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Full-Text Articles in Education

Virtual Free-Writing Journal Portfolios In An Intensive English Program In Iraq, Charles Mckinney May 2022

Virtual Free-Writing Journal Portfolios In An Intensive English Program In Iraq, Charles Mckinney

MA TESOL Collection

Middle-Eastern English language learners (ELLs), specifically Iraqi students, are often not well equipped to succeed in university settings where English is the medium of instruction (EMI) for their intended graduate and undergraduate studies. Oftentimes, they are weaker in their academic literacy skills, when compared to listening and speaking, and need extra scaffolding and/or remedial instruction to develop their reading and writing dexterity for overall academic success. One way to support their writing development is to implement free-writing journal projects that will enable them to cultivate an original writer voice, to think quickly and critically in the L2, and to integrate …


The Changes To Cultural Identity In Expatriates And Their Effects On The Efl Community, Kelly Nault May 2022

The Changes To Cultural Identity In Expatriates And Their Effects On The Efl Community, Kelly Nault

MA TESOL Collection

Expatriates are a group of unique individuals in terms of cultural identity. This paper will first look at the research on expats in-depth and explore the question of what defines cultural identity. Then, it will look into the reality facing expatriates and the formation and the evolution of their cultural identity. Lastly, it will look at how the assumptions about expatriates' cultural identity impact the EFL teaching community.


Beginning English Literacy Instruction For Adult Refugees And Immigrants: An Attempt To Decolonize The Approach(Es), Xania Bytof Apr 2022

Beginning English Literacy Instruction For Adult Refugees And Immigrants: An Attempt To Decolonize The Approach(Es), Xania Bytof

MA TESOL Collection

Although many organizations offer free “beginning” English classes for adult refugees and immigrants in the U.S., most of these classes depend on written worksheets and other print materials – therefore requiring students to be familiar with the English alphabet in order to follow along. The lack of accessible beginning literacy classes for adult refugees and immigrants puts students with limited or interrupted formal education and those whose language(s) don’t use the roman alphabet at a stark disadvantage. Additionally, most literacy coursework is designed from a Western perspective whose historical, political and social foundational structures hold English literacy and Western funds …


Leveraging The Dynamics Of The Mixed Level Classroom: A Materials Collection, Emily Hampston Apr 2022

Leveraging The Dynamics Of The Mixed Level Classroom: A Materials Collection, Emily Hampston

MA TESOL Collection

A number of studies have noted the rise in student demographic diversity and the heightened significance of the mixed-level classroom; however, a consensus on the appropriate methods and materials to address these developments remains to be reached. Educators are anticipated to address the needs of students with a variety of abilities, backgrounds, and interests in a singular class. Less proficient students face overstimulation whilst more proficient students face understimulation. How can the challenges of the mixed-level classroom be recast into strengths? The mixed-level classroom environment calls for student investment, real language, and familiar processes. Methods such as peer tutoring, cooperative …


Using Film As A Multimodal Text In The Language Classroom, Kate Marie Steckmest May 2021

Using Film As A Multimodal Text In The Language Classroom, Kate Marie Steckmest

MA TESOL Collection

Film is a powerful medium for language acquisition; Not only does viewing films allow learners to experience language used in various real-life contexts, but the medium of film itself is a form of communication. Through the active viewing of films, students can explore how people with diverse backgrounds, accents, and cultures communicate using multiple modes such as gestures, images, and sounds. When learners are familiar with the techniques used by filmmakers to convey meaning, they can use the medium of film themselves to tell their stories and share their perspectives through filmmaking projects. Such projects can be collaborative and engaging …


Approaches To Narrative Instruction For Second Language Learners, Mathew Peters May 2021

Approaches To Narrative Instruction For Second Language Learners, Mathew Peters

MA TESOL Collection

Narratives have reemerged as a dominant form of rhetoric over the last fifty years. This dominant use of narrative discourse has only increased with the rise of social media. Walther Fisher (1987) proposed the narrative paradigm as a unifying theory of human communication. His major claim is that people are inherently storytellers and that people use a narrative rationality and a logic of good reasons to inform their beliefs, values, and actions. This paper utilizes his theories, along with recent findings in neuroscience, to establish an argument for greater inclusion of narratives into second language teaching. Narratives can have a …


