Chipata College of Education Digital Library

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• Usage-Inspired Insights into Second Language Learning: A Comparative Review of Usage-Based Studies on Vocabulary Development
  This paper examines how usage-based perspectives make contributions to insights about second language (L2) learning in the field of education. It first locates usage-based approaches in language learning, in particular L2 learning. It moves on to highlight two key usage-based features, namely frequency and salience, that have been applied successfully in the context of L2 learning and particularly in the two selected usage-based studies in this paper. Based on these two core features and chosen pieces of research, this paper aims to underpin usage-based investigations on lexical development in L2 learners, which is believed to not yet be researched substantially in the field. In marked contrast to the paucity of such studies, this paper seeks to illustrate how research focus on vocabulary learning could complement the predominantly studied acquisition of syntactic constructions. Despite the real likelihood of conducting usage-based lexical analyses, this paper subsequently counterargues that considerable limitations exist in researching lexicons from usage-based approaches. With a view to fulfilling these study aims, a comparative analysis of two chosen studies was carried out to draw on empirical evidence, affording usage-inspired insights into L2 learning in the educational discipline.
• Can Psycholinguistics Inform Second Language Learning? Educational Implications Arising from the Shared Asymmetrical Model
• Touching collage: examining haptic potential in arts-based research through the lens of "Lucy's Picture"
  Collage in Arts-Based Research has great potential as a tactile, collaborative process but, in existing research, it is often presented as a predominantly visual medium. Using the children’s book Lucy’s Picture (Moon & Ayliffe, 1994) as a framework for my discussion, I examine the untapped haptic potential of collage and the resulting repercussions for ideas of inclusion. In the process, I draw on ten categories that provide fruitful sites for new understandings of collage to emerge and interact: embodiment; a conceptualisation of collage; touch; texture; play; memory; revolt; inclusion; intergenerational communication; and tactile illustration. While I conceptualise collage broadly as a piecing together of fragments in any context, in this article I explore collage as a specifically haptic medium that valorises embodied ways of knowing, rather than making recourse to the false dichotomy of body and mind.
• “That’s my kind of ideal but that’s not necessarily what happens” A Case Study of English as an Additional Language (EAL) Policy Enactment in a UK Primary School: Policy, Understanding and Practice
  The increasing number of English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners integrated into UK primary schools has heightened the need to research how teachers “enact” policies or make them happen. This qualitative case study investigated eleven participants’ views about EAL provision within one primary school in the East of England. The study addressed 1) the extent to which national guidance underpins the school’s own approach towards EAL provision, 2) the understandings classroom teachers have about teaching EAL pupils, and 3) the extent to which teachers’ enacted practices align with policy guidance and their own understandings. The data collection methods included policy document analysis, classroom observations, and semi-structured interviews with the Senior Leadership Team (SLT), and interviews with teachers involving a stimulus card task and semi-structured questioning. Emergent themes were identified using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Unlike previous research, the study drew on teacher sensemaking theory to frame its inquiry around the intersection between teacher understandings, policy messages, and enacted practices in the context of EAL provision. The positioning of these constructs as interdependent challenges traditional assumptions that policy is superior to teachers’ own implementation. This MPhil study found that while tensions between EAL-specificity and generality emerged in all teachers’ reports and observed enacted practices, the school employed “macro-adaptive” approaches that included EAL learners (Cronbach, 1954). The study argues that the lack of systematic EAL-specific information and communication shaped teacher sensemaking. Despite no written EAL-specific school policy, teachers made sense of EAL provision by enacting shared unwritten approaches. Through the dissemination of its findings, the study has immediate implications at micro-level, shaping the case school’s provisional development of an EAL-specific policy.
• Pen and Paper Cyborgs: Queer Embodiment in Baum and Denslow’s The New Wizard of Oz
  The Wizard of Oz has often been depicted as a Queer text. Its pop cultural references extend from monikers for queer identities (i.e., friend of Dorothy) to a general Judy Garland fandom to iconic drag performances. However, very little attention has been paid to the original children’s literature source of the many queer forms of The Wizard of Oz. Using theories of reproductive futurism and cyborg bodies, this paper interprets the many ways in which the inhabitants of Oz manifest queer embodiment and perform non-cis-heteronormative identity within the text. This analysis focuses especially on a 1903 illustrated edition of The New Wizard of Oz and the role the archive can have in creating new ways to interpret classic children’s literature texts. The tangibility of the archival materials also contributes to the idea that making and unmaking corporeality can dramatically influence the potential queer interpretations of an imagined world.
