Academic literature on the topic 'Instructor resources'

This study investigates the relationship of instructor behaviour and classroom practices with Chinese ESL speaking-in-class anxiety of a group of first-year university students in Hong Kong. The factors contributing to second language learning speaking-in-class anxiety (SA) are identified by means of interviews,a questionnaire and discussion. The relationship between sex, majors, students' second language (English) proficiency, self-evaluation of their first language (Chinese) and second language (L2) proficiency with SA are examined with the help of a questionnaire. A further aspect of the study explores the kinds of classroom practices and teacher behaviour that help students reduce SA by means of an experiment, comparison of data gathered from pre-and-post experiment questionnaires, participant observation, interviews, classroom activity records, audio recording and comparison of students' English oral grades before and after the experiment. Factor analysis identified five factors contributing to SA. They are - speech anxiety and fear of negative evaluation - comfortableness when speaking with native speakers - negative attitudes towards the English class - negative self-evaluation and - fear of failing the class/consequences of personal failure. Speaking in front of the class without preparation, being corrected when speaking, inadequate wait-time and not being allowed to use the first language in a second/foreign language class were also indicated by this group of first-year Chinese ESL university students as important elements leading to SA. Results suggested that teacher behaviour such as creating a warm and easy going atmosphere in the classroom, upholding teaching professionalism, providing specific help to students and providing pleasant language experience are useful to encourage spoken English in an ESL classroom. Classroom practices such as adopting appropriate tasks and activities that address varied leaning styles and strategies in the classroom, adopting appropriate modes of assessment and correction, allowing preparation in advance before asking students to speak in front of the class, providing adequate wait-time and allowing the use of the first language help lower students' SA. The thesis concludes with an examination of the methodological and theoretical implications of the study. The present research has highlighted the importance of considering the cultural elements, wait time and the use of LI in the L2 classroom, elements which have been neglected in previous anxiety research. A number of tentative and practical recommendations from the study are proposed together with suggestions for future research.

The aim of this thesis is to explore a number of areas relating to children's reading. The experimental studies were designed to investigate reading strategies, attitudes to reading and underlying cognitive processes. However the focus within each of them is to examine the effects of reading instruction and gender. The results from all gender comparison studies illustrate that the significant gender differences perceived to exist in reading ability are actually relatively small in terms of statistical significance. However greater gender differences can be found in measures of planning and attention, attitude to school, attitude to reading and frequency of reading. The studies also investigated the effects of two different reading programmes; synthetic phonics and Progression in Phonics (the National Literacy Strategy's analytic phonics based programme). The results of this thesis support the value of teaching synthetic phonics, as more children taught by this method become independent readers early on, become better readers later on, and there are fewer underachievers when taught by this method. Synthetic phonics provided children with better phonological reading skills, which boosted their ability to read irregular as well as regular words and is therefore suitable for opaque languages like English. In addition, no differences in reading attitudes were found according to type of reading instruction. Finally, the way in which children are taught to read appears to change the cognitive substrate underpinning reading, and may also develop skills beyond the reading system.

The overall aim of the Project was to investigate teachers' pedagogical subject knowledge, in particular, through examination of the co-ordination and utilisation of teacher and pupil knowledge in the complex environments of reception classrooms. Phase One and Two (orientation and overview) concerned the design, piloting and revision of criterion-referenced instruments to assess children's informal mathematical knowledge and included preliminary interviews with four reception teachers to consider their pedagogical thinking and decisionmaking.Phase Three and Four (focused exploration) aimed to capture teachers' pedagogical subject knowledge, exemplified in teacher-pupil interactions, as it moved in varied, yet planned and structured ways towards specific goals. Background biographical information obtained from teacher interview and measures of children's mathematical knowledge allowed consideration of the relationship of teachers' subject knowledge and knowledge of their pupils' competence to teaching goals and classroom processes. It was concluded that at the heart of teachers' pedagogical subject knowledge lies subject content knowledge and knowledge of their pupils' conceptions. The observed diversity in practice among the different teachers and their apparent lack of awareness of the rich informal knowledge brought into school - of counting, recognition of numerals, representation of quantity, addition,subtraction and social sharing, appropriate language of measurement and selection of criteria to sort objects - raises some questions with respect to the adequacy of teachers' subject knowledge. The interaction between the processes of assessment of children's prior knowledge and instruction, however, was demonstrated by the way teachers presented tasks and were able to assess the extent to which children could answer questions about content and apply knowledge strategically. This finding poses some challenge to the notion of assessment as a single event or the stable notion of match.Complex views about children's learning were not necessarily translated into practice suggesting that without clear subject content knowledge neither sophisticated theories concerning children's learning nor scaffolded approaches will necessarily lead to effective teaching. Building up a case knowledge concerning teaching processes which this Project has stimulated may be one way to increase our understanding of subject knowledge for teaching and the development of professional practice. Furthermore the interest already generated in the documentation of children's rich informal mathematical knowledge suggests that providing teachers with increased knowledge of children's mathematical thinking may offer another means to enhance their pedagogical subject knowledge.

The goal of this project was to develop an environmental education resource for fifth grade teachers using the California Science textbook. The goal is for teachers to be able to use this guide as a convenient resource to incorporate environmental education and environmental literature into science instruction.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1993.<br>Title from title page screen, viewed March 2, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Ronald S. Halinski (chair), Patricia A. O'Connell, Ronald L. Laymon, Norman D. Durflinger, Calvin Jackson. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-114) and abstract. Also available in print.