Digital Commons Network^™

Determinants Of Homeownership Among Immigrants: Changesduring The Great Recession And Beyond, Kusum Mundra, Ruth Uwaifo Oyelere

Ruth Uwaifo Oyelere

No abstract provided.

Cultural And Linguistic Diversity In Special Education (Book Chapter), Janette Klingner, Alison Boardman, Subini A. Annamma, Brooke A. Moore, Amy L. Boele, A. Davidson, R. Figueroa, N. Sager

Amy Boele

About this book:

Enduring Issues in Special Education is aimed at any course in the undergraduate or graduate special education curriculum that is wholly or partly devoted to a critical examination of current issues in special education. The book organizes 28 chapters into seven sections using familiar structuring principles―what, who, where, how, when, why, and whither. Each section begins with an introduction that provides historical, legal, and theoretical background information and organizing commentary for the chapters that follow. The book’s objective, in addition to informing readers about the issues, is to develop critical thinking skills in the context of special …

Mixed Methods [Encyclopedia Entry], Nancy L. Leech, Amy B. Dellinger

Nancy Leech

About this Encyclopedia:

With over 1,100 entries written by an international team of scholars from over 40 countries The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics is a ground breaking reference work covering the highly diverse field of applied linguistics.

>>> 8 New Updates Published December 2015 - View them here. <<<

• Available as an online edition with twice yearly updates

• Covers 27 key areas of the field, including Language Learning and Teaching, Bilingual and Multilingual Education, Assessment and Testing, Corpus Linguistics, Conversation Analysis, Discourse, Cognitive Second Language Acquisition, Language Policy and Planning, Literacy, and Technology and Language

• Features over 200 …

Building Bridges From Campus To Community, Clarissa E. Rosas, Roberta Kaufman, Caron Westland

Caron Westland

Given the current demographic realities, students who come from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds are the fastest growing student populations in the United States (U.S. Department of Education). These students are at risk for not realizing their full potential because they often underachieve in general education due to the dual challenge of learning English while learning academics. Moreover these students are frequently taught by teachers who are not qualified to meet the academic and language needs of this population.

Since better preparation and accountability are the hallmarks of reform and restructuring in teacher preparation programs, they also support the retention …

Doing Catalan Spanish: Pragmatic Resources And Discourse Strategies In Ways Of Speaking Spanish In Barcelona, Robert Vann

Robert Vann

The last decade has seen the publication of many corpus-based studies about Spanish in Catalonia. With an emphasis on the linguistic characteristics that Spanish in Catalonia maintains or has acquired as a result of its prolonged contact with Catalan, these studies have started to catalog the lexicon, phonology and morphosyntax of Spanish in Catalonia. Relatively little attention has been dedicated, however, to the pragmatics of Spanish in Catalonia, that is, to the discourse strategies that constitute Catalan ways of speaking Spanish. The present investigation proceeds in this direction by identifying some of the pragmatic resources employed in Catalan ways of …

Frustrations Of The Documentary Linguist: The State Of The Art In Digital Language Archiving And The Archive That Wasn’T, Robert Vann

Robert Vann

This paper is a qualitative review and critique of existing electronic language archives from the perspective of the documentary linguist. In today’s day and age there are many online archives available for storage of and access to digital language data, among others: AILLA, ANLC, ASEDA, DOBES, ELRA, E-MELD, LACITO, LDC, LPCA, OTA, PARADISEC, Rosetta, SAA, THDL, and UHLCS. It is worth pointing out that I use the term language archive loosely in this paper, referring to a variety of organizations and resources such as those listed above that store and provide digital language data to different degrees and for different …

Linguistic Development Of Children And The Syntax Of Basals, David Brown, L. Briggs

David C. Brown

Children's ability to reflect upon language begins to appear about age two (Clark, 1978). During the early stages of language development, children correct their own pronunciations, question the appropriateness of speech styles, play with different linguistic units, and make judgments concerning language usage for varying situations (Clark, 1978). Children exhibit an increasing awareness of language with age and soon become aware of both the form and function of language. Their metacognitive skills become apparent as they progress from the simple to the more complex linguistic structures. Children's language acquisition and cognitive development continue to develop during the early years of …

The Horns Of The North: Historical Sources Of J. R. R. Tolkien's Trilogy, George Geib

George W. Geib

Few books have enjoyed the publishing success seen in the last decade by J. R. R. Tolkien's epic fantasy trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. Since the time of its paperback appearance in 1965 the work has not only attracted wide popular readership but has also stimulated a considerable body of scholarly criticism.1 As a work of fantasy, Tolkien's tale of struggle surrounding a ring of power has attracted most of its commentators to the areas of myth and linguistics, two of the sources upon which the author relied most heavily. Yet for all its epic dimensions, the trilogy has …

