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FINAL PHD THESIS PRINT READY AUGUST 2020 S YAFELE[35692].Pdf PROGRESSIVE READING COMPREHENSION TRAJECTORIES AMONG ENGLISH-AS-AN -ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE FIRST-YEAR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION AND PUBLIC RELATIONS STUDENTS IN A SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITY by SIMBAYI YAFELE THESIS Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Language and Literacy Education School of Education Faculty of Humanities University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Supervisor: Professor Leketi Makalela August 2020 DECLARATION I, Simbayi Yafele, student number 295364, declare that this thesis entitled “PROGRESSIVE READING COMPREHENSION TRAJECTORIES AMONG ENGLISH-AS-AN -ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE FIRST-YEAR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION AND PUBLIC RELATIONS STUDENTS IN A SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITY” is my own work. All the sources that I have used or quoted have been duly acknowledged in the references. This thesis has not been submitted before for any degree or examination in any other university. 15 August 2020 Signature: …………………………. Date: ………………………. [2] ACKNOWLEDGMENTS “Those blessed with soaring powers of the eagle and have flown before me; Let them fly. I will journey softly. And I too will arrive!” adapted from Ayi Kwei Armah Ghanaian writer born 1939- I, too, seem to have arrived. Completing this doctoral program at Witwatersrand University is my weightiest and most profound personal and professional triumph. This journey was exciting yet tricky, and I learned the skills to transform many adversities and challenges into opportunities. I am incredibly grateful to my colleagues at UJ, in particular, my HOD Prof Marne Pienaar, for constant support. I am also appreciative of UJ for paying for my tuition. I am especially thankful to my Supervisor, Professor Leketi Makalela, for being the measured supervisor that he was and probably taught me to become. Prof Makalela, thank you so much for opening my eyes and wings and for sharing your knowledge with me. Thank you for all those supervisions and writing retreats. I am also truly indebted to my family for their eternal help, support, and encouragement. My life-partner, Ayanda, my three daughters Oyama, Anami, and Thandeka, and my son Robert Sbuda Sibusiso all rallied around me, taking extra responsibilities just for me. Thank you for the love, empathy, and support. I share this achievement with many beautiful human beings who provided support, inspiration, plus push in diverse ways. I am sincerely grateful to all of you. My special thankfulness also goes to everyone at HUMEL- Hub for Multilingual Education and Literacies - University of the Witwatersrand; Wits School of Education, fellow Ph.D. and other postgraduate students studying at Wits and the first-year student- participants who made it ALL possible. “Alone, I am nothing. I have nothing. We have power. But we will never know it; we will never see it work. Unless we come together to make it work.” Ayi Kwei Armah DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to all my family, especially my late daughter Oyama who, though quick-witted, could not live long enough to get her degree and to my passed-on parents who never went to university themselves, let alone high school, but who nevertheless toiled all their lives to give me an education. To all of you who contributed to the completion of this thesis in one way or another, I am eternally indebted and beholden. May you all be favoured in your pursuits! Simbayi Yafele [3] ABSTRACT This study focuses on the academic reading of first-year students at a South African university. Its purpose was to investigate the efficacy and value of translanguaging strategies in educational spaces, to enhance reading comprehension development and critical thinking in linguistically diverse, university students in a first-year university module. The research explored whether it is reasonable, practicable, and viable to use translanguaging strategies and practices in literacy pedagogy to enhance academic reading comprehension and epistemic access. The focus was on translanguaging strategies that harness the socio-historically shaped cultural and linguistic communicative resources of students to improve academic reading and text engagement. An alternative sociocultural-based translanguaging model to progress the academic reading skills of first-year university students is proposed. The entire study was conducted among a total sample of 90 first-year students between the ages of 18 and 25 registered for the Communication Management 1 (Comm 1AA1) module in the Faculty of Humanities at a South African urban and multilingual university. The investigation adopted a “Sequential Exploratory Design” of mixed methods, in which the quantitative methods took the form of a quasi-experimental design. The overall results show that the use of translanguaging techniques facilitated by students’ own linguistic, cultural, and multimodal discursive resources in reading processes across languages, created abundant contexts and rich ground for growth and advancement in academic language proficiency improving academic reading comprehension gains. The study contributes to the growing body of knowledge about translanguaging reading pedagogy. It also formulates and provides an alternative translingual reading model for multilinguals, informing academic literacy practitioners on transformative new literacies in this field. Keywords English-as-an -Additional Language readers; dialogic pedagogy; first-year university students; contrastive rhetoric; academic reading, New Literacy Studies, translanguaging, linguistic, and cultural communicative repertoires. [4] TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .................................................................................................................................. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................. 3 DEDICATION… .................................................................................................................................. 3 ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER 1 .................................................................................................................................... 14 . INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................................14 1.0. Introduction and Background… .................................................................................................... 16 1.1. Statement of the Problem ............................................................................................................... 16 1.2. The rationale of the study ............................................................................................................... 18 1.3. Aim of the study ............................................................................................................................. 20 1.4. Objectives of the Study .................................................................................................................. 20 1.5. Research questions ......................................................................................................................... 20 1.6. Main research questions ................................................................................................................. 20 1.6.1 Specific research questions ................................................................................................. 21 1.7 Significance of this research… ....................................................................................................... 21 1.8 Delimitation of the Study ............................................................................................................... 22 1.9 Definition of key concepts ............................................................................................................. 22 1.9.1 Academic reading ................................................................................................................ 22 1.9.2 Translanguaging pedagogy .................................................................................................. 23 1.9.3 Culturally Relevant Pedagogy .............................................................................................. 24 1.9.4 English as an Additional Language (EAL) Learner .............................................................. 24 1.9.5 First-year university students ............................................................................................... 24 1.10. Outline of chapters ...................................................................................................................... 24 1.11. Summary of the chapter .............................................................................................................. 25 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................ 26 2.1 Introduction… ................................................................................................................................ 26 2.2 Bodies of literature ......................................................................................................................... 26 2.2. 1. Sociocultural Theory .............................................................................................................. 30 2.2. 2. Summary:
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