• Using a Participatory Approach to Explore What Young Girls and Their Teachers Want from Physical Activity Interventions in Primary School
  Evidence suggests that young girls are less likely than boys to be physically active at school and are less responsive to physical activity interventions. This study employs a participatory case study approach to explore what young girls and their teachers want from physical activity interventions during the school day. The project aims to distance itself from a hierarchical researcher-participant dynamic and make sense of the issues through a shared conceptualisation and co-researching partnership. One class of British Year 2 girls, their class teacher and their head teacher participated in this study. The girls and their teachers designed their own physical activity intervention, implemented it, measured changes in step count (using pedometers) pre- and post-intervention and reflected on the process. Qualitative data were gathered via focus groups with the girls and semi-structured interviews with their teachers. Key themes that emerged were a desire for choice in how they were active, and an interest in working together as a team within a social framework to increase activity.
• England is blue and China is red: a case study of two Chinese adolescents’ expression of linguistic identity through the construction of English as a second language (ESL) poetry
  This paper reconceptualises linguistic identity for the contemporary era by recognising the integral role of socioeconomic influence in the construction of linguistic identities. By building upon Rampton’s (1990) framework of linguistic repertoire, this case study of two Chinese adolescents explores how linguistic identity is creatively expressed through the construction of twelve English as Second Language (ESL) poems. The data consist of a three-week, online poetry workshop and follow-up interviews. The poems and interview transcripts were coded for each facet of linguistic repertoire using Rampton’s framework (inheritance, affiliation, and expertise) as the thematic analytical tool. Two additional facets (expectation and affluence) were found, resulting in a total of five facets of linguistic repertoire. Participants displayed a strong sense of language inheritance toward their L1 (Mandarin Chinese) and mixed feelings of affiliation towards their L2 (English). They demonstrated strong sentiments of language expertise and an inclination to show off their bilingualism while possessing high expectations of their English abilities. Themes of affluence revealed an awareness of educational privilege; English was seen as a “tool” to acquire more capital and access international communities. Therefore, inheritance, affiliation, expertise, expectation, and affluence comprise these Chinese adolescents’ linguistic identity, revealing socioeconomic influence to be integral to contemporary expressions of linguistic identity.
• Gender Euphoria, Affirmation, and Joy: Positive Approaches to Transgender Youth in Educational Settings
  This literature review critiques mainstream deficit-based approaches to studies of transgender people and LGBT+ communities. Studies that primarily focus on deficits in the trans community may contribute to an overemphasis on pain and suffering as inherent in the trans experience. This review then defines an alternative positive approach based in gender euphoria and gender pleasure, or positive experiences and affirmation of gender. The review examines both community and academic understandings of these topics. Finally, it explores the value of a focus on gender euphoria in educational contexts. This review concludes that a focus on euphoria and pleasure may be instrumental in allowing all youth to thrive in education and recommends further study on gender euphoria and pleasure.
• The Stress Coping Mechanisms of Vietnamese Students In Gifted Schools
  This article takes the familiar subject of student stress and transports it to an unfamiliar setting – “gifted schools” in Vietnam. Research by Vietnamese academics into stress among Vietnamese adolescents, has so far largely been quantitative and has focused on identifying the nature of this problem within Vietnam’s high outcomes but high-pressure education system. This paper takes an alternative qualitative approach, focusing on accessing student voice and using this to understand the coping strategies that Vietnamese students develop. The focus on ‘gifted schools’, is because these highly selective institutions attain exceptionally high academic outcomes according to international comparisons but also consequently place upon their students very high expectations and an extremely high workload. It is also because these schools and their students were supportive in co-creating this study. Via the innovative use of text-based interview, a method that was co-designed in conversation with the participants, this article explores the coping strategies that these students have developed, and in the findings presents a story of how they have developed sophisticated and individualised strategies to cope with stress. This article therefore approaches this issue from a positive and empowering perspective in partnership with the participants in this study. As revealed in this study - the students emphasised the importance of self-reliance when finding strategies, accompanied by the need for self-definition of whether strategies are positive or negative. As one example: rumination, which in Western research is typically portrayed as negative was seen more positively by these Vietnamese students. However, despite the emphasis on finding their own solutions they also welcomed increases in formal mental health support. The results of this study have the potential to inform practice and also lay the groundwork for future research, particularly within the context of education in Vietnam but also within the area of student voice research more broadly.