A Teacher's Guide To Plurilingual Pedagogy, Elisabeth Wichser-Krajcik May 2021

A Teacher's Guide To Plurilingual Pedagogy, Elisabeth Wichser-Krajcik

MA TESOL Collection

Language teaching practices have been dominated by monolingual, deficit approaches in which students are expected to compartmentalize languages, ignore prior knowledge, and emulate how natives speak the target language—though there have also been many teachers who have challenged these approaches through the years. Plurilingualism and plurilingual pedagogy reject such ideas and practices and instead seek to cultivate linguistic repertoires (including partial or uneven skills across languages), engage prior knowledge and lived experience, and develop metalinguistic and metacognitive competencies. Drawing on decades of research in applied linguistics and associated fields, plurilingual pedagogy aims to teach language in a way that is …


Interacting With The Other: Culturally Responsive Approaches Toward Intercultural Competence, Tamara Devine Jun 2020

Interacting With The Other: Culturally Responsive Approaches Toward Intercultural Competence, Tamara Devine

MA TESOL Collection

Traditional language teaching approaches assume a strong focus on linguistic proficiency, syntax, and grammar. This thesis makes the case that culture and language must be given equal consideration in a language curriculum, and educators must approach their work with a critical eye for the cultural identities of each of their students. The author examines the ways that learner identity, most notably as it pertains to race and sexual orientation, is a crucial element to consider as teachers build in areas of representation to mirror their learners. The author lays out the theoretical foundation of culturally responsive teaching and points out …


Boosting Students’ Fluency Through Incorporating Context-Specific Content Into Task-Based Language Teaching, Reflecting On Their Fatalistic Cultural Beliefs, And Fostering Their Agency., Nixon Cadet Apr 2020

Boosting Students’ Fluency Through Incorporating Context-Specific Content Into Task-Based Language Teaching, Reflecting On Their Fatalistic Cultural Beliefs, And Fostering Their Agency., Nixon Cadet

MA TESOL Collection

This study will look into incorporating context-specific content into Task-Based Language Teaching techniques to enable students at the American University of the Caribbean in Les Cayes, Haiti, to develop fluency. It will particularly draw lessons from my own language learning and teaching experiences and explore ways to establish a culture that nurtures students’ agency. In my context, students have deeply ingrained fatalistic cultural beliefs which are not conducive to optimal learning. Therefore, fostering a culture that reconsiders these views could strongly help boost their self-efficacy and confidence and compel them to embrace productive learning strategies and behaviors. This study will …


Using What You Have: Understanding And Utilizing The Intergenerational Make Up Of A Porous, Fluid Classroom To Better Serve Non-Profit Students, Timothy Bowman Apr 2020

Using What You Have: Understanding And Utilizing The Intergenerational Make Up Of A Porous, Fluid Classroom To Better Serve Non-Profit Students, Timothy Bowman

MA TESOL Collection

In South Florida, non-profit education centers struggle to keep seats filled consecutively throughout the class semester. The fluid nature of attendance based on job availability means that teachers struggle to maintain a sense of continuity and forward momentum in their lesson plans. Coupled with expected benchmarks from outside financial partners and unknown student populations, the teachers can start to feel overwhelmed by the outside factors at play in their classroom. At El Sol Community Center in Jupiter, Florida, that is exactly the case- it is a place where the community and the classroom truly merge into one in fluid, unpredictable …


English Corner: A Guide For Teachers, Tom Fay Dec 2019

English Corner: A Guide For Teachers, Tom Fay

MA TESOL Collection

Throughout China, in both private and public schools, from kindergarten to university, there is a ‘class’ called ‘English Corner.’ In some places, ‘English Corner’ is supposed to be an informal, loose environment for people to communicate in English. In other places, ‘English Corner’ is a monthly event with a stage show, singing, dancing, and even a speech competition. ‘English Corner’ can be held in parks, libraries, university campuses, bars, cafes, or even in private homes. For many teachers in China, this ill-defined class can be their most dreaded lesson of the day, a class where at the worst of times, …


