Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Teaching Languages Communicatively: The Journey Of Becoming An Effective Teacher, Indira Garrido

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports

No abstract provided.

Teaching Spanish To Second-Language And Heritage-Language Learners, Kathryn R. Wall

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports

No abstract provided.

Spanish-Speaking Parents' Negotiation Of Language And Culture With Their Children's Schools, Ronda L. Bickmore

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Latinos are now the largest public school minority population in the U.S. Because of a shift in the states, cities, and counties where Latinos are choosing to live, many schools that did not previously serve substantial numbers of Latinos are doing so now. Additionally, many of the Latinos in these new settlement areas are recent immigrants who speak little or no English. This qualitative study examined how immigrant Latino parents who speak little or no English supported their children in the English-speaking school system of the U.S. It specifically examined how 12 Spanish-speaking parents negotiated language and culture ...

La Barbe: Feminine Beards And Other Mysteries Of French Grammatical Gender, Robin F. Keller

Senior Honors Projects

Grammatical gender in French language is one of the biggest guessing games for a native English speaker. Why a table is feminine and a book is masculine is a question that plagues those learning French as a second language. In French, all nouns have gender, masculine and feminine. The complication: only a small percentage of the nouns are assigned gender semantically leaving the remaining which are assigned gender seemingly arbitrarily. For English native speakers, the distinction of these basic parts in a foreign language is not a natural skill. The simple fact that nouns are either feminine or masculine is ...

China's 80后 And 90后: The Next Generation Of Leaders In The World's Next Superpower, A Students-Teaching-Students Course, Patrick Slavin

Senior Honors Projects

In light of China’s recent reemergence as a global superpower, it is becoming increasingly important for westerners to understand its history and culture. For current college students, the culture of China’s youth is particularly pertinent.

In this project, a course, HPR 107: Chinese Youth Culture, was designed and taught through the Students-Teaching-Students program, which provides senior Honor’s Program students the opportunity to design and teach their own Honor’s Program course. The HPR 107 course focuses on China’s 80后 and 90后 generations, those born in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively.

This multi-faceted project includes: subject matter ...

International Student And Scholar Services Report, Tarek Elshayeb, Director

Office of International Programs Faculty/Staff Publications

WKU hosts a vibrant community of 900 international students and scholars from approximately 70 countries and continues grow. WKU professors and professional staff provide support to help international students REACH their full potential and gain a positive educational experience. ISSS provides specialized support services to WKU’s international students, scholars and their dependents. This includes immigration advising and guidance, orientation, programs and events, cultural adjustment, resources and much more. This report highlights the international students and scholar population during the spring 2013 semester. For more information about WKU international population, please visit ISSS website at www.wku.edu/isss.

A Curious Passport: The Impact Of World Language Immersion Education On Adult Alumni, Hannah Nicole Parks

University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects

No abstract provided.

Interview Of Eugene Colucci, Eugene Colucci, Robert G. Seelhorst Jr

All Oral Histories

Abstract

Mr. Eugene Colucci (b. 1948) is a Spanish teacher at Buena Regional High School in Atlantic County, New Jersey. This is his twentieth year as an educator at BRHS in the New Jersey public school system. Before this, Mr. Colucci spent nineteen years teaching in the Catholic school system of Philadelphia (St. Peter’s Elementary, Bishop Neumann High School, and St. Maria Goretti High School). He has a unique perspective because he spent so much time in both the public and private school environments. He describes his youth in the Catholic school system of Philadelphia and describes growing up ...

Nuestra Voz: A Critical Ethnographic Study Of Latina School Leaders, Angelica Ramsey

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The population of Latina/o students in public school across the United States is ever-increasing. This fast-growing population suffers from high dropout rates and academic underachievement. This epidemic of underachievement is alarming, as today's Latina/o student will be tomorrow's workforce. There is no time like the present to increase the number of Latina principals in high schools throughout the United States. The purpose of this critical ethnographic study was to understand the experiences of Latina principals in both established and burgeoning Latina/o communities in raising Latina/o achievement. Key findings included: (a) strong ethnic ties and ...

