Education Commons^™

L2 Investment In The Transnational Context: A Case Study Of Prc Scholar Students In Singapore, Chang Liu, Guangxiang Liu

Journal of English and Applied Linguistics

Despite growing research on mainland Chinese international students’ intercultural language learning and adjustment experiences in Anglophone countries, few studies have delved into these students’ socially constructed language learning practices as an essential component of their study-abroad journey, especially in Singapore which shares linguistic and cultural affinities with China. As such, building on Darvin and Norton’s (2015) theory of investment at the intersection of identity, capital, and ideology, this case study focuses on Chinese foreign talent students in Singapore and aims to understand how they invest in learning English as an additional language (L2) and assert their legitimate place in the …

Drawing About Writing: Exploring Egyptian Middle School Students’ Writing Motivation And Perceptions, Maryam Elbayady

Theses and Dissertations

The principal aim of this study is to explore Egyptian middle school students’ perceptions of their writing experiences using artistic expression, specifically drawings. It also aims to understand their levels of writing motivation using the Self-Beliefs, Writing-Beliefs, and Attitude Survey (SWAS) (Wright et al., 2019). Finally, it examines the relationships among participants’ perceptions, motivation, and their narrative writing performance. The view that students’ voices are valuable to research geared towards school improvement has largely propelled this study (Bland, 2018; Zumbrunn et al., 2017). In addition, due to the limited literature about middle school students enrolled at private Egyptian schools, this …

The Effects Of Communicative Language Teaching Methods (Clt) Of Teaching Ancient Greek On Student Motivation, Language Learning Experience, Self-Efficacy, Facilitating Anxiety, And Debilitating Anxiety Compared To The Grammar Translation Method (Gtm), Dustin J. Humphreys

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative, causal-comparative study was to determine if ancient Greek language programs that use communicative language teaching methods (CLT) produce different student motivation, language learning experience, self-efficacy, facilitating anxiety and debilitating anxiety scores than programs that primarily use the grammar-translation method (GTM) of teaching ancient Greek. This study is critical because the comprehensive teaching of the ancient Greek language has been on the decline in recent decades. This research aims to inform colleges, seminaries, and other language learning schools that teach classical languages, such as ancient Greek, about the potential positive effects of CLT on student motivation, …

Overcoming Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety: Practical Approaches In The Classroom, Sarah Day

Honors Projects

Foreign language speaking anxiety is a prevalent issue impacting language learners' confidence, participation, and overall language acquisition. With personal experiences as a language learner, a Spanish teacher in the United States, and an English teacher in Spain, I have observed how foreign language speaking anxiety affects learners from various demographics. Using a combined approach of personal observations, experiences as a language learner and teacher, and secondary research this project aims to address the primary sources of foreign language speaking anxiety among high school students and how both students and teachers can work to lessen the negative effects of foreign language …

The "Messy Middle": A Framework For Analyzing Raciolinguistic Inequity, Casey Erin Anthony

Graduate Masters Theses

Existing research has demonstrated that bilingual education in the United States is highly inequitable, providing greater benefits to white English speakers than to students from minoritized backgrounds (e.g., Babino & Stewart, 2017; Palmer, 2009). Additional research has suggested that bilingual spaces also uphold whiteness and English hegemony outside of classrooms, in spaces like parent groups to administrative decisions (e.g., Gallo, 2017; Jacobsen et al., 2019). This ethnographic case study of a Spanish-English Two-Way Dual Language (TWDL) elementary school examines raciolinguistic positioning and interactions among students, teachers, and parents. Drawing on dysconscious racism (King, 1991), LangCrit (Crump, 2014), and critical consciousness …

Destigmatizing Working With Dyslexic Learners, Riley N. Dandurand

Writing Center Journal

In the field of writing center research there is a paucity of information regarding tutoring students with dyslexia. This comes as no surprise considering it is only in the last 50 years that there has been a conscious effort to include those who have exceptionalities in all areas of education. In addition to a lack of research and training there is another issue that arises with disclosing exceptionalities. Those studying dyslexia have found that students are hesitant to disclose their learning disability because of the stigma and feelings of differentiation from their peers (Brizee et al., 2012). The question then …

Verb Strings And Other Weavings: An Exploration Of Grammatical Structures, Visual Arts, And Language Teaching, Mae Bash

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

In language education, visual arts are sometimes used as a tool to inspire communication and convey cultural concepts. However, limited research has looked into the application of visual arts in the classroom for the exploration of linguistic patterns. Both languages and weavings are complex systems governed by distinct sets of rules, yet they still permit infinite unique productions. This project explores this relationship by presenting five bandweavings, each of which is designed based on the rules and structures of different languages. These weavings show that it is possible to connect art and language through practical, structural methods, not only abstract …