Enacting Acts Of Authentication In A Robotics Competition: An Interpretivist Study, Geeta Verma, Anton Puvirajah, Horace Webb

Geeta Verma

While the science classroom primarily remains a site for knowledge acquisition through teacher directed experiences, other sites exist outside of the classroom that allow for student generation of scientific knowledge. These sites provide opportunities for linguistic and social interactions to play a powerful role in situating students' science learning experiences. Augmenting students' formal school science experiences with informal experiences outside of the classroom enables them to intersect their personal knowledge with canonical disciplinary knowledge. This allows for conditions of practice that are more relevant to the students. In this study we introduce the notion of acts of authentication to examine …

Restructuring Schools For Linguistic Diversity: Linking Decision Making To Effective Programs (2nd Edition), Ofelia Miramontes, Adel Nadeau, Nancy Commins

Nancy L. Commins

This bestselling book addresses a major instructional and policy concern in public education—how personnel and resources can best be utilized to develop strong instructional programs for a culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) student population. This meticulously updated second edition incorporates the experience that the authors have gained since the publication of the first edition in 1997. The changes not only reflect the current state of affairs in education, but also what has been learned from the many schools that have used the framework successfully.

Useful to prospective and current teachers and essential for educational administrators and policymakers, this new edition …

Assessment And Accountability In Language Education Programs: A Guide For Administrators And Teachers, Diep Nguyen, Nancy Commins

Nancy L. Commins

Administrators and teachers need defensible evidence of English language learners’ growth and achievement to drive their decision making! This groundbreaking book provides a field-tested approach to accountability for ELLs. Gottlieb and Nguyen propose the BASIC (balanced assessment and accountability system, inclusive and comprehensive) model. This model is research-based and grounded in practice. It relies on multiple forms of assessment data from multiple stakeholders that yield a body of evidence on language learners’ learning and academic achievement. This user-friendly guide exemplifies how to plan, collect, analyze, and use evidence of students’ language development and academic achievement to Respond to external accountability …

Responding To Linguistic Diversity, Nancy Commins

Nancy L. Commins

Second language learners arrive at every grade level with a variety of experiences and differing academic backgrounds. Responding to their learning needs means accommodating the entire range of students from monolingual English speakers to monolingual speakers of other languages, and a variety of bilingual profiles in between. This article discusses how schools adopt a "blue pathway" mindset for improving instruction for all learners. The blue pathway, which also leads to academic competence, represents best practice for second language learners--strategies and approaches that from the outset account for language proficiency and cultural diversity. Instruction on the blue pathway can be summed …

Linguistic Diversity And Teaching: Reflective Teaching And The Social Conditions Of Schooling Series, Nancy Commins, Ofelia Miramontes

Nancy L. Commins

Linguistic Diversity and Teaching raises questions and provides a context for reflection regarding the complex issues surrounding new English learners in the schools. These issues exist within a highly charged political climate and involve not only language, but also culture, class, ethnicity, and the persistent inequities that characterize our educational system. The text addresses these issues through conversations among experts, practitioners, and readers that are informed by representative case studies and by a range of theoretical approaches. It is designed to engage readers in beginning to evolve their own practical theories, to help them explore and perhaps modify some basic …

Restructuring Schools For Linguistic Diversity: Linking Decision Making To Effective Programs, Ofelia Miramontes, Adel Nadeau, Nancy Commins

Nancy L. Commins

The linguistically diverse population is the fastest growing segment of the student population. Educators are beginning to realize that a "models" approach to designing programmes for linguistically diverse students does not work, whereas a decision-making approach accommodates the variety of needs presented by these students. This volume offers the integration of the knowledge regarding English as a second language and bilingual instruction across the curriculum, presented with a process for incorporating them into a complete programme that lies precisely within the goals and realities of schools. It should prove useful to professors and graduate students of educational administration, teacher education, …

Addressing Linguistic Diversity From The Outset, Nancy Commins, Ofelia Miramontes

Nancy L. Commins

Schools of education typically prepare their prospective teachers to work with amorphous “average students”—who are by implication middle class, native, English speaking, and White. They are then given some limited opportunities to adapt these understandings to students with diverging profiles—children of poverty, second language learners, and students of color. The authors argue that given the changing demographics of public schools, initial teacher education should be based on the understandings that teachers typically do not receive until the end of their programs or in add-on endorsements. They should be prepared from the outset to work with the wide diversity of language, …

Supporting Bilingual Learners And Their Families: Key Understandings For Pre-Service Teachers And The Institutions That Prepare Them, Nancy Commins