La Enseñanza De La Gramática: Un Debate Pendiente En El Contexto De La Educación Argentina, María Cecilia Gaiser

Entrehojas: Revista de Estudios Hispánicos

Resumen

En la primera mitad del siglo XX, la enseñanza de la gramática tradicional no se cuestiona y su límite oracional no es un eje de discusión puesto que todavía las líneas de orientación textual estaban en ciernes. Entre los 60 y 70 el estructuralismo eclipsa los estudios del lenguaje y sus herramientas de análisis gramatical ingresan en las aulas. Es en los últimos 20 años cuando aparecen las dos líneas que direccionarán el destino de la gramática en la escuela: no dar gramática o reemplazar la gramática oracional por una lingüística/gramática textual y/o análisis del discurso. En ...

The Accidental College Student, Phyliss Dubinsky Shey

Masters Theses

This narrative study began as a retrospective of an in-depth interview study with a young woman who navigated the move from a large, suburban school system in the mid-Atlantic region before the fifth grade to a small, isolated rural school in Southern Appalachia in the 1990s. She graduated from the only high school serving the county in which she lived. Over the course of two formal interviews, hundreds of informal conversations for more than ten years, and particularly through writing this analysis (Goodall, 2000), I realized that even though there were vast differences between our ages, cultural backgrounds, and current ...

Acculturation And Identity Development Of Deaf Ethnic Minorities, Glennise Candice Schlinger

Masters Theses

This study examined whether experiences in the family and the education systems could influence Deaf ethnic identity development. Data were collected via administration of the Deaf Acculturation Scale (DAS). Participants’ responses were assessed as outlined by the developers of the DAS (Maxwell-McCaw & Zea, 2011). Results suggested that parents’ attitude towards their child’s deafness may affect the deaf individual’s identity development. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with four deaf ethnic minority participants: One Venezuelan American and three African American. Two hearing parents (both mothers) also participated in the interview: one Venezuelan American and one African American. Thematic analysis was used to code and identify patterns among the participants’ responses. Some themes discussed were: the role of spirituality and how it shaped deaf ethnic minority parents’ attitudes toward their child’s deafness; the impact of educational experiences and Deaf identity development, and what factors determined whether an individual identified with their ethnicity or Deafness first. The study suggests that familial/parental attitude toward deafness and experiences in the education system strongly influence Deaf identity development. Limitations and suggestions to further research are also discussed.

Urban Elementary Teachers’ Perspectives And Practices, Meredith Elise Murray

Doctoral Dissertations

Urban teachers alone cannot solve the complex social and economic problems that plague urban communities and schools; however, their efforts to effectively educate inner-city youth can begin to break the cycle of disadvantage. Therefore, urban teachers’ perspectives are essential in understanding the process of effectively instructing urban youth. The purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives and practices of five urban educators through a postpositive theoretical lens. Participants for this study were five urban educators kindergarten through fourth grade, all of whom were teaching at one urban school. The participating teachers were chosen by criterion sampling with the ...

The Little School Of The 400: A Mexican-American Fight For Equal Access And Its Impact On State Policy, Erasmo Vázquez Ríos

Dissertations, Theses, & Student Research, Department of History

Founded in 1957, the Little School of the 400 (LS400) was a Mexican-American led effort to acculturate and assimilate Mexican schoolchildren in Texas to the dominant Anglo-led society. By the mid-20^th Century, more than a hundred years of discrimination and racism had produced an environment where Mexicans were treated as second-class citizens. Early 20^th-Century activism had replaced armed and violent resistance such as the Cortina Wars of the 1850s but Anglo institutions ensured that any opposition from Mexicans and Tejanos toward the status-quo was met with indifference and perhaps worse.

