title: Reflexive audiencing practices for couple relationships-in-action

authors: Talbot, Wendy

subjects: Relationships

abstract: This doctoral study offers couples opportunities to be audiences to their own lives as a couple.  It does this on the premise that a reflexive, recursive, process of acting and reviewing and acting enhances relationship possibilities.  The study researches what couples say about their experiences of the effects of a process that offers them opportunities to go beyond readily available, perhaps at times rather limited, understandings of coupledom.  In going beyond what is readily available, the study investigates what couples’ value in the unique and original ways two people reflexively select to live out their lives and relationships.  This study is located in poststructural and social constructionist theoretical landscapes.  It constructs and then investigates reflexive audiencing practices.  

Reflexive audiencing draws from diverse but related theoretical perspectives such as narrative therapy, relational language-making conversations, positioning theory, deconstruction, reflexivity, performance and Appreciative Inquiry.  Video, a facilitated process of preparation, and inquiry guides provide a scaffold for partners to take up and investigate relationship conversations as couples.  The video/audio technology provides layers of positions from which to speak, view, re-view and review their relationship conversations as spect-actors – actors, audience and critics to their relationship performances.  Through these reflexive audiencing processes, couples identify discursive practices that shape their relationships.  They deconstruct these practices and reconstruct them on terms that take into account their preferences, purposes and unique relationship contexts.     

The thesis argues that through reflexive audiencing, couples can reposition themselves to look at, and hear, and speak their relationship conversations-in-action.  It proposes that reflexive audiencing makes practices such as relations of gender/power, humour, meaning-making, and understanding, visible and audible in ways that extend couples’ discursive repertoires.  It conceptualises these practices of couple relationship as complex, dynamic, situated and dialogic, and shows that reflexive audiencing practices have benefits for a couple’s conversations. 

The study also provides an illustration of researcher reflexive-practice-in-action and shows the work of reflexive audiencing processes unfold in a doctoral research supervision relationship.  It argues that reflexive audiencing practices have possibilities for contexts outside coupledom, such as therapy, supervision and research.

text: Reflexive audiencing practices for couple relationships-in-action This doctoral study offers couples opportunities to be audiences to their own lives as a couple.  It does this on the premise that a reflexive, recursive, process of acting and reviewing and acting enhances relationship possibilities.  The study researches what couples say about their experiences of the effects of a process that offers them opportunities to go beyond readily available, perhaps at times rather limited, understandings of coupledom.  In going beyond what is readily available, the study investigates what couples’ value in the unique and original ways two people reflexively select to live out their lives and relationships.  This study is located in poststructural and social constructionist theoretical landscapes.  It constructs and then investigates reflexive audiencing practices.  

Reflexive audiencing draws from diverse but related theoretical perspectives such as narrative therapy, relational language-making conversations, positioning theory, deconstruction, reflexivity, performance and Appreciative Inquiry.  Video, a facilitated process of preparation, and inquiry guides provide a scaffold for partners to take up and investigate relationship conversations as couples.  The video/audio technology provides layers of positions from which to speak, view, re-view and review their relationship conversations as spect-actors – actors, audience and critics to their relationship performances.  Through these reflexive audiencing processes, couples identify discursive practices that shape their relationships.  They deconstruct these practices and reconstruct them on terms that take into account their preferences, purposes and unique relationship contexts.     

The thesis argues that through reflexive audiencing, couples can reposition themselves to look at, and hear, and speak their relationship conversations-in-action.  It proposes that reflexive audiencing makes practices such as relations of gender/power, humour, meaning-making, and understanding, visible and audible in ways that extend couples’ discursive repertoires.  It conceptualises these practices of couple relationship as complex, dynamic, situated and dialogic, and shows that reflexive audiencing practices have benefits for a couple’s conversations. 

The study also provides an illustration of researcher reflexive-practice-in-action and shows the work of reflexive audiencing processes unfold in a doctoral research supervision relationship.  It argues that reflexive audiencing practices have possibilities for contexts outside coupledom, such as therapy, supervision and research.

year: 2012

title: Teaching grammar: A survey of EAP teachers in New Zealand

authors: Barnard, Roger

subjects: New Zealand

abstract: This paper reports on a survey of New Zealand teachers ' attitudes towards grammar and grammar teaching in their own particular teaching contexts. It uses a questionnaire adapted from that used in a survey of teachers of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) in British universities (Burgess & Etherington, 2002), followed by a series of email interviews with volunteer respondents. The findings of the present study indicate that, like the teachers reported in the 2002 study, EAP teachers in New Zealand appreciate the centrality of grammar in their language teaching and have a critical awareness of many of the problems and issues involved. There is also evidence to suggest that the teachers favour the treatment of grammar through its emergence in whole texts, rather than its presentation in decontextualised sentences and structures. In this regard, there is support for an approach tending towards Focus on Form (Long, 1991: Long & Robinson, 1998). However, the teachers' comments on the importance of systematic practice of grammatical features and detailed error correction suggests that there is a preference for more extensive treatment of grammatical issues than is usually suggested by proponents of a strictly incidental Focus on Form approach.