Nancy L. Commins

An essential component of successful schooling in linguistically and culturally diverse settings is the active involvement of parents and community members. This is made possible when teachers honor families’ languages and cultural traditions and build upon them. Teacher preparation programs play a critical role in helping preservice teachers reject deficit views and recognize that issues of status, power, and economic circumstances all play a role in shaping outcomes for students. Part of the asset orientation that must be fostered in new teachers is the understanding that primary or home language development contributes to both the academic success of children and …

Perceived And Actual Linguistic Competence: A Descriptive Study Of Four Low–Achieving Hispanic Bilingual Students, Nancy L. Commins, Ofelia B. Miramontes

Nancy L. Commins

This ethnographic study investigated the linguistic performance of four Hispanic bilingual students perceived to have limited language abilities in Spanish and English. The study provided data on the students' language use and abilities, in both languages, in a variety of school and nonschool settings. Data were analyzed qualitatively for evidence of students' linguistic, discourse, and narrative competencies. Performance was compared across settings and across languages for each student, as well as across students. All students displayed different strengths across settings in both languages. The data indicated that the organization of instruction limited the students' abilities to demonstrate their full range …

Communicative Interaction: Mother Modification And Child Acquisition Of American Sign Language, Rebecca Kantor

Rebecca Kantor

The communicative interaction in American Sign Language (ASL) of two deaf mothers with their deaf children was studied at 3-week intervals for 10 months to find what modification, if any, the mothers made in their language utterances addressed to the children (12–20 and 20–30 months old). As was hypothesized, and has been shown of hearing-speaking mothers’ language, modification in the direction of simplified and more linear language was found. Special attention was paid to POINTing behavior (i.e. pointing gestures constrained by the linguistic rules of ASL) and to verb “modulation” or inflection (changes from ASL citation forms to mark the …

Certainty Categorization Model, Elizabeth Liddy, Noriko Kando, Victoria Rubin

Victoria Rubin

We present a theoretical framework and preliminary results for manual categorization of explicit certainty information in 32 English newspaper articles. The explicit certainty markers were identified and categorized according to the four hypothesized dimensions – perspective, focus, timeline, and level of certainty. One hundred twenty one sentences from sample news stories contained a significantly lower frequency of markers per sentence (M=0.46, SD =0.04) than 564 sentences from sample editorials (M=0.6, SD =0.23), p= 0.0056, two-tailed heteroscedastic t-test. Within each dimension, editorials had most numerous markers per sentence in high level of certainty, writer’s point of view, and future and present …

Discerning Emotions In Texts, Victoria Rubin, Jeffrey Stanton, Elizabeth Liddy

Victoria Rubin

We present an empirically verified model of discernable emotions, Watson and Tellegen’s Circumplex Theory of Affect from social and personality psychology, and suggest its usefulness in NLP as a potential model for an automation of an eight-fold categorization of emotions in written English texts. We developed a data collection tool based on the model, collected 287 responses from 110 non-expert informants based on 50 emotional excerpts (min=12, max=348, average=86 words), and analyzed the inter-coder agreement per category and per strength of ratings per sub-category. The respondents achieved an average 70.7% agreement in the most commonly identified emotion categories per text. …

Certainty Identification In Texts: Categorization Model And Manual Tagging Results, Elizabeth Liddy, Victoria Rubin, Noriko Kando

Victoria Rubin

This chapter presents a theoretical framework and preliminary results for manual categorization of explicit certainty information in 32 English newspaper articles. Our contribution is in a proposed categorization model and analytical framework for certainty identification. Certainty is presented as a type of subjective information available in texts. Statements with explicit certainty markers were identified and categorized according to four hypothesized dimensions – level, perspective, focus, and time of certainty. The preliminary results reveal an overall promising picture of the presence of certainty information in texts, and establish its susceptibility to manual identification within the proposed four-dimensional certainty categorization analytical framework. …

Canadian Constitutional Law, Fourth Edition, Patrick Macklem, Carol Rogerson, Joel Bakan, Jean Leclair, John Borrows, Ian Lee, Sujit Choudhry, Richard Moon, Robin Elliot, R. C. B. Risk, Jean-François Gaudreault-Desbiens, Kent Roach, Donna Greschner, Bruce Ryder, Patricia Hughes, David Schneiderman, Lorraine Weinrib

Bruce B. Ryder

In its 4th edition, Canadian Constitutional Law continues to offer a truly national perspective — drawing on an editorial team that is rich with regional, linguistic, and scholarly diversity. This edition remains true to the structure and purposes of previous editions, especially with regard to the editors’ commitment to the idea that understanding constitutional history is critical to comprehending the present and future of Canadian constitutional law.

