Education Commons^™

Pragmatics In Game Activities, Humor, And Technology In Second Language Learning, Zachary Brandon Brown

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio compiles work the author explored and developed during the Master of Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program at Utah State University (USU). It encompasses a range of experiences from teaching abroad and at USU, insights from the observation of other classrooms, and reflections from studies in the MSLT program.

Three distinct sections comprise the portfolio: teaching perspectives, research perspectives, and an annotated bibliography. The teaching perspectives detail beliefs regarding games, computer technology, humor, and pragmatics and how they influence second language learning based on the author’s personal experiences. The research perspectives and annotated bibliography elaborate further on those topics …

Situated Directives In Italian L2 Service-Learning Encounters, Kristin Cardellio

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Interaction with local speakers of a second language (L2) in a naturalistic setting during study abroad is beneficial to language learning in many respects; particularly in the development of pragmatic competence, or the awareness and ability to use the appropriate language for a specific social context (Kinginger, 2011; Magnan & Back, 2007; Schauer, 2009; Shively, 2011). Service-learning - volunteering in the local community combined with an academic pursuit - during study abroad provides the opportunity for meaningful interaction between language learners and local speakers of the L2 in authentic and collaborative settings (Overfield, 2007). This study examines the interactions of …

The Encoding Of Temporality In Second Language Acquisition: A Study Of Mandarin Chinese-Speaking Esl Learners, Li Ma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the influences of pragmatic factors, lexical devices, as well as the lexical aspectual properties of verbs on second language learners' encoding of temporality in their target language. The pragmatic factors being investigated include a recency effect and the number of occurrences of a tense in the previous context, and the lexical devices include past-time temporal adverbials and frequency adverbs. The role of the lexical aspectual properties of verbs is checked against the Aspect Hypothesis, which states that learners will initially restrict past or perfective marking to achievement and accomplishment verbs and later gradually extend this usage to …

Discursive Leadership And Conceptual Fluency In Non-Native English Speakers' Online Task-Based Dialogues, Umit Boz

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Much research has examined how different patterns of social interaction shape language learners' interactional roles (e.g., collaborative, dominant, passive) in peer-to-peer conversations. However, little or no research has investigated the co-construction of such roles in multiparty, online task-based dialogues within the framework of discursive leadership. For the purpose of this study, discursive leadership is defined as the ability of the interlocutors to (a) shape the discourse via topic introductions and subsequent topic mentions and (b) manage the process of the task through the use of a series of task-oriented speech acts such as directives and assertions. Using a multi-method approach …

A Study Of Refusal Strategies By American And International Students At An American University, Hiroko Tsuiki Moaveni

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Refusals are delicate speech acts for non-native speakers to negotiate because they require negative responses to an interlocutor's invitation or request. In addition to cultural variation, variables such as gender and modes of communication (e.g., emails) add dimensions to the complexity when performing refusals. The main objective of this study is to investigate the difference in refusal strategies between American and international college students as well as gender variation. Using a written Discourse Completion Task, six situations were developed and grouped in two stimulus types eliciting refusals to an invitation and a request. Each stimulus type involved an email refusal …

Teaching Strategies For Use In The Esl Class And In Esl Texts, Marc Steven Gold

MA TESOL Collection

No abstract provided.