At the kindergarten stage, storytelling activities are a proven intervention that promotes children’s vocabulary, reading, oral expression and writing development. The purpose of this study was to examine children’s emotional engagement and cooperation during storytelling by early childhood teachers. This study adopted a qualitative research method with a sample of children (aged 5-6 years) in an inclusive K3 kindergarten in China. Data were collected through video recordings of storytelling activities. Conversation Analysis (CA) and Multimodal Interaction Analysis (MIA) were used as analytical tools for teacher-child emotional engagement and collaboration in storytelling activities. The study focuses on the entertaining nature of teachers’ storytelling organisation, storytelling teaching styles and children’s participation (verbal and non-verbal). The study found that teachers used body language, props and vocal tones to stimulate children’s emotional engagement and cooperation. Children demonstrated their understanding of the story by actively answering questions, catering to body movements, choral singing and creating story segments to achieve co-participation. The data from this study form initial insights into the deepening of children’s aesthetic literacy and socialisation through storytelling activities. This research can further prompt teachers to focus on diversity in the organisation of storytelling activities, as well as help children to immerse themselves in early literacy through their emotional appraisal of story events or characters.

This study was conducted to examine how teachers carried out teaching and learning (T&L) based on higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) in the process of argumentative essay writing. To obtain a holistic overview of the methods used by teachers in T&L, a qualitative case study approach was being employed as the research design of this study. Secondary school teachers were involved voluntarily in this study, and it was conducted at a boarding school in a district in Selangor, Malaysia. To collect meaningful data from both research participants, in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis were used until saturated data was achieved. The findings were analyzed to form the criteria and themes in discovering the use of HOTS in T&L of argumentative essay writing. It was found that debate is a viable method to implement HOTS in argumentative essay writing. The method can attract and inspire students to use HOTS in constructing their arguments and in completing their writing assignments.

The aims of this research are to investigate teachers’ and learners’ perception towards the significance of classroom management in motivating students to learn English; to determine the classroom management styles adopted by teachers during classroom and to identify the extent to which their classroom management styles affect students’ English learning motivation and academic achievement. The design of the research is mixed-method one in which an interview and questionnaires are the instruments to collect data. 14 English teachers were asked to be interviewed and 398 students (201 10th graders and 197 12th graders) participated in answering the questionnaires. The outcomes revealed that the various styles in managing their classrooms were displayed; however, each grade possessed a dominant style. Furthermore, the findings showed that each style of classroom management exerted impact with different levels and dimensions on students’ English learning motivation. Remarkably, Authoritative style demonstrated the most positive influence on students’ English learning motivation and academic achievement. Based on these findings, some implications for managing classroom were drawn out, which emphasized the adoption of Authoritative style and the reduction of some negative aspects of the other styles.

No abstract

Gender has been identified as one of the key factors that influences the degree of transformational leadership practiced by the leaders and has an effect on job outcome. This study investigates the characteristics and level of female principals’ transformational leadership and interrelationship between the leadership with Perceived Organizational Politics (POPs) and teachers’ commitment in Malaysian secondary schools. Further, the mediating effect of POPs on the relationship between transformational leadership and teachers’ organizational commitment are also investigated. In total, 208 teachers from secondary schools in Penang led by female principals were selected as respondents. The results found that the level of transformational leadership practiced by female principals was moderately high. The female principals tended to inspire and motivate teachers but displayed their idealized influence characteristics in leadership less. The results also revealed that the level of POPs and organizational commitment of teachers led by female principals were moderate. In addition, the hierarchical linear regression results indicated that POPs partially mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and teachers’ organizational commitment. This study indicates that teachers’ organizational commitment can be improved by transformational leadership that is practiced by their leaders as well as the POPs at their schools.