Browsing by Author "Bakker, Nigel"

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    Continuous assessment within the writing curriculum : a classroom-based study of an alternative methodology for teaching writing in a second language context
    (1999) Mohamed, Merunisa; Bakker, Nigel
    The aim of the study was to determine the effects of alternative assessment practices on the writings of seven learners in a Grade 11 English second language class. Conventional assessment practices are inadequate when set against new knowledge of the role played by assessment in supporting learning and teaching. Presently writing and assessment are based on viewing writing as product which is assessed as a single mark of achievement. I set out to develop and implement an alternative writing and assessment programme in the context of typical classroom demands. Alternative practices see writing as process and assessment as embedded in that process. Though alternative assessment practices use a multiplicity of methods, they prefer a criterion based analyses that reflects the developmental aspect of learning to write. Since alternative assessment reflects the developmental aspect of writing, it eschews negative feedback to learners about their writing. The writings of seven learners were analysed to determine if alternative practices had any effect. In addition three reflection questionnaires were administered to gauge the attitude of learners to the alternative programme. My reflections and observations also provided the data for gauging the impact of the programme. Based on the data, the findings and implications of the programme suggest that though there is no conclusive evidence to argue that learners' writing changed as a result of implementing alternative practices, it appeared that learners‘ attitude to writing became more positive; learners became more confident as a result of having more of an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of their writing; and the classroom climate for learning to write improved. At the same time alternative assessment practices gave the teacher valuable information and an opportunity to reflect critically on improvements for setting criteria; on communicating assessment to learners; on assessment design and strategies and defining the assessment method suited to modes of writing discourse.
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    Creativity or calamity : what does the future hold? : an examination of teacher's understandings of creativity in a sample of South African schools
    (2003) Feather, Catherine Anne; Bakker, Nigel
    Technological progress, organisational change and intensified global competition have driven a shift from manual work to 'thinking' jobs that emphasise a whole new range of skills. It is no longer enough for students to show that they are capable of passing public examinations, for to thrive in an economy defined by the innovative application of knowledge they must be able to do more than absorb and feedback information. Learners and workers must draw on their entire spectrum of learning experiences and apply what they have learned in new and creative ways (Seltzer and Bentley 1999). To help equip our learners with the attitudes and abilities that will enable them to meet future problems creatively and inventively (Parnes 1970) we need a curriculum that acknowledges the importance of creativity, as well as teachers who are able to recognise and encourage creative behaviour in their classrooms. In the absence of any formal guidance in this regard, this thesis is an attempt to find out if teachers have the broad and accurate understanding of creativity necessary to do this successfully. To achieve this aim an open-ended questionnaire was compiled and distributed to a number of teachers in a range of teaching contexts. Responses were then analysed qualitatively using a method known as the Constant Comparative Method proposed by Glaser and Strauss (1976). An interactive model of creativity (and thus, one which took into consideration the creative product, the creative person, the creative process and the creative environment) was used to structure the questionnaire and to judge the responses. Using the literature as a yardstick it was determined that, at least on an individual basis, these teachers have an extremely narrow understanding of creativity. It was also evident that there were Significant differences in understanding across contexts. This is an issue that needs to be addressed with some urgency if we intend to be at all successful in our attempts to educate for creativity in this country. A shared understanding of this term needs to be ensured - not assumed - something that could be achieved through the provision of a broad and inclusive set of guidelines.
