Peer and Individual Support

It is important for the child to engage in joint activities since interaction with others promotes problem solving skills and social participation (Vygotsky, 1978) cited in (Gibbons 2002:8). Interaction among learners encourages learners to assist and learn from each other on a particular task. In this study I observed that when learners worked together (peer interaction), they became excited and showed interest in their learning. When Grade 1 learners, for example, engaged with educational puzzles without the help of the teacher as discussed in 4.3.2, I could see that they were helping each other to reach a common decision on how to complete the puzzle. In that way learning took place in a less threatening and warm atmosphere.

To inculcate the culture of peer support in the first term of the year, the Grade 1 teacher established a heterogeneous group where stronger learners sat with weaker learners so that they could help each other. However, the teacher expressed the concern that weaker learners were copying from the strong or the average learners. Consequently, in the second term the teacher decided to create homogeneous groups where learners worked together without copying from each other. This shows that peer teaching is not always effective; it needs thorough planning. The teacher needs to monitor the progress of learners in their groups.

Some studies claim that learners’ written texts gradually develop when they receive support from adults (Latham, 2002:27). In this study young learners started by scribbling marks on the paper

as they got exposure to print products in terms of reading and writing practices. They began to produce words or phrases and then they wrote simple sentences. The analysis of what learners wrote in the next chapter indicates that writing is developmental since learners’ writing changes from writing marks to writing letters that make meaning and at the end of my field work many learners could write sentences. This is confirmed by the teacher interview that developing writing skills requires continuous support from the teacher which involves individual consultation or attention.

The teacher did a lot of repetition where learners did activities on word patterns and spelling of words through writing. Learners in the intervention programme got support from the remedial teacher who specifically focused on learners who experienced difficulties in reading and writing. The assistant teacher also worked with learners individually to assist them with their work, focusing on the problems identified by the remedial teacher. As a result, many learners gradually improved their literacy skills as reflected on Appendix C.

4.4 Conclusion

This Chapter has dealt with the first part of data presentation and analysis which focuses mainly on data collected by means of observations and interviews. The discussion is based on two themes, namely the school and classroom environment and teacher practices. The latter part covers issues pertaining to pedagogical strategies, learning support and literacy for meaning construction. The analysis is informed by the Multimodal Approach to Literacy as discussed in Chapter 2. The discussion seems to suggest that learning literacy in a multilingual situation requires proper support for second language learners to successfully acquire literacy skills. The support needs to be given in a language that is familiar to the learners in order to strengthen their language skills. In this way the learners’ home language becomes a resource for teaching and learning in a multilingual classroom. In the next Chapter I propose to present and analyze learners’ written work using the Writing Development Continuum.

Chapter Five

Data presentation and Analysis: Learners’ Writing Practices

5.1 Introduction

This chapter presents data drawn from learners’ writing practices to describe how learners develop writing skills. The analysis focuses on learners’ texts that were produced at different stages of the data collection period. The data were taken from learners’ literacy work books which they used to do all their activities given by their teacher. It was necessary to look at the texts which learners produced in order to determine how their writing practices had changed over a period of time when they entered Grade 1 up to the end of my field work in the third term of the year. The analysis of learners’ work was supplemented by observation field notes and teacher interviews which are discussed in the previous chapter. This chapter situates the discussion on three themes namely writing development, making meaning of visual and written texts and the assessment of learners’ writing skills. Fuller versions of all the learners’ work are presented in Appendix C.

The Writing Developmental Continuum provides writing phases which show what learners can write at certain learning stages when they learn to write and it also informs this study on how the young learners’ texts can be evaluated to determine their progress. It is complemented by the Multimodal Framework to understand how learners make meaning of the world around them through visual and written texts. The Multimodal Analytical Tool is influenced by the Systemic Functional Linguistic Framework (SFL) which enables us to understand how learners make use of visual and written (multimodal texts) to represent their experiences of the world.