Representaciones Ideológicas Del Lenguaje Entre La Población Mexicana En Nueva York, Maria Del Rocio Carranza Brito

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the linguistic ideologies that Mexican migrants bring when migrating and reproduce in their daily interactions with other Spanish and English speakers, as well as the representations of the language presented in their linguistic behaviors. This work presents an intersectional analysis where the factors of gender, migratory status, education, and work are determining factors in the adoption, maintenance, and reproduction of language ideologies, which affect the linguistic decisions of the speakers in their use of Spanish, learning of English and the support of bilingualism. Based on the stereotypical idea of Spanish as the …

Uncovering University Teachers' Perspectives: Conceptualizations, Factors, And Perceptions Of Second Language Learner Engagement, Eman I. M. Alzaanin

The Qualitative Report

Second language (L2) learner engagement has been a key theme in applied linguistics over the past two decades; however, teachers' voices have been largely absent from L2 learner engagement research. In addition, little is known about what learner engagement means to L2 language teachers. Through semi-structured, in-depth interviews, this study aims to capture the conceptualizations of learner engagement and the perceptions of the factors facilitating or hindering learner engagement in L2 learning in a Saudi university context, as expressed by 12 English as a Foreign Language university (EFL) teachers. The data analysis method used was inductive thematic analysis. The findings …

Dismantling Anti-Blackness In Teacher Education: Centering Black Epistemologies To (Re)Construct Elementary Language Arts Education For Linguistic And Racial Justice, Jasmyn Kymberly Jones

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

Black students and their linguistic resources are undervalued, disdained, disrespected, and disregarded in language arts classrooms. Not only is Black Language often ignored in English language arts instruction, but language more generally remains largely hidden within elementary ELA. Elementary ELA educators are tasked with teaching a vast array of skills, content, and concepts. So, teacher education programs are responsible for ensuring that preservice teachers leave prepared to take on the task of cultivating language arts classrooms that foster students’ literacy development. However, traditionally, literacy teacher education and the ELA curriculum has maintained white mainstream English as the standard for which …

Kxanuw! (Miichuwaakan Waak Aweeyayusak), Kira Fucci, Camilla Bager

Games

Kxanuw! (I have it!) is modeled after bingo. This version allows players to practice plant and animal names, engaging listening comprehension, speaking, and visual recognition. The game kit includes instructions, a caller's card, and printable player cards.

Nii Neemun..., Johanna Tumux, Hannah Nosch

Games

Nii Neemun... (I Spy...) is designed for use inside a classroom, where learners can practice hearing and naming the objects that surround them. This game includes a full set of instructions, a learner worksheet, and an answer key, as well as recommendations for adjusting play for beginning and more experienced participants.

The Transformative Impact Of A Semester-Long Us-Based Gelt Course On Pre-/In-Service Teachers' Cognition And Classroom Practices, Özge Güney

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As English has become a global lingua franca used by a greater number of nonnative speakers than native speakers, a focus on native speaker norms in English language teaching (ELT) has become obsolete. There has been a call to incorporate different varieties of Englishes (native, nonnative, and nativized) and related cultures in both teacher education programs and the English classroom- an approach known as Global Englishes Teacher Education (GELT). This study investigates the influence of a GELT-informed teacher education course offered at a US state university on the cognition and (future) practices of pre-/in-service teachers, which aspects of the GELT …

Historical Trauma: Literary And Testimonial Responses To Hiroshima, Mariam Ghonim

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of trauma is controversial in literature. While one may be able to come up with ways to describe trauma in fiction, representing historical trauma is a hard task for writers. Some argue that trauma can not be described through those who did not experience it, while others claim that, provided some elements are added, one can represent trauma to the reader. This thesis focuses on twentieth-century historical traumas related to a nuclear catastrophe and explores the different literary and testimonial responses to the catastrophic man-made event of Hiroshima (1945). In this thesis, Kathleen Burkinshaw’s historical fiction The Last …

Citizens Of The English Language: Sociolinguistic Perspectives On Postcolonial India, Prateek Shankar

Masters Theses

This paper introduces the concept of "extralingual citizenship," which I define as an expansion of translingualism to include the ethnoracial logic of the nation-state and demonstrates the entanglement of language, governance, and education in the policing of knowledge infrastructures and discursive practices. I am interested in the codification of postcolonial disparity into the teaching, social performance, and material assessment of English language users, and the infrastructural disqualification of World Englishes (and their amalgams) in favor of a standardized English. I frame extralingualism as a kind of citizenship, shifting the focus of English pedagogy/practice from the syntactical/etymological concerns of language …