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    D(reams) of existing wor(l)ds : a postmodern approach to the teaching of Literature in the English classroom
    (1997) Berry, Kirsty; Bakker, Nigel
    The aim of this dissertation is to present a means to redress imbalances that have operated in and continue to pervade our school classrooms. The singularity that is demanded by compliance, conformity and order of the Modernist era is now rejected in a celebration of in diversity and heterogeneity. At the root of the journey is belief in the power fit challenges that lie within the dissolution of our foundations and frames of reference - to capture the moment, and to move beyond into a new set of relationships with a world and those who constitute it. Postmodernism is about a new way of thinking - being conscious to the manner in which we are positioned and being aware that the knowledge we gain is not innocent, but carries with it a historical weighting. Our struggle in the classroom rests in language, for we fundamentally recognise that it is through language that we are constituted as subject, but also in which we act as a constituting subject. The task of the postmodernist is to disturb the constructs of our lived realities - "to make strange" and to enter into new relationships that are grounded in possibility. It is the postmodern moment that is the point of "rupture" (Foucault's term) - that moment of realization of being within a language and a particular historical and cultural framework [Marshall: l992:3]. For this to be possible, it is necessary to uncover the mechanisms that take control and how they do so. Truths are provisional and limited, thus any transformative potential lies in the spaces that are constituted in the differences provided by that which is meaning. Our task in the classroom is to recognise the frames of reference which validate the subject's position in the world, and lay open alternative empowering channels to move beyond the immediate. Literature is our instrument of liberation. As we seek to understand how our meanings have been constituted, a state of constant deferral of meaning must be achieved.-In the classroom, such possibilities create a new type of "knower", one whose meaning is validated by experienced and whose positioned is guaranteed by a redefined reader-text-author-teacher relationship. We regard Literature as an act of interaction, and as unity lies in its destination (the reader), it is critical that we redefine the ideas about society's centre and the margin. Our struggle in the classroom, therefore, is about the questions of identity, place and values.
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    Literature education for transformation : a critical pedagogy for literature teaching
    (1997) Behari, Kasturi; Bakker, Nigel
    As the new South African national ethos is borne, education assumes the inenviable role of reconciliator and liberator amidst the programme of the redressing of past imbalances. Stakeholders everywhere are looking to the field of education for national reconstruction and nation building through the development of young minds into productive, active and creative citizens. Indeed, the responsibility that education bears is a moral one. The broad field of this dissertation identifies Literature Education as a tool for transformation within the specific context of present post-apartheid South Africa. A paradigmatic analysis of literature teaching is provided to establish a theoretical framework for teachers to critically appreciate the underpinnings of their methodological practice, within which to locate their current literature teaching trends. Making a paradigmatic shift in literature teaching implies a change in our beliefs concerning knowledge and meaning; power and authority and learning and teaching in society. The thesis posits that Literature Education must necessarily be located within a critical paradigm of teaching, so that as a critical pedagogy, it may facilitate the self and social transformation of pupils and practitioners alike. Within the critical paradigm of literature teaching, reading is reconceptualised as an interactive process between reader and text. The reader's status is elevated to meaning-maker, without whom the act of reading would be void. Adequate literary theory is advanced on Schema Theory as a model of reading analyses of a reader's or pupil's Personal-Mental Schemata. The theory of Additive Schemata is proposed as the means to effect the transformation in pupils through Schema Refreshment or Schema Alteration. The critical teacher using Additive Schemata inputs, is in a position to maximise the potential that the learner has for transformation. Transformation, however is not guaranteed as it depends on a variety of factors such as a learner's flexibility, logical reasoning and a need to be transformed. In order to validate this proposal a research project was conducted in an English Literature class, the dynamics of which are detailed in Chapter Three in their entirety. The findings reveal that Additive Schemata have a positive influence on a learner's personal-mental Schemata leading in most cases to a transformation within pupils who engaged critically with the Additive Schemata approach. The research acknowledges that a learner's point of entry is not the same as the point of departure within the Additive Schemata approach. Learners are not being introduced to a new moral order; the Additive Schemata offers learner's a new moral choice. In so doing, literature teaching, following the Additive schemata approach, embodies the central tenets of a critical pedagogy offering pupils a process that is self-liberating and socially empowering.