My argument centers on the fact that ...

The Case Of Three Karen Families: Literacy Practices In A Family Literacy Classrom, Sabrina Dm Quadros

Theses, Student Research, and Creative Activity: Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education

The lack of research in understanding the literacy practices of Karen families, influencing their schooling performance and language acquisition, leave professionals in the educational field limited in their knowledge about the forms of engagement of these families into American schooling. To better understand literacy practices in which Karen families engage, in this case study the author explores some of the literacy practices of Karen families when at school and in their homes. The author observed three Karen adult/parent learners during a period of three months, in an ESL family literacy program at Kennedy Elementary, in Lincoln, Nebraska. One interview ...

Reactions To English Language Learning In Chile As A Means For Personal And National Development, Kortnee Byrd

Master Theses

In our globalized world today, English has developed into the worldwide

language. Chilean leaders, in connection to their development goals to reach a developed

country status by 2020, have highlighted the need for Chilean citizens to become

bilingual in order to attract foreign investment and further integrate into the world

market. Leaders also highlight how English education will serve as an equalizing

measure to combat the socioeconomic inequality that has plagued this country since

Spanish colonization. While the economic benefits are clear, questions remain as to what

the social and cultural costs will be. This research project presents how a ...

Students’ Perspectives From A Learner-Centered Call Class: A Report Of The Research Of The Technology-Based Chinese Class In O’Neill High School, Nan Wang

Theses, Student Research, and Creative Activity: Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education

This thesis explores the implications of integrating CALL (computer assisted language learning) into a high school level Chinese II language classroom in O’Neill High School at O’Neill, Nebraska. This thesis reflects the findings of a case study of four high school students and their responses to CALL in the classroom. The study integrates interviews, surveys and data collected from education websites the teacher added to the teaching strategy to test students’ learning skills on listening, speaking, reading and writing. The main purpose of this study was to collect students’ perspectives from a student-centered computer assisted language learning class ...

Implementing A Culturally And Linguistically Responsive Phonics Curriculum That Incorporates Music To Meet The Needs Of English Language Learners In The Response To Intervention Process, Danielle Miller

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the Sing, Spell, Read, Write (SSRW) phonics curriculum that uses explicit and systematic methods and incorporates music to teach literacy skills implemented as a tier-two reading intervention in the Response to Intervention process to meet the cultural and linguistic needs of English Language Learners. A sequential explanatory mixed methods design will be used to explore the research questions. Using a quantitative quasi-experimental comparison method, the researcher gathered archived data relating to ELLs reading achievement using the reading portion of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests and the STAR Reading assessment. The ...

Comprehensible Output And The Effects Of Music And Movement In Spanish Language Acquisition, Tricia Pinkert-Branner

College of Arts and Sciences Poster Presentations

Music and movement have the potential to trigger memories and connections that affect mood and behavior. According to research in Second Language Acquisition (Del Campo 1997), meaningful communications is composed of three important elements: gestures, verbal language and intonation. Gestures and movement account for nearly 70% of communication, whereas the remaining 30% of meaningful communication lies in intonation and verbal language. Earworms, or Involuntary Musical Imagery (INMI), have played an important role in marketing by using music that gets “stuck” in the brain. Factors such as note duration, pitch intervals and exposure to an environment or movement associated with the ...

Cross Cultural Competence For Libraries, Elizabeth Ramsey

Elizabeth Ramsey

As libraries struggle to recruit and retain staff members from underrepresented ethnic and cultural groups, alternative strategies must be advanced to more competently assess and meet the needs of the increasingly diverse American population in all aspects of librarianship. Training in cross cultural competency for all library staff may help libraries become more adept at serving their multiethnic patrons.

This presentation will examine concepts in cross cultural awareness and how they can apply to libraries. Through cross cultural training we may gain the knowledge, understanding, attitudes and skills to overcome a variety of biases and assumptions. Overcoming these obstacles could ...