More Than Text: Examining Embodied Practice In The Classroom, Susan Nash

Honors Projects

This Honors project aims to answer the questions surrounding best practices of engaging with theatrical texts in K-12 English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms in the United States. This project uses the texts of Shakespeare as a case study to analyze the benefits of embodied practice as a methodology in the classroom, paying specific attention to the ways in which embodied practice encourages student agency.

This thesis specifically argues for the incorporation of embodied practice in ELA curricula engage with playtexts and finds that embodied practice can help students better relate to a playtext, assists in humanizing its history, themes, and …

Culturally Responsive Literacy Instruction And Social–Emotional Teaching Practices For Linguistically Diverse Learners In The United States, Wing Shuen Lau

Education Dissertations

This dissertation includes two previous research studies with a central theme to sustain and advance culturally and linguistically responsive practices in literacy instruction, which are essential for promoting diversity and equity. This work highlights the need for a more holistic approach to English language teaching that integrates culturally responsive teaching and social–emotional learning. Culturally responsive teaching recognizes the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity in the classroom. Social–emotional learning focuses on developing students’ emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills, which are critical for academic success and overall well-being. Both studies call for a greater diversity of language teacher preparation curricula and …

Elementary New Testament Greek, Owen Ewald

Faculty Open Access Books

This open-access textbook helps students learn to read New Testament Greek at the elementary level. It includes clear, concise explanations of grammar and syntax, helpful examples, and essential vocabulary, with no assumption of previous language study, and it does not require accents for most forms. At the end of each of its twenty chapters, students will find short Greek-language episodes from the life of a fictional early Christian family of Jewish ancestry, short readings from the Greek New Testament and Septuagint, and review/homework exercises that can help reinforce new concepts and vocabulary. This book can help students prepare to read …

Corpus-Based Data-Driven Learning In Reading English For Academic Purposes, Ira Rasikawati

Education Dissertations

One of the second language (L2) instructional approaches perceived as promising is data-driven learning (DDL) – the use of computer-generated concordances for language teaching and learning. DDL provides students with the opportunity to analyze language forms across contexts found in the concordance output. Notwithstanding the growing research support, DDL has not been widely adopted in L2 classrooms. Studies examining the use of DDL have mostly been carried out in a case study context with a small sample size. To bridge the gap between research and instructional practices, more empirical studies are needed to corroborate the claim that exposing students to …

The Impact Of Collaborative Strategic Reading On Esl International Students’ Reading Comprehension And Metacognitive Awareness In College, Fatima Benlyazid

Education Dissertations

Many ESL international students struggle with academic reading, which hinders their success in American colleges. Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) is a multi-component approach that trains struggling readers to apply a set of cognitive and metacognitive strategies to enhance their reading comprehension and content area reading. This quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest study aims to evaluate the effect of CSR on ESL international students' reading comprehension and their metacognitive awareness in college. The researcher employed Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) and Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) measurement tools to collect the data. Capturing students' perceptions of CSR in the …

The Effect Of Book Provision On Family Shared Reading Patterns Among Women Participating In The Nurse-Family Partnership, Susan Marie Knutsen

Education Dissertations

This study sought to determine whether a book provision intervention delivered to low-income mothers participating in the Nurse-Family Partnership had an effect on family shared book reading patterns and family attitudes toward shared book reading. The 25 participants in this study were low-income, first-time mothers, aged 18-25 with infants, newborn to 12 months of age at recruitment (13 male, 12 female, M = 6.7 months of age) currently participating in one of three Nurse-Family Partnership agencies in Washington State.

A pretest-posttest experimental design with random assignment was conducted. A mixed factorial analysis of variance found that the book provision intervention …

International Students’ Responses To Explicit Instruction On Vocabulary Learning Strategies: Implications For Eap Courses, Wing Shuen Lau

TESOL Theses

Given that the importance of understanding the academic language is strongly associated with the academic vocabulary size, vocabulary knowledge is regarded as one of the most crucial areas of language competence to bolster academic achievement. The present study investigates the effectiveness of two different strategies of vocabulary acquisition in English including 1) learning from sample sentences and 2) learning from word parts. Results are significant for immediate testing and reveal the beneficial role of explicit instruction on vocabulary learning strategies that increases international students’ English vocabulary learning ability. The study also discusses survey responses from the participants in relation to …

Examining The Complex Morphology Within The Kindergarten And First Grade Exemplar Texts From The English And Language Arts Common Core State Standards In Light Of What Is Currently Known About The Importance Of Morphology For Literacy Instruction, David L. Ray

Education Dissertations

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to identify and categorize the morphologically complex words in the Kindergarten and First Grade Common Core State Standards English and Language Arts (CCSS ELA) Exemplar Texts. Four text types were analyzed: student-read fiction, student-read informational text, teacher read-aloud fiction, and teacher read-aloud informational text. The results revealed that students will encounter many inflectional morphemes in both the books they learn to read and the books read-aloud to them. These texts thus provide strong support for meeting the CCSS ELA Conventions standards for kindergarten and first grade, which primarily address inflectional morphology. However, the …

Morphological Awareness And Advanced Efl Learners’ Listening Comprehension, Xu Bian

Education Dissertations

This study explored the relationship between morphological awareness and advanced EFL learners’ listening comprehension by deconstructing three multi-dimension constructs, morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension. The variables under morphological awareness were compounding and derivational morphology; vocabulary knowledge included both reading and listening vocabulary; listening comprehension was assessed by two different listening tasks whose aural texts and response formats were interviews and multiple choices, and one mini lecture and the gap-filling. Participants were 152 third-year English-majors in two universities in China. The main findings were (1) morphological awareness was a significant predictor of listening comprehension when the latter was measured …

The Role Of Morphological Awareness In Vocabulary Acquisition In English Of Saudi Efl Learners, Wugud A. Alsaeedi

TESOL Theses

This study aimed to assess the impact of explicit morphology instruction on Saudi EFL students’ morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge. The experimental group received for six weeks in their English class morphological lessons that focused on the basic analytical and synthetic word formation rules to increase students’ morphological awareness and help in improving their vocabulary knowledge. On the other hand, the control group received the regular instruction in their English class. At the end of the instruction period, the pre- and post-test scores of the experimental group were compared. Then, the experimental group scores were compared to the control group. …