dc.contributor.advisor |
Professor Stuart McNaughton |
en |
dc.contributor.advisor |
Dr Melani Anae |
en |
dc.contributor.author |
Amituanai-Toloa, Meaola |
en |
dc.date.accessioned |
2007-02-02 |
en |
dc.date.available |
2007-02-02 |
en |
dc.date.issued |
2005 |
en |
dc.identifier.citation |
Thesis (PhD--Education)--University of Auckland, 2005. |
en |
dc.identifier.uri |
http://hdl.handle.net/2292/352 |
en |
dc.description.abstract |
The achievement of Samoan students in English reading comprehension has been identified as a
major challenge for the education in New Zealand. This study examined the effectiveness of
reading comprehension instruction in the context of six Samoan bilingual classrooms in two
schools in South Auckland. The quasi-experimental intervention involved two phases over
three years. One was the development of an inter-school standardised process of administering
and scoring assessments to identify student weaknesses and strengths. The other involved 10
professional development sessions over the year built around the profiles of teaching and
learning collected in the first year. Systematic observations of teacher instruction were carried
out in both phases. In addition to the English reading comprehension measures, there were
specially designed assessments of students’ oral language and reading comprehension in
Samoan. These assessements enabled relationships to be examined between students’ Samoan
oral language and reading comprehension and their English achievement. In addition, teachers
were interviewed about their ideas of reading comprehension from a cultural perspective.
Three approaches were used to judge the effectiveness of teaching. These showed that teaching
became more effective generally when examined for students in a longitudinal cohort, but also
for new cohorts in Year 1 and Year 2. In addition, the results showed that students in the
bilingual classrooms had initially lower levels in reading comprehension in English but made
more rapid gains with the intervention and reached comparable levels earlier. These gains are
linked to specific changes in the teachers’ instruction. Analyses showed that the focus of
instruction, for example, instruction which increased general awareness was prominent in
raising reading comprehension levels. Three teachers who attended professional development
consistently showed more gains at the end of the study than the other three teachers who
inconsistently attended. However, despite the gains achievement of bilingual students were still
below national norms.
At a general level, no relationships were found between Samoan oral language and reading
comprehension and English reading comprehension but the presence of relationships between
Samoan reading comprehension and English reading comprehension and between Samoan
reading comprehension and English reading comprehension vocabulary at year 6 suggests a
transitional effect particularly at the level of word knowledge. This effect might explain the
lagging behind of achievement in English from year 4 and year 5 and a catching up at year 6.
Teachers’ placing more emphasis on vocabulary instruction evidenced in the observations
suggests that this is an urgent need. While there was great variability in reading comprehension instruction, teacher ideas also add to
the complexity given teachers’ understanding of what comprehension is from the Samoan
concepts of ‘iloa’ (know) and ‘malamalama’ (understand). Teachers differed in their
understanding of these two terms.
These findings suggest that low achievement in English reading comprehension can be changed,
but there is more research that needs to be done to expand our knowledge of how Pasifika
students in schools comprehend English texts but specifically how they should be taught. |
en |
dc.format |
Scanned from print thesis |
en |
dc.language.iso |
en |
en |
dc.publisher |
ResearchSpace@Auckland |
en |
dc.relation.ispartof |
PhD Thesis - University of Auckland |
en |
dc.relation.isreferencedby |
UoA1664500 |
en |
dc.rights |
Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. |
en |
dc.rights.uri |
https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm |
en |
dc.title |
Ua malie toa ua malie tau = student with silver tongues whip the tail: enhanced teaching and learning of reading comprehension in Samoan bilingual classes |
en |
dc.type |
Thesis |
en |
thesis.degree.discipline |
Education |
en |
thesis.degree.grantor |
The University of Auckland |
en |
thesis.degree.level |
Doctoral |
en |
thesis.degree.name |
PhD |
en |
dc.rights.holder |
Copyright: The author |
en |
pubs.local.anzsrc |
13 - Education |
en |
pubs.org-id |
Faculty of Education |
en |
dc.identifier.wikidata |
Q112866591 |
|