English Learners In Nyc, Raquel Neris

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

English Learners in NYC is a Digital Humanities project that intersects Migration Studies and Foreign Language Learning Studies by presenting a podcast series about the learning experience of international students in English as a Second Language (ESL) programs at English schools in New York City. The project aims to provide visibility to the educational migration in this specific context and to promote a discussion on how international students and educators can reimagine their teaching and learning experience. It also aims to reveal ESL schools' challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they incorporated digital technologies during and after this event. …

Forming A Global Citizen: Personal Development Through Study Abroad, Anna L. Reiter

Honors Thesis

This literature review examines key benefits of studying abroad, while investigating which elements most contribute to students’ overall success. Current literature suggests that benefits of studying abroad include, but are not limited to, second language acquisition (SLA), identity formation, and intercultural competence. The degree of which each is improved depends on a multitude of variables. SLA improvement is explored via consideration of students’ baseline proficiency level, degree of receptivity of the host country, and length of the study abroad program. Students’ identity formation is explained through the three bases of identity: person, role, and group/social. Finally, intercultural competence in study …

From Antiracism To Abolition: The Role Of University Culture Centers In Black Students' Academic Identities And Language, Kristin Demint Bailey

Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on focus group, interview, and participant-observer data collected as part of this IRB-approved [19.177] qualitative research project, this dissertation provides insights about how Black American students develop academic identities through coursework and extracurricular involvement in a Black culture center on the campus of a historically white institution (HWI). I apply the lens of “abolitionist education” (Love) to explore the languaging that students and faculty in the Black culture center do to create community and racial uplift in a type of institution where racial identity historically has been marginalized and obscured—and where, the collected data indicate, such occlusion continues despite …

Mobilizing Resources: Towards A Transnational Orientation In The Composition Classroom, Gitte Frandsen

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I present two studies on transnational, multilingual undergraduate students which focus on students’ rich, complex communication patterns across contexts. First, I examine the linguistic, literate, rhetorical, and cultural resources they deploy to make meaning across non-academic contexts as they take care of everyday tasks, navigate different linguistic and cultural landscapes, build relationships, and broker meaning for others. Next, I explore how the students mobilize their multiple resources and strategies to learn, write, and co-construct meaning with others in academic contexts. I discuss how these strategies are often constrained by English Only discourses and policies in the classroom …

Systemic Theoretical Instruction: Tense And Aspect In Italian A Sociocultural Study Of American Learners Of Italian, Charles Joseph Panarella, Jr.

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

University-level language and second-language classrooms typically use general rules of thumb to teach grammar without considering its conceptual aspects and cultural origins. These general rules of thumb are normally taught using a communicative approach to language teaching which typically places little emphasis on immediate corrective feedback and learner development. Most assessments are static in nature and focus on right and wrong answers rather than their origins (i.e., learner development and microgenesis). The lack of corrective feedback and lack of considering affective factors have the potential to negatively influence language acquisition in terms of motivation and self-efficacy. In addition, foreign language …

Language Experience: The Perception Of Foreign Language Acquisition Among University Adults, Lileth A. Stricklin

Honors Theses

While bilingualism has always existed within the history of the U.S. and is the global norm, mainstream approaches to learning have traditionally been monolingually centered and fail to employ approaches that produce sustainable motivation towards foreign language acquisition in students. This study sought to investigate the perceptions adult individuals display towards acquiring foreign language skills, emphasizing distinctions exhibited between monolinguals and their multilingual counterparts. A mixed-method approach in the analysis of 506 survey responses yielded results that suggest that university adults generally display positive perceptions towards foreign language learning. Distinctions in perception between monolinguals and multilinguals were very few with …

The Erasure Of Rural West Texas Voices In Higher Education Institutions An Autoethnographic Study Of Minoritized Students Of West Texas In Their Journey To Obtain Success In Higher Education Institutions, David Whaley-Weems Sr

All Dissertations

I was once told there is a person in the world who has locked within his or her mind the framework for the cure for cancer or even the ability to create an energy model that will revolutionize how society consumes natural resources. Now imagine if I told you I have seen that person alive and well working as an oil well driller on a rig in Mentone, Texas. The first question most people would ask is, “Why is the person drilling in the middle of nowhere Texas instead of impacting the world by way of displaying his or her …

With Liberty And Justice For All? Examining The Role Of Hegemony Throughout U.S. History In Influencing Multilingual Discriminatory Practices Within Academic Policies And Legislation, Katie Olivia Wallen

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The discriminatory systems that multidialectal and multilingual users experience in the United States have historically influenced how educators and policymakers approach the construction of academic policies and curricula. These hegemonic systems shape and inform linguistic attitudes that have continually imparted prejudice against non-White language users, resulting in a gap of inclusivity for diverse student populations. Research aiming to address this gap has traditionally approached linguistic discrimination by specifically examining the use of dialects or non-English languages in the classroom rather than the underlying systems that affect both multidialectal and multilingual users similarly. Through the lens of policy and social construct …