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    Meditations on culture, land, and memory in the drama of the new South Africa
    (2010) Powell, Catherine; Bakker, Nigel
    This work deals with the current state of the South African theatre; it focuses primarily on 'white' theatre: scripted plays with a single author produced for mainstream South African and international theatres. This study examines the historical, political, and social forces that have brought about a period of pronounced turmoil in the post-apartheid South African theatre; it then explores how particular playwrights have engaged with key crisis points in their society. This dissertation focuses on four plays, one from the late 1980s - Pieter-Dirk Uys' Just Like Home' and three from the first decade of the 21st century: Lara Foot's Reach, Craig Higginson's Dream of the Dog, and John Kani's Nothing But the Truth. Other plays are drawn on briefly for comparison. The theme of the study is 'places' of whiteness, as it explores how, in the new South Africa, identities are shaped by different ideas of place: temporal, cultural, and physical. Key questions arise from each of these places. Debates about land, public versus private identities, the right to belong, guilt and forgiveness, and reconciliation across cultural boundaries are addressed, if not fully resolved, in all of the plays under discussion. The study is divided into four chapters. The first chapter provides historical background for the works under discussion, highlighting the debates currently taking place about the state of South African arts and culture. It then lays out theoretical frameworks that will be useful for analyzing these plays, in particular Peter Brook's discussion of the deadly theatre, Bertolt Brecht's aesthetic models, and Raymond Williams' analysis of subjunctive dramaturgy. The second chapter compares Uys' play, which displays the exhaustion of struggle theatre aesthetics, with Foot's work, which seeks to find a new, post-apartheid 'aesthetic of the ordinary.' By doing so, Foot's work posits a model of reconciliation through care that, although flawed, is nonetheless worthy of analysis. The third chapter turns to Higginson's and Kani's plays. Drawing parallels with the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, this chapter explores questions of guilt, memory, and forgiveness; this provides a foundation for a further exploration of the redefining of identities in the new South Africa. The final chapter highlights the strengths and weaknesses of all four plays, each of which is only partially successful as a dramatic work. While emphasizing the contributions of all four plays to the task of building the new South Africa, this chapter also outlines the work that remains to be done in the South African theatre and suggests possible ways forward for later generations of theatre artists.
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    Reader-response methodologies in the teaching of english literature in a second language class
    (1997) Monareng, Mpho Rakwena Reginald; Bakker, Nigel
    This thesis examines the methodologies and the approaches currently adopted in English Second Language Literature class. It begins by presenting .the ideal approaches to literature. Thereafter it examines the research data so as to identify the methodologies and approaches currently adopted in English Second Language Literature class. It seeks to present alternative methodologies and classroom activities that value; pupil-centred approach; autonomy of pupils as active participant in a literature class; the development of the self; education of feelings and imagination; and the reader-response theory. Based mostly on Greene and Abbs this study regards literature education as an exploration, an experience and a vast landscape where individual readers attach meaning differently.
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    Reading children : how children and selectors perceive and construct the reading of fiction in two South African schools
    (1994) Baker, Patricia; Bakker, Nigel
    The purpose of this investigation was to uncover what went into the provision of books of fiction to schools; to examine the construction of readers by book selectors; to find out how children saw themselves as readers and what their own feelings were about reading; and to speculate on the extent to which policies are changing or can be changed. In order to do this I have looked at the situation in two schools with very different histories in the Western Cape. I have tried to establish what the conditions were that created their situation. Through speaking to various book selectors and to children to discover their responses to books, I have gathered material to comment on their perceptions. The schools were chosen as representative of two systems. The children are readers who speak for themselves and, to a certain extent, for their schoolmates. A basic assumption of this work is that both texts and readers are socially constructed. A second assumption, drawing on Wolfgang Iser, is that both texts and readers are active in the reading process. I am, therefore, interested in the "two basic thrusts" in recent research into children's literature identified by Joel Taxel (1989:32). The first is textual and assumes that meaning is determined by the text itself; the second is reader focused. Taxel contends that they can both be accommodated within a sociological perspective, as "literature constitutes an important source of children's knowledge about and orientation to the social world" (1989:33). Another influence on this work is what Charles Sarland has written about young people's reading in terms of culture and response. He has built on the research of Donald Fry, and recorded the voices of children responding to the voices of authors in order to understand the social meaning of what they say. In trying to set a frame within which to study the reading behaviour of children, I have drawn on Margaret Meek's work dealing with children's reading and the meaning of literacy. Ultimately, this thesis is a comment on and an analysis of the state of affairs at two schools at a time when the educational system is in a state of flux. It is an attempt to examine the dominant views of book selectors and to discuss them in relation to those of the children for whom they choose books.