Designing An Integrated Education And Training Program For English Language Learners At A Community-Based Literacy Organization, Courtney J. Lord May 2019

Designing An Integrated Education And Training Program For English Language Learners At A Community-Based Literacy Organization, Courtney J. Lord

MA TESOL Collection

Since the passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) in 2014, adult education programs across the country began to plan and implement integrated education and training (IET) programs. IET programs combine adult basic education or ESL instruction with workforce preparation activities and training to not only help participants improve their basic skills or English language proficiency, but also help them advance in their educational or career paths. This model has been particularly challenging for community-based literacy organizations (CBLOs) to adopt, as IETs require additional funding streams, collaborative partnerships, and significant support services. In addition, literature regarding how to …


An Academic Writing Curriculum And Materials For A1-B2-Level Learners In A Turkish University’S English Language Preparatory Program, Matthew Champlin Apr 2019

An Academic Writing Curriculum And Materials For A1-B2-Level Learners In A Turkish University’S English Language Preparatory Program, Matthew Champlin

MA TESOL Collection

This IPP combines a literature review and a materials development project. The literature review outlines and supports the approach taken throughout the curriculum and the materials that were developed. First, it lays out the nature of Turkish universities’ ELPP’s; then, it deals with the basic philosophy of the curriculum including individualization and standardization, the role of joy in education, the necessity for an integration of skills in teaching academic writing, the use of models, and the necessity and purpose of feedback. In the second half of the literature review, the key features of academic writing are discussed in advance of …


Educational Neuroscience For Adult Education Students In The U.S. And Maine, J.Sean Chung Apr 2019

Educational Neuroscience For Adult Education Students In The U.S. And Maine, J.Sean Chung

MA TESOL Collection

Cumulative scientific evidence over the last seventy years has established that the brain has a lifelong ability to change itself which has almost revolutionary implications for educators and mentors. No longer is the brain thought of as fixed, with a gradual loss of potentiality. Rather, experiences have been shown to have the ability to alter and prune the neural connections in the brain, allowing for lifelong learning, and, not as once thought, learning in youth only. This paper will explore such neuroplasticity from an educational perspective, in particular how various pedagogical approaches and experiences can sculpt the adult brain. The …


The Social Factors Of Fossilization, Ashley Brigham Apr 2018

The Social Factors Of Fossilization, Ashley Brigham

MA TESOL Collection

The notion of fossilization has been one of the most controversial, yet enduring topics in second language acquisition (SLA) theory since its first appearance in Selinker’s 1972 seminal article “Interlanguage.” In the past, work regarding fossilization sought to either support or challenge its existence, to determine the putative causes and to predict what linguistic items were prone to becoming fossilized. Initially, the possible causes which enjoyed the most attention were first language interference and the learner’s age and length of residency in the target language community. Now, however, with the current climate of SLA acknowledging that both learning and non-learning …


Drama For Social Justice: Embodying Identity And Emotion In Elt, Riah Werner Mar 2017

Drama For Social Justice: Embodying Identity And Emotion In Elt, Riah Werner

MA TESOL Collection

In this thesis, the author makes the case that drama is a powerful tool for language acquisition because it develops and engages embodiment, emotion and identity, important aspects of learning and communication that are often neglected in traditional language classrooms. The thesis establishes a theoretical foundation for the use of drama in the social justice-oriented language classroom, reviews research on drama for language learning and describes common drama techniques. The author connects the theories of embodied cognition and multiliteracies to an intersectional model of identity and argues that drama helps students re-examine the way society positions them based on their …


Academic Content Instruction And The High School English Language Learner: A Series Of Lessons That Model An Approach To Content Instruction In Science In A Multi- Level English As A Second Language High School Classroom, Juliet M. Parry Jan 2006

Academic Content Instruction And The High School English Language Learner: A Series Of Lessons That Model An Approach To Content Instruction In Science In A Multi- Level English As A Second Language High School Classroom, Juliet M. Parry

MA TESOL Collection

This paper presents a series of lessons on biology that model an approach to content instruction Biology in a multi-level English as a second language high school classroom. It includes background information on the course, lesson plans, explanation of and rationale behind them, historical perspective on the shift from content instruction in the native language to content instruction in the new or target language.