text: Teaching grammar: A survey of EAP teachers in New Zealand This paper reports on a survey of New Zealand teachers ' attitudes towards grammar and grammar teaching in their own particular teaching contexts. It uses a questionnaire adapted from that used in a survey of teachers of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) in British universities (Burgess & Etherington, 2002), followed by a series of email interviews with volunteer respondents. The findings of the present study indicate that, like the teachers reported in the 2002 study, EAP teachers in New Zealand appreciate the centrality of grammar in their language teaching and have a critical awareness of many of the problems and issues involved. There is also evidence to suggest that the teachers favour the treatment of grammar through its emergence in whole texts, rather than its presentation in decontextualised sentences and structures. In this regard, there is support for an approach tending towards Focus on Form (Long, 1991: Long & Robinson, 1998). However, the teachers' comments on the importance of systematic practice of grammatical features and detailed error correction suggests that there is a preference for more extensive treatment of grammatical issues than is usually suggested by proponents of a strictly incidental Focus on Form approach.

year: 2008

title: Kaumatua Mana Motuhake Poi: a study protocol for enhancing wellbeing, socia connectedness and cultural identity for Maori elders

authors: Hokowhitu, Brendan

subjects: Science & Technology

abstract: Background: The Aotearoa New Zealand population is ageing, accompanied by health and social challenges, including significant inequities that exist between Māori and non-Māori around poor ageing and health. Although historically, kaumātua (elder Māori) faced a dominant society that failed to realize their full potential as they age, Māori culture has remained steadfast in upholding elders as cultural/community anchors. Yet, many of today’s kaumātua have experienced ‘cultural dissonance’ as the result of a hegemonic dominant culture subjugating an Indigenous culture, leading to generations of Indigenous peoples compelled or forced to dissociate with their culture. The present research project, Kaumātua Mana Motuhake Pōī (KMMP), comprises two interrelated projects that foreground dimensions of wellbeing within a holistic Te Ao Māori (Māori epistemology) view of wellbeing. Project 1 involves a tuakana-teina/peer educator model approach focused on increasing service access and utilization to support kaumātua with the greatest health and social needs. Project 2 focuses on physical activity and cultural knowledge exchange (including te reo Māori—Māori language) through intergenerational models of learning.

Methods: Both projects have a consistent research design and common set of methods that coalesce around the emphasis on kaupapa kaumātua; research projects led by kaumātua and kaumātua providers that advance better life outcomes for kaumātua and their communities. The research design for each project is a mixed-methods, pretest and two post-test, staggered design with 2–3 providers receiving the approach first and then 2–3 receiving it on a delayed basis. A pre-test (baseline) of all participants will be completed. The approach will then be implemented with the first providers. There will then be a follow-up data collection for all participants (post-test 1). The second providers will then implement the approach, which will be followed by a final data collection for all participants (post-test 2).

Discussion: Two specific outcomes are anticipated from this research; firstly, it is hoped that the research methodology provides a framework for how government agencies, researchers, and relevant sector stakeholders can work with Māori communities. Secondly, the two individual projects will each produce a tangible approach that, it is anticipated, will be cost-effective in enhancing kaumātua hauora and mana motuhake.

text: Kaumatua Mana Motuhake Poi: a study protocol for enhancing wellbeing, socia connectedness and cultural identity for Maori elders Background: The Aotearoa New Zealand population is ageing, accompanied by health and social challenges, including significant inequities that exist between Māori and non-Māori around poor ageing and health. Although historically, kaumātua (elder Māori) faced a dominant society that failed to realize their full potential as they age, Māori culture has remained steadfast in upholding elders as cultural/community anchors. Yet, many of today’s kaumātua have experienced ‘cultural dissonance’ as the result of a hegemonic dominant culture subjugating an Indigenous culture, leading to generations of Indigenous peoples compelled or forced to dissociate with their culture. The present research project, Kaumātua Mana Motuhake Pōī (KMMP), comprises two interrelated projects that foreground dimensions of wellbeing within a holistic Te Ao Māori (Māori epistemology) view of wellbeing. Project 1 involves a tuakana-teina/peer educator model approach focused on increasing service access and utilization to support kaumātua with the greatest health and social needs. Project 2 focuses on physical activity and cultural knowledge exchange (including te reo Māori—Māori language) through intergenerational models of learning.

Methods: Both projects have a consistent research design and common set of methods that coalesce around the emphasis on kaupapa kaumātua; research projects led by kaumātua and kaumātua providers that advance better life outcomes for kaumātua and their communities. The research design for each project is a mixed-methods, pretest and two post-test, staggered design with 2–3 providers receiving the approach first and then 2–3 receiving it on a delayed basis. A pre-test (baseline) of all participants will be completed. The approach will then be implemented with the first providers. There will then be a follow-up data collection for all participants (post-test 1). The second providers will then implement the approach, which will be followed by a final data collection for all participants (post-test 2).

Discussion: Two specific outcomes are anticipated from this research; firstly, it is hoped that the research methodology provides a framework for how government agencies, researchers, and relevant sector stakeholders can work with Māori communities. Secondly, the two individual projects will each produce a tangible approach that, it is anticipated, will be cost-effective in enhancing kaumātua hauora and mana motuhake.

year: 2020-10-02