The findings of the study revealed that all but two of the change agents were marginally successful in sustaining language change in their schools. The non-existence of some or any of the factors necessary for school language change has thwarted the efforts of the change agents to sustain language change in their schools.
LIST OF TABLES
ELET Trust English Language Education ELTIC English Language Teaching Center FET Further Education and Training. PRAESA Alternative Education Study Project in South Africa Pre-service education and training.
CHAPTER ONE
SETTING THE SCENE FOR SCHOOL LANGUAGE CHANGE LED BY INTERNAL CHANGE AGENTS
- Introduction
- Rationale for the study
- Background to the study
- Aims and Purpose of the Study
- Key research questions
- Key concepts in the study
- Change Agents
- School Language Change
- Sustainability of Language Change
- Executive Summary of Thesis
- Conclusion
How do the change agents' experiences illuminate the process that leads to sustainable language change at school? Interrogating the efforts of internal change agents to sustain the language change they initiated in their schools.
CHAPTER TWO
EXPLORING THE TERRAIN: SCHOOL LANGUAGE CHANGE, CHANGE AGENTRY AND SUSTAINING CHANGE
Introduction
In this regard, three strands of theoretical understandings about change emerging from the review are brought together to develop a theoretical framework to guide data analysis and interpretation. The three strands of theoretical understanding of change (social-psychological perspective on change, educational change and school language change) encompass understandings about critical change issues and language change in multilingual educational contexts.
Part A: Literature Review
- The South African context
- Historical Overview of Language Policy in Education in South Africa
- Research on post-1997 school language policies and practices
- Language Perceptions disabling Implementation of the LiEP
- Experimenting with Multilingual Education
- The International Context
- Africa
- Other international countries
- Change agentry and Sustainability of change
- Social Psychological Perspective on Change
- Educational Change and Reform
- Sustaining Language Change Initiatives at School Level
- Summary
The form of intervention(s) in the current behavior of an individual or individuals to bring about this change. The focus of the social psychological perspective on change resonates with changes in the school context.
Part 2: Theoretical and conceptual framework
- Social Psychological perspective on change
- Educational change
- Language policy and practice change
The change literature review revealed critical change issues affecting the change process, change sustainability, and the efforts of change agents leading the change process. The theoretical and conceptual understanding gathered from the reviewed literature was used to build a theoretical and conceptual framework for interpreting and analyzing school language change and the experiences of change agents who lead and attempt to support such change. The approach's concern with the process of initiation and adoption of change, the sustainability or institutionalization of change identified and the factors influencing this process are instructive and can be used in a framework to analyze the change process led by language change agents. in their respective schools.
Conclusion
They argued that the factors that threaten the implementation of language policies that support multilingualism in South Africa and the wider African context, as well as the additive language models used to promote multilingual education internationally, are instructive for examining school language change in the study. The literature search was extended to review change literature beyond the field of language change, due to the limited literature on language change that focuses primarily on the work of change agents and the sustainability of change. They argued that the principles and guidelines for education leading to multilingualism derived from the literature would be equally instructive for questioning the language change initiatives discussed in the study.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: DEVELOPING THE TOOLS FOR INTERROGATING SCHOOL LANGUAGE CHANGE
Introduction
Philosophical underpinnings for the methodology
The interpretive paradigm is therefore best aligned with the approach taken in this study, as the study is concerned with the development of understanding of school language change that emerges from language change agents' experiences and interaction with others in their social context in the pursuit of school language achieve and maintain. alter. The perspective offered by interpretivism offers a way to interrogate the experiences of each of the change agents and the resulting perceptions of how school language change is negotiated, managed and sustained or undermined. The aim of the study is to explore the individual and collective experiences of language change agents trying to sustain initiated language change in their schools with a view to furthering understanding of the school language change process.
The argument for adopting a qualitatively-oriented case study approach
The qualitatively oriented case study approach adopted for this study, guided in part by a phenomenological analysis of the experiences of change agents and others with whom they interact in their social contexts, would deepen the understanding of school language change. While not diminishing the importance of each change agent's experiences in trying to sustain language change in his/her school context, the analysis and discussion of findings involves bringing together individual experiences, allowing for more cohesiveness to better understand the phenomenon of school language change. . In seeking to understand the individual experiences of language change agents, while at the same time using the collective experiences of all four change agents to deepen understanding of the phenomenon of school language change and create a theoretical understanding of the phenomenon, the study is thus intrinsic. and key in its orientation.
Building theory from case studies
- Grounded Theory
- Features of Grounded Theory Approach used in the study
Data collection involves gathering multiple examples of the phenomenon of emerging interest, which are then subjected to constant comparative analysis, which is a process used to generate theoretical properties of a category or concept of interest. Overlapping data analysis with data collection provides an edge in analysis and allows researchers to take advantage of flexible data collection. Other features of the grounded theory approach evident in the study include opportunistic data collection and overlapping data collection and analysis.
Selection of schools and research participants
Describing the context
- Location of schools
- Schools
The student enrollment at the time of the research was 863 of which 820 were African. However, at the time of the research the community and school population were more stable. The road giving access to the school was only partially excavated at the time of the research.
Main research participants: Four Change Agents
- Change Agent G
- Change Agent L
- Change Agent R
- Change Agent S
Officer L is an Indian man in his late forties and had served Bo Peep Primary as chairman of the SGB for three and a half years at the time of the investigation. Officer R is an Indian man in his late fifties and had been a principal at Piper Primary for five years at the time of the investigation. Officer S is an Indian woman in her late fifties and had been a Level 1 teacher at Mulberry Primary for 19 years at the time of the investigation.
