An investigation into the development of knowledge and strategies for the teaching of visual literacy in under-resourced Eastern Cape schools
- Authors: Mbelani, Madeyandile
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Uncatalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64401 , vital:28540
- Description: This thesis reports on a multiple case study PhD project that aimed to investigate meaningful and critical development of knowledge and strategies to teach visual literacy, a component of English First Additional Language (FAL) in six under-resourced schools of the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The study begins by locating visual literacy within a broad framework of literacy as a social practice, and discusses its importance. Further, it discusses complexities of making sense of and teaching visual literacy, especially for the majority of in-service teachers who experienced visual literacy neither as learners nor as teacher trainees. The gap between the curriculum and teachers’ classroom practices is what triggered this study to adopt a transformative paradigm. The main research question is, “How can teacher professional development in English Language Teaching advance in-service teachers’ knowledge of and strategies for meaningful and critical teaching and learning of visual literacy?” To respond to this question, I drew on cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and critical realism (CR) to design four phases of this study that incorporated the seven stages of an expansive learning cycle. These phases focussed on exploring and expanding teachers’ sense making and teaching of visual literacy. I collected data through interviews, document analysis, videoed lessons and change laboratory (CL) workshops. I designed a data analysis tool that brought together CHAT, CR, multimodal social semiotics, critical discourse analysis and pedagogical discourse to make sense of the data. Through a process of reflexivity, the study illuminated layers of factors that constrained meaningful and critical teaching of visual literacy in the empirical, the actual and the real domains of reality. These factors include teachers’ unconscious reproduction of discourses of domination, their intolerance of diverse cultural discourses, resistance to curriculum change, and the fact that they are comfortable with the status quo. I brought these factors to CL workshops for expansive learning. The study contributes in-depth insight into English FAL in-service teacher development in the area of visual literacy. By locating the study within meaning making and teaching of visual literacy, it was possible to interrogate access, diversity, domination and design in teachers’ classroom practices. As a result of this study participants were made aware of the extent to which these factors enabled or hindered meaningful and critical teaching. Participants repositioned themselves as subjects of the activity system, thereby mobilising their agency to take control of the structures and cultures that condition their teaching.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Mbelani, Madeyandile
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Uncatalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64401 , vital:28540
- Description: This thesis reports on a multiple case study PhD project that aimed to investigate meaningful and critical development of knowledge and strategies to teach visual literacy, a component of English First Additional Language (FAL) in six under-resourced schools of the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The study begins by locating visual literacy within a broad framework of literacy as a social practice, and discusses its importance. Further, it discusses complexities of making sense of and teaching visual literacy, especially for the majority of in-service teachers who experienced visual literacy neither as learners nor as teacher trainees. The gap between the curriculum and teachers’ classroom practices is what triggered this study to adopt a transformative paradigm. The main research question is, “How can teacher professional development in English Language Teaching advance in-service teachers’ knowledge of and strategies for meaningful and critical teaching and learning of visual literacy?” To respond to this question, I drew on cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and critical realism (CR) to design four phases of this study that incorporated the seven stages of an expansive learning cycle. These phases focussed on exploring and expanding teachers’ sense making and teaching of visual literacy. I collected data through interviews, document analysis, videoed lessons and change laboratory (CL) workshops. I designed a data analysis tool that brought together CHAT, CR, multimodal social semiotics, critical discourse analysis and pedagogical discourse to make sense of the data. Through a process of reflexivity, the study illuminated layers of factors that constrained meaningful and critical teaching of visual literacy in the empirical, the actual and the real domains of reality. These factors include teachers’ unconscious reproduction of discourses of domination, their intolerance of diverse cultural discourses, resistance to curriculum change, and the fact that they are comfortable with the status quo. I brought these factors to CL workshops for expansive learning. The study contributes in-depth insight into English FAL in-service teacher development in the area of visual literacy. By locating the study within meaning making and teaching of visual literacy, it was possible to interrogate access, diversity, domination and design in teachers’ classroom practices. As a result of this study participants were made aware of the extent to which these factors enabled or hindered meaningful and critical teaching. Participants repositioned themselves as subjects of the activity system, thereby mobilising their agency to take control of the structures and cultures that condition their teaching.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Seeing is natural, but viewing is not: teaching visual literacy in a rural classroom
- Mbelani, Madeyandile, Murray, Sarah R
- Authors: Mbelani, Madeyandile , Murray, Sarah R
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , Article
- Identifier: vital:7022 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007203
- Description: This paper reports on a collaborative action research case study into Grade 10 teaching and learning of visual literacy in a rural high school into the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Visual literacy is a new aspect that has been incorporated in English First Additional Language National Curriculum Statement (Grade 10-12), which has been implemented in Grade 10 from 2006. With the aim of gaining knowledge and improving performance in visual literacy, I designed a unit of lessons, which exposed learners to visual grammar and visual texts and I collected data around the implementation of the lesson unit as evidenced by journal writing, interviews and non-participant observation. The data revealed that visual literacy could be taught meaningfully in a rural high school as the learners could identify, cut, paste and critically discuss elements of visual language and they finally designed their own advertisements in groups. However, the following factors emerged as hindrances to the successful teaching of visual literacy in this case: lack of resources; learners' lack of a foundation in visual literacy from Grades 7-9; and problems revolving around time management and pacing.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Mbelani, Madeyandile , Murray, Sarah R
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , Article
- Identifier: vital:7022 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007203
- Description: This paper reports on a collaborative action research case study into Grade 10 teaching and learning of visual literacy in a rural high school into the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Visual literacy is a new aspect that has been incorporated in English First Additional Language National Curriculum Statement (Grade 10-12), which has been implemented in Grade 10 from 2006. With the aim of gaining knowledge and improving performance in visual literacy, I designed a unit of lessons, which exposed learners to visual grammar and visual texts and I collected data around the implementation of the lesson unit as evidenced by journal writing, interviews and non-participant observation. The data revealed that visual literacy could be taught meaningfully in a rural high school as the learners could identify, cut, paste and critically discuss elements of visual language and they finally designed their own advertisements in groups. However, the following factors emerged as hindrances to the successful teaching of visual literacy in this case: lack of resources; learners' lack of a foundation in visual literacy from Grades 7-9; and problems revolving around time management and pacing.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Winds of change in teachers’ classroom assessment practice: a self-critical reflection on the teaching and learning of visual literacy in a rural Eastern Cape High School
- Authors: Mbelani, Madeyandile
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , Article
- Identifier: vital:7021 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007201
- Description: The year 2006 saw the implementation of a new curriculum for teaching English First Additional Language (FAL) in grades 10-12 in South African high schools. The curriculum includes the teaching and assessment of visual literacy – a challenge for teachers whose apartheid-era teacher education did not address visual literacy at all. The article is a self-critical reflection on my attempts to teach and assess a unit on visual literacy in a Grade 10 class in a rural high school in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Mbelani, Madeyandile
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , Article
- Identifier: vital:7021 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007201
- Description: The year 2006 saw the implementation of a new curriculum for teaching English First Additional Language (FAL) in grades 10-12 in South African high schools. The curriculum includes the teaching and assessment of visual literacy – a challenge for teachers whose apartheid-era teacher education did not address visual literacy at all. The article is a self-critical reflection on my attempts to teach and assess a unit on visual literacy in a Grade 10 class in a rural high school in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
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