Answer Credibility: A Language Modeling Approach To Answer Validation, Protima Banerjee, Hyoil Han

Hyoil Han

Answer Validation is a topic of significant interest within the Question Answering community. In this paper, we propose the use of language modeling methodologies for Answer Validation, using corpus-based methods that do not require the use of external sources. Specifically, we propose a model for Answer Credibility which quantifies the reliability of a source document that contains a candidate answer and the Question’s Context Model.

Proceedings Of Naacl Hlt 2009: Short Papers , Pages 157–160, Boulder, Colorado, June 2009. C 2009 Association For Computational Linguistics Answer Credibility: A Language Modeling Approach To Answer Validation, Protima Banerjee, Hyoil Han

Hyoil Han

Answer Validation is a topic of significant interest within the Question Answering community. In this paper, we propose the use of language modeling methodologies for Answer Validation, using corpus-based methods that do not require the use of external sources. Specifically, we propose a model for Answer Credibility which quantifies the reliability of a source document that contains a candidate answer and the Question’s Context Model.

Culturally And Linguistically Responsive Practices In Psychoeducational Reports For English Language Learners, Bryn Harris, Amanda Sullivan, Geraldine Oades-Sese, Marlene Sotelo-Dynega

Bryn Harris

Past researchers suggested there are a number of shortcomings in the psychoeducational evaluation process and practices used with English language learners (ELLs). In the present exploratory study, the authors descriptively examined the assessment practices used in the special education eligibility determination process for ELLs as documented in 34 psychoeducational evaluation reports in one southwestern state. The authors reviewed psychoeducational evaluation reports prepared by school psychologists to determine (a) the extent to which school psychologists adhered to legal and ethical guidelines in the evaluation of ELLs for special education eligibility and needs and (b) how school psychologists account for cultural and …

Achieving Equity And Excellence: The Role Of School Mental Health Providers In Shrinking Excellence Gaps, Bryn Harris, Jonathan Plucker

Bryn Harris

The United States is becoming more racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse, yet the educational attainment of various student groups has been very uneven. For decades, educators and policymakers have been focused on minimal competencies rather than advanced achievement. Specifically, federal and state education policies have focused on closing achievement gaps at basic levels of achievement, which has allowed excellence gaps to grow considerably. This article describes ways in which school mental health professionals can address excellence gaps and serve as advocates for all high-ability students.

Evaluating Autism Diagnostic And Screening Tools For Cultural And Linguistic Responsiveness, Bryn Harris, Erin Barton, Chantel Albert

Bryn Harris

While clear guidelines and best practices exist for the assessment of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), little information is available about assessing for ASD in culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) populations. CLD populations might be misidentified and under-identified with ASD due to the assessment practices that we employ. Four autism diagnostic tools and six autism screeners were selected and evaluated for their cultural and linguistic responsiveness. Although the evaluation of ASD within CLD populations is highly complex, this study identified the need for improved autism assessment tools and practices. Without the appropriate assessment of these populations, CLD children will likely continue …

Do Proper Accommodation Assignments Make A Difference? Examining The Impact Of Improved Decision Making On Scores For English Language Learners., Rebecca J. Kopriva, Jessica E. Emick, Carlos P. Hipolitio-Delgado, Catherine A. Cameron

Carlos P. Hipolito-Delgado

Does it matter if students are appropriately assigned to test accommodations? Using a randomized method, this study found that individual students assigned accommodations keyed to their particular needs were significantly more efficacious for English language learners (ELLs) and that little difference was reported between students receiving incomplete or not recommended accommodations and no accommodations whatsoever. A sample of third and fourth grade ELLs in South Carolina (N = 272) were randomly assigned to various types of test accommodations on a mathematics assessment. Results indicated that those students who received the appropriate test accommodations, as recommended by a version of a …

The Functional Organization Of The Left Sts: A Large Scale Meta-Analysis Of Pet And Fmri Studies Of Healthy Adults, E. Liebenthal, Rutvik Desai, C. Humphries, M. Sabri, A. Desai

Rutvik Desai

The superior temporal sulcus (STS) in the left hemisphere is functionally diverse, with sub-areas implicated in both linguistic and non-linguistic functions. However, the number and boundaries of distinct functional regions remain to be determined. Here, we present new evidence, from meta-analysis of a large number of positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, of different functional specificity in the left STS supporting a division of its middle to terminal extent into at least three functional areas. The middle portion of the left STS stem (fmSTS) is highly specialized for speech perception and the processing …

Anatomy Is Strategy: Skilled Reading Differences Associated With Structural Connectivity Differences In The Reading Network, W. Graves, J. Binder, Rutvik Desai, C. Humphries, B. Stengel, M. Seidenberg

Rutvik Desai

No abstract provided.