Sheena Gardner

Snares and silver bullets: disentangling the construct of formative assessment

This article explores the nature of formative assessment in a primary (elementary) language learning context. The research is situated in nine inner-city schools where an Early Years Intervention Project is being implemented to address problems of low levels of achievement in English, with specific reference to the language support of learners for whom English is an Additional Language.1 School-based assessment data are presented and analysed in relation to the construct of formative assessment. It is argued that the distinctions between formative and summative assessment are not as straightforward as sometimes portrayed and that the interplay between reliability and validity for purposes of class-based assessment is highly complex.

Young Learner Perspectives on Four Focus-on-Form Tasks.

Recent studies suggest that focus-on-form (FonF) instruction has a positive effect on the second language proficiency of young learners. However, few have looked at learner perspectives on different FonF tasks, particularly in those young learners. This study investigates childrens attitudes towards four FonF task-types in three Primary 5 English classes in Brunei Darussalam. The four task-types selected are consciousness-raising, dictogloss, grammar interpretation and grammaring. Specifically, the study addresses childrens perceived task enjoyment, ease, performance and motivation. Findings show that while there was a general trend of positive attitudes among children towards FonF tasks, variations in task preference existed, particularly with respect to three main sources of influence: cognitive demands, production demands, and pair/group-work opportunities. This research has implications for both the implementation of FonF instruction at primary school level, and the manipulation of task features to suit learners at this level.

Centre-Stage in the Instructional Register: Partnership Talk in Primary EAL.

Despite the potential benefits of partnership teaching, as distinct from collaborative teaching and support teaching, evidence from the Midlands and West of England suggests that full partnership teaching between a class teacher and language support teacher of English as an Additional Language is rare, though collaboration is increasing. Occasionally both teachers are centre-stage, and partnership talk, where two teachers together teach the class, occurs. Drawing on Christies theory of regulative and instructional registers in curriculum genres, this paper analyses part of a Year 1 social studies lesson where the language support teacher moves from a silent, scribing role, through responding, then nomination and feedback moves in the regulative register, to initiating content and directing beautifully choreographed action centre-stage in the instructional register. This analysis forms the basis of a framework of variables that characterise a proposed continuum from support talk through collaborative talk to partnership talk. The analysis and interpretation of such teacher–teacher classroom talk when it does occur arguably constitutes an essential basis for understanding how language support relationships are realised and develop for the adults and children involved.

Knock-on Effects of Mode Change on Academic Discourse.

Abstract Factors such as increases in student numbers and technological developments are threatening the luxury of one-on-one tutorials and bringing changes in modes of academic discourse. This small scale exploratory study identifies characteristics of taped oral, compared to written, feedback that are attributable to its spoken nature (longer, less dense); to the shift away from multiple audiences (more engaged, more personal); to its more formative purpose (greater range of feedback strategies, focus on product and process); and to the communicative context (opening moves that involve the audience more; summary moves that rephrase and focus). Salient linguistic features of the taped oral feedback genre are described, and it is argued that the shift from written to taped oral feedback naturally brings with it more extensive feedback that engages more with the writer, has a more formative purpose, and is more explicit. Implications for EAP and all those providing feedback on student work are suggested.

Integrating ethnographic, multidimensional, corpus linguistic and systemic functional approaches to genre description : an illustration through university history and engineering assignments

Our research aims to describe genres of assessed writing at British universities (ESRC RES-000-23-0800). To this end we have developed a corpus of 2800 texts from four years of study across four broad disciplinary groupings. Our research design integrates a corpus linguistic account of formal features in the corpus with an ethnographic investigation of the disciplinary context, a multi-dimensional analysis of register, and a functional linguistic analysis of genres. In this paper I illustrate this design with examples from history and engineering. The contextual information shows that history students write mostly essays, written as pedagogical genres, while engineering students engage in a wide range of written assignments: scientific papers are written as if to report findings to an academic audience; funding proposals are written as if to persuade a professional readership; posters are designed to inform a lay audience (e.g. visitors to a transport museum); and reflective journals are written for personal and professional development. The writing process also differs. Some assignments are written individually whereas others involve teamwork.

Out of the Mouths of Young Learners: An Ethical Response to Occluded Classroom Practices in Researcher-Initiated Role Play.

ABSTRACT Conducting research into young learner experiences of school poses methodological challenges which are compounded when, as is increasingly the case, the classroom interaction is multilingual and the research methods are participatory. Each new or adapted method sheds further light on the issues that can arise. Researcher-initiated role play is a method where a researcher invites a group of children to engage in role play, something that many young children do spontaneously. This gives children the interactional space to take control of the specifics of the role play and to present their perspectives and concerns through multiple semiotic layers. This paper explores ethical issues that arise when role play reveals familiar but occluded practices; practices that are not readily presented to outsiders. Specifically, when this researcher-initiated role play was used to explore how children in their first years of school learn to read in different languages and in different multilingual, primary school contexts, certain occluded disciplinary practices were revealed. This paper considers the nature of an ethical response to such revelations.

CD-ROM multimodal affordances: classroom interaction perspectives in the Malaysian English literacy hour

CD-ROM affordances are explored in this article through participation in classroom interaction. CD-ROMs for shared reading of animated stories and language work were introduced to all Malaysian primary schools in 2003 for the Year 1 English Literacy Hour. We present classroom interaction extracts that show how the same CD-ROMs offer different affordances in their support of seven teaching styles differentiated along eight dimensions. The meaning potential of the CD-ROMs emerges as teachers make salient different combinations of modes in the materials. Despite these interactional differences, the introduction of CD-ROMs is essentially a ‘benign addition’ in that it generates interest and motivation among students and is appreciated by teachers for ‘lightening the load’, but has done little to transform traditional ways of teaching in these Year 1 classrooms: there was no evidence of the increased interaction and student participation desired by the Ministry. Our findings resonate with research internationally which calls for clear guidelines about ‘what works’. Our classification of teaching styles based on interactions afforded by the Malaysian CD-ROMs enables us to identify what might work in different contexts.