Data gathering and production
- Interview Schedules
- Focus Group Discussion
- Document Analysis
The discussion in the focus group15 was a "continuation" of the individual interviews with the change agents and was partly used to validate the data extracted from the individual interviews, but mainly to deepen the understanding of the phenomenon of school language change. The aim of the Focus Group Discussion was to bring all change agents into a forum to share their experiences of initiating and sustaining language change in their school. Consistent with the claim that focus groups can be used as part of a measure to triangulate data (Morgan & Spanish 1984), Focus Group Discussion allowed for a further, limited validation of data collected from interviews with agents of change.
Data analysis
- Theoretical lenses for viewing the data: Sensitising Concepts
- Understandings developed from initiating change
- Motivation for choice of sensitising concepts
Douglas (1997) is concerned with the activity of change agents and the processes, methods, concepts and beliefs that support them, rather than the status of the agent of change. Because the main functions of change agents in this study are teaching, school management and school leadership. The characteristics of these educational agents and educational culture are further defined in the literature review.
Validity Measures
- Triangulation
- Data Triangulation
- Methodological Triangulation
- Researcher-participant Corroboration
- Multiple Analyses
- Other measures used to enhance validity
Validity measures adopted in the study mainly involved validating findings and increasing reliability through triangulation. Interviews were held with all four change agents as well as significant others in each of the schools under study for this purpose. The Focus Group session also gave the change agents further opportunities to elaborate and provide further clarity on the issues raised in the individual interviews.
Conclusion
CHAPTER FOUR
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: TWO FORMS OF SUSTAINED SCHOOL LANGUAGE CHANGE
Introduction
These themes were integrated to generate the subcategory of Pressure to Achieve School Language Change. The data analysis generated three main categories of concepts explaining school language change as reflected in the table. These theorizing moments comprise the initial phase in the formulation of a theoretical understanding of school language change.
The two forms of sustained school language change
- Section one: Using pressure to sustain change
- Changing teachers‟ mindsets
The theoretical framework for understanding SLC is developed in the last chapter of the study. The second section of the chapter examines the extent to which language change initiated by change agents was either accepted and integrated or resisted by various individuals in the school and how this acted to support language change in the school or to disable the processes of changing the language at school. . This section of the chapter identifies and examines areas where change agents articulated a need for pressure to be exerted and where pressure was already being exerted to initiate and sustain language change.
Changing the racial composition of the staff
This part of the analysis focuses on the pressure that Agents R and G exerted to change the racial composition of their schools' staff as part of their efforts. As a result, Agents R and G were in a position to apply pressure to change the racial composition of their staff based on the authority they had as school principals. This part of the analysis also revealed that the motivation behind the intention of R and G agents in exerting pressure to appoint more Zulu-speaking teachers in their schools was largely to address the linguistic challenges faced by the vast majority of their disciples who were Africans. pupils.
Revising the school language policy
However, Agent L argued that the principal of Bo Peep Primary had not consulted with the SGB or the wider parent organization about the school's language policy. Agent L further argued that the principal had limited the role of the SGB by excluding it from involvement in curriculum and policy issues. It is not the director or the teachers who decide on the language policy of the school, according to the Schools Act it must be something that comes from the parents.” When.
Prioritising the learning of isiZulu
The data showed that none of the change agents had the power to pressure teachers to improve themselves in this area. The data overwhelmingly showed that language change in the schools of all four change agents was seriously hampered by the inability of a large number of teachers to be monolingual in English rather than bilingual in Zulu-English. To be part of the huge population of this place, you had to know the language.
Pressure from the education department
It is the opinion of these actors that there is a need for pressure in the form of close monitoring of the implementation of post-apartheid LiEP in schools by the Department of Education in order to sustain the schools' language changes. This "lack of political will to drive this process", claimed by agent G, is echoed in the literature23. In the following response, Agent S explained why she was thinking of making an attempt to influence management to resolve the issue.
Persuasive Pressure
Agent L's claim was that through tact and diplomacy he was able to convince the principal to change her position on various issues concerning the school. That way, he claimed, he managed to get the principal to comply with his agenda. While the chairman warned that open confrontation between him and the principal would have led to a situation where they.
Coercive Pressure
- Summary
- Section Two: Accepting and Integrating Change
- Resistance to change from educators
This meant that she exerted very little force to change the language of the school as a whole. This part of the first section examined how different change agents managed the pressure to initiate and sustain school language change. The data also revealed that in pressure change management, agents must mediate between coercion and persuasion to effectively support school language change.
Both of the factors identified in the responses above as fueling resistance to language change are related to the fear of change and the perceived threat that change brings. Officer G also acknowledged that teachers would react negatively if they perceived their safety was being threatened and expressed the need to be cautious when appointing new teachers to the school so as not to jeopardize the position of existing teachers on staff. The above response demonstrates Agent G's concern that the position of existing teachers on staff is affected by changes in the school's language policy and suggested that the appointment of new teachers on staff should be done with caution to avoid that endangers existing teachers and new teachers.
When I addressed assembly and did tell them the Easter story in isiZulu, I got comments like this is an English school and I should tell
Acceptance of the need to change
Despite widespread teacher resistance in all four schools to changing the school language, there was some acceptance of the need to be involved in language policy and practice change. Her conclusion about the benefits of isiZulu for learners was clearly based on market-driven forces. This view is repeated by Alexander (2006), who talks about the economic value of African languages.
Now I think it‟s hitting them, the fact that they need to change, especially among the older teachers they have been set in their ways
Resistance to change from parents
De Klerk (2002)31 researching the language attitudes of isiXhosa parents who sent their children to English medium schools found that. That is why they send their children to this school and not to the schools on the other side because they want their children to learn English. They wanted their children to retain their mother tongue while acquiring English skills (de Klerk 2002).