Supporting English Language Learners In The Era Of Direct Enrollment, Breana Bayraktar

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

In the spring of 2021, the Community College System in which the author works was in the middle of a planned three-year pilot of math and English self-placement (“Direct Enrollment”) procedures. Concerns about the significant English language learner (ELL) population at one institution led to the development of a corequisite support course designed to support English language learners as they enrolled in first-semester composition. This course is considered a “gateway” course, with success rates hovering around 60% for traditional students, dropping to under 35% for students age 25 and older. As the planned pilot of Direct Enrollment was underway, faculty …

Deictic Pointing And Demonstrative Usage In American Sign Language, Paul Twitchell

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

American Sign Language (ASL), like many different signed languages, has a systematic way of using pointing signs for multiple types of nominal reference. Possibly the most basic function of pointing is to indicate, direct and modulate reference to physical objects located in proximal and distal areas called exophoric demonstratives.

This study aims to investigate ASL exophoric demonstratives and how ASL fits within the different typological systems of demonstratives that have been documented (Diessel & Coventry, 2020). Several research questions focus on how signers direct attention to proximal and distal referents in ASL using an elicitation task. The two studies (adult …

What Before Means: Teaching About The Communicative Contribution Of The English Pluperfect, Max Miller

Publications and Research

This paper presents a text-based analysis of the communicative functions of the simple past and pluperfect tenses of English, and offers a pedagogical approach to assist learners in acquiring them. Following a functional, usage-based linguistics perspective, the analysis holds that the simple past expresses Time PAST, while the pluperfect expresses Time PAST, BEFORE. Thus only the latter tense signals a speaker's subjective creation of a linkage in time. The understanding of these meanings can enhance an English language teacher's effectiveness in the classroom (as in selecting texts and activities) and a language user's effectiveness in communication. A classroom-based pedagogical application …

Identity (De/Re-)Construction: A Shifting Scale Of Identities Moving Abroad And Its Teaching Implications, Matthew Francis

MA TESOL Collection

Language learners who relocate voluntarily to different countries where their native tongue is not the primary spoken language, often uncover and learn aspects of who they are, that is, their identity and user agency. Through personal experience relocating, I intend to share the phenomenon of identity de/re- construction being immersed in another language and culture, moving in between my ‘original’ home country and the ‘new home,’ all while not being able to experience both former and latter identities at the same time (physically). This study will explore what I coin as an ‘identity spectrum’ through first person narratives (interviews) to …

The Maldivian Language Predicament: Language Loss Through The Lens Of Students, Azka Hassan

Senior Theses and Projects

This study dives into Maldivian students’ experiences of learning languages in classrooms, as well as how they perceive their proficiency in English relative to their first language, Dhivehi. I investigated the issue of language loss and its contributors via a qualitative study which consisted of 9 semi-structured 45-60 minute interviews with lower secondary Maldivian students who are in public schools in Male’ city. (Key stage 4, ages 13-17) Through this study, I argue that the Maldives is suffering from language loss among youth because students often have negative experiences in Dhivehi classrooms and feel pressure rooted in higher social and …

Comentarios Críticos Escritos Por Estudiantes De Medicina Sobre La Evaluación Del Paciente, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

La presente investigación analiza los comentarios críticos producidos por estudiantes chilenos de 3º y 4º de Medicina en la sección Comentario/Reflexión final de la Ficha Clínica con el objetivo de conocer su opinión sobre la experiencia de su estancia hospitalaria y la práctica médica en general, así como de entender los elementos retórico-discursivos que utilizan para posicionar su voz en el texto al evaluar dicha experiencia. Para investigar este fenómeno se realizó un análisis textual computarizado de las categorías gramaticales y los contenidos semántico-funcionales valorativos desde un enfoque cualitativo inductivo-deductivo. Los resultados del estudio mostraron un predominio de los comentarios …

What Is The ‘E’ In Esol? Three Papers On Linguistic Borders, Normativity, And Race In Adult English Education, Kelsey Swift

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this three-paper dissertation project, I explore how ‘English’ becomes a recognizable object within the context of adult ESOL education. Building on scholarship on named languages (García, 2019; Makoni & Pennycook, 2006), the historical construction of languages (Bonfiglio, 2010; Irvine & Gal, 2000), and raciolinguistic ideologies (Flores & Rosa, 2015; Rosa & Flores, 2017), I analyze how language, both as an abstract concept and as a collection of linguistic features, is treated within adult ESOL, looking at specific contemporary classrooms, as well as historical texts. This work culminated in the three studies I present here – focused, in turn, on …