Modern Languages Commons^™

The Impact Of The First Language Transfer On English Language Syntax For Arab Esl Students At Private Language Center In Mid-Size University Town, Mohammed A. S. Abdalhadi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the Impact of the First Language Transfer on English Language Syntax for Arab ESL Students at Private Language Center in Mid-Size University Town. The research population was 12 participants from Spring International Language Center through Intensive English Program and 7 participants from Adult Education center. The writing samples and interview were the main two instruments to analyze the data. I used constructive Analysis (CA), Error Analysis (EA), and coding to analyze the writing samples and the interview. The study focused on the syntax transfer between Arabic L1 and English L2, so Adjective/noun order, Subject/verb order, Number/numbered order, …

El Papel De La Educación En La Conservación Y El Ecoturismo En Costa Rica, Alice Sperry

Honors Theses

Costa Rica is a unique country that has some of the greatest biodiversity in the world. In order to protect this rich biodiversity, Costa Rica has developed a system of conservation and sustainability. Conservation and sustainability are two of the primary focuses of the country. Another focus of the country, since it was formed, is education. Therefore, the country has combined the importance of education and sustainability to offer environmental education programs for future generations. There are a variety of programs for a wide range of ages, children and adults. Some local people need these programs in order to get …

Pedagogy Or Andragogy?: Which Teaching Method Produces Successful Esl Tutoring That Involves Musical Activities?, Julia Cormack

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Considering the connections between music and language, as well as Chi et al.’s (2001) theory, this thesis introduces an original case study investigation: which teaching method, pedagogy or andragogy, will be most effective in one-on-one ESL tutoring sessions that use music as source material? The term pedagogy often describes the art and science of teaching. However, its Greek roots refer to the method of the teacher leading the classroom. Meanwhile, andragogy describes a teaching method where the teacher engages with the students in the learning and leading; Greek for “leader of man,” andragogy most often refers to teaching adults. To …

Peace, Love, And (Soul)Cialism: Function Of Teacher- Student Love In Collectivist Societal Education And Its Relationship To The Elimination Of African American Educational Underachievement, Nirel Jonesmitchell

CMC Senior Theses

Top researchers in the field of intimacy education signify that definitions of intimate connection—referring to a deep relationship with oneself, immediate circle, or humankind, more broadly—are identity dependent. Different countries and racial demographics, thus, conceptualize notions of solidarity, interdependence, and self-awareness distinctly. Without investigation, these discrepancies provoke division; attention, alternatively, has the power to induce the mitigation of educational achievement gaps in Latin America and domestically. Cuban notions of ‘legitimate’ relationships are contextualized by the political philosopher Jose Martí who delineated an ideological framework encouraging collectivism. This idea undergirds his contribution to the revolutionary Cuban literacy campaign: dialogical education. Despite …

Engaging The Needs Of Young Refugees In The Language Classroom, Mia-Shalom N. Hayes

Selected Honors Theses

As the number of refugee students increase each year, many language teachers find themselves uninformed and ill-equipped to effectively engage refugee students in the classroom. Thus, through a survey and synthesis of the current body of research, the following literature review seeks to present the specific needs of refugee students and suggest practical ways in which language teachers can effectively meet those needs and engage refugees in the language classroom. The findings suggest that though the pre-migration, trans-migration, and post-migration experiences present numerous physical, emotional, behavioral, cultural, social, and academic challenges to refugee students in the classroom, teachers can combat …

Expertise And Expression In Second Language Acquisition: An Embodied Perspective, Mia Burnett

Senior Theses

In directing our attention to mundane aspects of the human experience, we can discover new ways of interacting with and understanding the world. One such formative experience, regularly seen as mundane in much of the world, is learning a second language. It is no exaggeration to say that second language acquisition is one of the processes which most influences and drives our globalized world, and yet we understand and study this process relatively little.

Continuing the trends of naturalizing phenomenological inquiry, this project attempts to evaluate phenomenological approaches to skill acquisition alongside second language acquisition theory and research through an …

Japanese Pronoun Adventure: A Japanese Language Learner's Exploration Of His Japanese Gender Pronoun, Takumi Nakano

Masters Theses

In Japanese, there are various kinds of first-person pronouns, and some of them express the referent’s gender identity. Gender-neutral pronouns are made in English- speaking world day by day, but there is not any common first-person pronoun which indicates the gender identity that positions the referent’s gender somewhere between masculine and feminine. The present paper conducted a life story research on the “Japanese life” of an advanced learner of Japanese at a university in the United States who has been exploring his gender identity by coining and using a new Japanese first- person pronoun 㛪 ore, which indicates “in the …

Traducciones De Documentos De Los Programas Que Ofrece United Way Del Condado De San Luis Obispo, Courtney Helena Connor

World Languages and Cultures

The intent of this project is to translate various documents used by the United Way of San Luis Obispo County from English to Spanish. Due to the large number of native Spanish-speakers in San Luis Obispo County, there is a great need for information about community resources to be available in Spanish. Due to the nature of languages having many dialects, a significant amount of research was put into determining the dialect and word choice for the translations. Factors considered included region, educational level, socioeconomic status, etc. The translation was completed using a form of Spanish that sought to avoid …

Use Of Student Created Video Podcasts To Promote Foreign Language Grammar Acquisition In Middle School, Sergio Parra

CCE Theses and Dissertations

The use of video podcasts in education has emerged as a phenomenon that has gained a considerable amount of attention over the last few years. Although video podcasting is becoming a well-established technology in higher education, new multimedia instructional strategies such as student-created video podcasts in grades K-12 are under-researched.

The study investigated the effects of video podcasts created by students to promote foreign language grammar acquisition at the middle school level and find how students described such experience. The current investigation was conducted by using the explanatory sequential design, which is a mixed methods research design that occurs in …

Mandarin Chinese As A Second Language: A Review Of Literature, Wesley A. Spencer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Mandarin Chinese has become increasing prevalent in the modern world. Accordingly, research of Chinese as a second language has developed greatly over the past few decades. This paper reviews research on the difficulties of acquiring a second language in general and research that specifically details the difficulty of acquiring Chinese as a second language. Based on this research, the author also reveals some areas that should be researched further in order to advance the field.

Who We Are: Incarcerated Students And The New Prison Literature, 1995-2010, Reilly Hannah N. Lorastein

Honors Projects

This project focuses on American prison writings from the late 1990s to the 2000s. Much has been written about American prison intellectuals such as Malcolm X, George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver, and Angela Davis, who wrote as active participants in black and brown freedom movements in the United States. However the new prison literature that has emerged over the past two decades through higher education programs within prisons has received little to no attention. This study provides a more nuanced view of the steadily growing silent population in the United States through close readings of Openline, an inter-disciplinary journal featuring …