne’s focus on developing English literacy at the expense of IsiZulu, which is the HL of the learners in this school.
With regards to the strategies to support word study and reading, the presence of these strategies was more obvious in the last few lessons that were observed. However, there were no increases in the strategies to develop meaningful writing. There was a clear indication that Anne’s classroom environment changed to promote a much more print-rich environment than was observed at the beginning of the study. According to the interview responses from the three teachers, the increase of posters and displays in their classrooms by October 2015 can be attributed to the fact that teachers seemed to have accumulated by this time more materials for display from learners by the third term, the DBE and their own creative writings, unlike in February when the schools start. However, they also appreciated the practical and conceptual knowledge acquired from Modules 4 and 6 on the importance of having a print-rich environment at the FP.