• Pushing metacognition: an evaluation of the use of process interviews as a means of talking to international students about their learning
  Conducting research into how students learn is exceptionally difficult. The metacognition required for a student to explain their learning process necessitates drawing on complex conceptual ideas. For international students who are not operating in their first language, the vocabulary involved in such explanations forms a further obstacle. My doctoral action research required the elicitation of explanations from postgraduate international students about the ways, and the extent to which, the use of visual metaphors in lectures contributes to understanding abstract concepts. This was achieved using process interviews. The interviews, conducted in small groups, involved a staged process in which participants completed tasks, then described and evaluated the outcomes from them. While the metacognitive demands were not completely removed, the use of process interviews generated rich data that provided valuable insights into the students’ learning and the circumstances in which visual metaphors helped to unlock meaning. Although presenting the findings from the research is beyond the scope of this paper, it is asserted that these insights would not have been possible without the use of process interviews. This paper provides an evaluation of process interviews as a data collection method.
• Teacher Education NGOs in India: Agents of Change in a Complex System
  The Indian education sector is striking in terms of its scale, complexity, and the diversity of actors involved, including NGOs. Many different types of NGO support the Government of India in its mandate to ensure the right to education. This paper focuses on a relatively new cohort of NGOs which support the right to education by providing teacher education. To understand them better, and as part of my Masters research, I interviewed staff members from nine teacher education NGOs to explore their perspectives on their role and to learn about the challenges they face. I found that teacher education NGOs value and pursue changes in teacher identity and lasting changes in practice, and they encounter significant and sometimes surprising challenges at all levels of the education system. I examine my findings with an ecological lens and show how the work and impact of these NGOs are limited by a complex and almost unyielding system. I argue that if NGOs are to assist the state in raising teaching quality, then they require accommodations to allow them to be effective.
• Some Intercultural Implications of ASEAN and Thai Educational Policies for Thai Higher Education
• Understanding Education and Understanding Yourself as a Refugee Learner Seeking Access to Higher Education in Malaysia: Insights from a Pilot Study
  This article presents findings from a PhD pilot study exploring access to higher education for students in a protracted refugee situation in Malaysia. The study seeks to understand access from the students’ perspective through a consideration of the ways in which they understand education and how, in turn, they construct understandings about themselves. The study uses a socio-cultural approach of learner identity to explore the personal meanings students develop, focussing specifically on concepts of internal and external recognition and their interaction. Three students with refugee backgrounds currently enrolled on higher education programmes were interviewed and data was analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The analysis involved a model of co-production in which participants were consulted regarding the interpretation of the results prior to publication and had the opportunity to contribute to the meanings that emerge. The results show that education is central to students regaining a sense of self after having their learning trajectories abruptly severed upon seeking asylum. Considering processes of internal and external recognition reveals how a new socio-cultural context influences the understandings students develop about themselves in relation to education. This is manifest through their changing subject choice at the tertiary level and a renewed appreciation for the value of education. It also provides a means to understand how concealing their refugee status influences their relationships with other students on campus. These patterns of interaction are shaped through a dual layer of being perceived-to-be-perceived as they interpret others’ actions to suggest they are being recognised as refugee students despite not having revealed their status.
• Engagement and Burnout in UK University Students: The Role of Proactive Behaviours Strengths Use and Deficits Correction
  Low engagement and high burnout have serious implications for university students’ mental health and wellbeing. Strengths use and deficits correction are two proactive behaviours found to predict engagement and burnout, but these had not been explored in UK university students. This study investigated the role of strengths use and deficits correction in engagement and burnout by using the Strengths Use and Deficits Correction scale (SUDCO; Van Woerkom et al., 2016), a proactive behaviour measure not previously used in a UK student population. A convenience sample of 133 UK university students from all levels of study, undergraduate and postgraduate, completed a self-report questionnaire, either online or in person. The results demonstrated that the SUDCO scale had high internal consistency for UK university students. In addition, this study found that engagement was independently predicted by strengths use and deficits correction behaviours, whereas burnout was independently predicted by strengths use only. The implications of these findings are that strengths use and deficits correction are important predictors of engagement and burnout in university students. As a result, universities should provide opportunities for students to use their strengths and improve their deficits in interventions designed to increase engagement and decrease burnout.
• Editorial: A New Decade of CERJ
• EDITOR’S NOTE
• Communication Strategies as Forms of Mediation: Toward a Sociocultural Approach to Language Learning
• Practical Criticism in English Literature Studies and the Transition to University: Developing Crafty or Creative Readers?