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    South African teenagers reading about themselves in fiction : their response within the cultural practice of reading in South Africa
    (2001) Van Schoor, Catherine; Bakker, Nigel
    The Young Africa Awards Series (YAA) was commissioned as a competition challenging South African writers to produce novels for teenagers that were relevant to their lived reality in South African society today. All the novels examined in this dissertation can be defined as realism. In this study the text is examined as a written locus of meanings around which are constellated oral and written discourses that frame the text. I discuss the ideology operating through the competition's publishers and judges. I also examine the meaning produced through the YAA competition through an analysis of reader responses to different YAA novels.
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    Visions of the Rainbow : Constructions of South African identity in South African literature for adolescents
    (2002) Clark, Jacqueline Kim; Bakker, Nigel
    This research aims to analyse how post-apartheid South Africa has been constructed as society and nation in fictional novels that have been written in English, by South Africans in South Africa, which are set in South Africa and have been written specifically for adolescents. Five books that were published before 1994 and five that were published after 1994 were analysed in order to compare the way in which South Africa is depicted in the novels written during and after apartheid.
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    What are the factors influencing the relationship between school language policy and the literacy proficiency of learners at Grade 7 level?
    (2009) Da Rocha, Trevor; Plüddemann, Peter; Bakker, Nigel
    The foundation for academic success in formal education is based on the language and literacy proficiency of the learner. In addition, the relationship between the home language and the language of learning and teaching at school also influences the level of success the learner attains. This dissertation, a single case study, is an investigation into the factors that influence the language and literacy proficiency of learners at grade 7 level. The following have been identified as key factors in this study: the language policy of the school, the language awareness of the teachers, the teachers' interpretation of the school's language policy, and the role of language attitudes in gaining literacy proficiency. The research design was qualitative in nature and framed within an Interpretivist paradigm. My role as participant-observer allowed me easy access to the research participants, and the gathering of data using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, where necessary. One finding of the study revealed evidence of the ongoing shift from Afrikaans to English in predominantly Afrikaans-speaking communities on the Cape Flats. In other words, the stigma of Afrikaans, and more specifically of Kaaps Afrikaans, as an under-valued language persists in the attitude of parents and, through them, the learners. The dissertation concludes by highlighting the teaching strategy of code-switching and codemixing to scaffold the teaching-learning process of learners not learning through their mother tongue, as an area for further research.
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    The write rationale : teaching and assessing writing in English home language in the senior phase
    (2013) Draper, Matthew; Bakker, Nigel
    The National Curriculum Statement is the most substantive document framing how English teachers are expected to teach writing in English Home Language in the Senior Phase. However, when its implicit pedagogy is evaluated according to what five decades of research and theory have confirmed as best practice, it is found wanting. This is largely due to its foundation in outcomes-based education, an educational philosophy that asserts that all meaningful learning can and must be expressed in objective, measurable terms. This positivist assumption is intrinsically at odds with how writing should be taught. Writing is both imaginative and social. Writing is imaginative in that it draws on non-rational faculties such as intuition, aesthetic sensibility and discernment as much as - if not more than - rational logical thought; writing resists reduction to measurable components. Writing is social in that to teach writing is to introduce and integrate student writers into a broader community of writers and writing. A content-driven writing pedagogy does not support the high level of interaction required between student and teacher. An alternative writing curriculum is proposed here, one that is based upon the best thinking and practice to emerge out of a long and continuing debate about how to teach writing.