• Framing Childhood Resilience Through Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory: A Discussion Paper
  Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (1979) conceptualises children’s development as a process of bi-directional and reciprocal relationships between a developing individual and those in surrounding environments, including teachers, parents, mass media and neighbouring communities. Using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, this paper will argue that resilience can be taught during childhood, from the complex social interactions that children have with parents to the interactions they have in school. First, there will be a focus on how resilience emerges from children’s individual personality traits and emotional intelligence. Bi-directional and reciprocal relationships will be addressed by focusing on the effects of parental abandonment on children’s attachment styles, as well as parent-focused interventions. Following this, the role of teachers and school-based interventions (SBIs) will be explored as sources for bolstering resilience among children. Alternative perspectives on resilience pathways, including meaning-oriented approaches and those that recognise the impact of broader influences beyond the microsystem (e.g., culture and media), will also be addressed in this paper. Finally, implications of resilience research for play-based approaches and educational psychologists will be discussed.
• Editorial: Volume 7, CERJ Role and the Responsibility of our Graduate Community
• Literature Review on Issues Surrounding GCSE Textiles Courses in English Secondary Schools
  Textiles is currently the least popular mainstream GCSE option in England, and because I am a Textiles teacher, I conducted a literature review to determine and understand why this may be the case. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the number of male pupils’ opting to take a GCSE in Textiles is very low. Indeed, the association between sewing and female domesticity appears to have had a negative impact on male students opting for the subject, as the low male GCSE numbers are also present in Child Development, Dance and Health & Social Care. Additionally, the literature suggests creative subjects in general have been taught in a manner that does not motivate pupils nor allow creativity within the lessons. Furthermore, many pupils in Textiles classes are often given projects that result in stereotypical and unoriginal final outcomes, as teachers favour the reliability of getting all their students to produce the same outcome e.g. an embroidered cushion. Additionally, as a result of these sorts of Textiles projects, pupils struggle to see the point in the designing and planning stages of their products, as they will all be the same. Moreover, uninspiring projects that favour practical skill learning, over designing, planning and problem solving activities, have resulted in schools and the government questioning whether Textiles can be considered an academic subject. Indicatively, Textiles subjects have not been included in the English Baccalaureate qualification, and feasibly, this may have led to certain top UK universities listing Textiles subjects as undesirable academic qualifications to possess.
• "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free": Developing Aesthetic Literacy in Visual Culture Studies
• Infusing hope in L2 writing strategy instruction research
  Second language learning strategy has received great attention for its role in helping learners to actualise language skills and improve performance, including writing. Congruent with Pressley and Harris (2006, pp. 270), growing evidence has demonstrated that “one approach that works better than any other for ensuring learners actually learn strategies” is strategy instruction. Though studies into strategy instruction have reached the ripe age of 40, one proposal has been recently initiated for innovating the design of strategy instructional packages which shall equally consider developing students’ willingness to learn, in addition to improving their language skills. The present paper hereby takes on the “skill plus will” nature of second language learning and teaching and suggests bringing “hope” from Snyder’s Hope Theory – a Positive Psychology construct that helps people push through the rough times, and acts as an indicator of one’s willpower and mental health – into strategy instruction research. The theoretical underpinnings of hope indicate potentials for being intertwined with second learning strategies for a holistic view of “skill and will” development among learners. Moreover, traditional strategy instruction designs can also draw insights from hope intervention to be more useful in empowering learners.
• Evidence that low self-worth could be linked to anger and aggression in children with ASD
• Exploring the Use of Multi-Session, Group-Based Self-Compassion Interventions for University Students: A Systematic Review
  This systematic review explores the extent to which the design, implementation and delivery of multisession, group-based self-compassion interventions targeting university-level students reflects the emerging self-compassion literature and findings to better tailor self-compassion interventions to student experiences. This paper, undertaken to establish literature on self-compassion interventions, conducted a systematic search of four electronic databases, yielding 357 potentially relevant journal articles after duplicates were removed. Following screening of titles and abstracts, 49 studies were identified for review. Of these, eight were selected as meeting the inclusion/exclusion criteria following full-text screening. Data were extracted and synthesised narratively. Promising support is found for the use of multi-session, group-based self-compassion interventions leading to enhanced self-reported trait selfcompassion in university-level students across all eight studies. Heterogeneity, however, in intervention design, implementation, and delivery obscured how future multi-session, group-based self-compassion interventions could be tailored to student experiences and individual differences. Whilst there is evidence to suggest that multi-session, group-based self-compassion interventions have benefited university-level students by helping them adapt to university life through increases in self-compassion, future research could explore the roles of other-focused compassion and group dynamics in multi-session, group-based self-compassion interventions.