Education Commons^™

Teacher Language Ideologies Concerning The Reclassification Of Emergent Bilingual Students: Navigating The Levels Of Power In Reclassification, Claudia Cabrera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Reclassification is a crucial educational student outcome when a school system determines that a student is English proficient and ready for mainstream instruction without language support services (Umansky et al., 2020). This study examined the relationship between crucial and complex language ideologies of dual language teachers and the reclassification of emergent bilingual students1.. Language ideologies were the theoretical framework for the study through which the voices of dual language teachers were captured. The analysis of data sources, including teacher interviews, classroom observations and evidence of biliteracy development, helped to understand and reveal how dual language teachers navigate the dynamics of …

Psychometric Characteristics Of Academic Language Discourse Analysis Tools, Courtney (Cici) Brianna Claar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Academic language plays a key role in students’ educational success, yet its development in primary grades is poorly understood and often neglected (Snow & Uccelli, 2008). Academic language skills may enhance overall academic performance if targeted early and intensively. However, current methods of assessment are not sufficient to understanding the construct well enough to develop evidence-based intervention strategies. This investigation examined the psychometric properties of two discourse analysis tools designed to directly measure students’ comprehension and production of academic language. Academic language samples (n = 7,887) from a previous cohort-design study (n = 1,040; Kindergarten through third grade participants) were …

Sheltered Math Curriculum For Middle School English Learners, Jasmine Ercink

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

Language barriers have shown a need for differentiation and sheltered instruction in the classroom for English Learners (ELs) to be successful in the United States public school system. This project proposes a mathematics curriculum using SIOP so that both groups of students in the middle school level can increase their proficiency in the mathematics content area as well as experience opportunities for academic and social language development. The purpose of this report is to describe the processes, methods, data, and intent of the mathematics curriculum for these learners. The curriculum acts as an effective intervention to fill gaps in both …

No “Pobrecito Student”: Translanguaging High-School Science For Academic Language Development, Agustina Borre

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research questions addressed in this study were: what are the impacts of translanguaging on academic language development? And what are the challenges and successes in implementing translanguaging in highly culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms? Thus, the topics explored in the literature review range from research on academic language development and the teaching and learning of science in high school and the struggles and challenges English Language Learners (ELLs) face when learning then different content areas. The literature review also reveals some of the findings emerging from the implementation of translanguaging in bi/multilingual classrooms. This study involved a cohort of …

Supporting English Language Learners: Preparing Content Area Teachers To Promote Academic Achievement Among Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Learner Populations., Molly K. Roesler

Culminating Experience Projects

Teachers throughout the United States continue to be ill-prepared to support the evergrowing English Language Learner (ELL) population. ELLs often experience less academic achievement than their non-ELL peers. One factor in this academic gap is the amount of preparation content area teachers receive. Content area teachers are not sufficiently prepared to teach ELLs because of the lack of training they receive in Second Language Acquisition theories and strategies. This project examines what the research has identified as negative factors that result in lack of teacher preparation, and how to address these factors. Additionally, the project examines what the research highlights …

Cape Verdean Students’ Perceptions Of Their English Language Preparation For Higher Education In The Us, Fàbio Wilson Teixeira Varela

Master’s Theses and Projects

Students from distinct parts of the world are learning English as a foreign language with multiple goals including job opportunities, education and so on. More importantly, many of them study English with the goal of pursuing their higher education in a foreign country, and the US is one of the main destinations. Studies have revealed that one of the problems international students face in their academic life has to do with language, specifically academic language. In this study, the researcher examined the retrospective perceptions of Cape Verdean students pursuing their studies at US universities towards their language instruction in Cape …

Engaging English Learners In Purposeful Discourse In Elementary Mathematics, Karlyn E. Davis-Welton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Teachers are experiencing a change in practice, from teacher-centered to student-centered, which affects their work with English learners (ELs) in third through fifth grade mathematics classrooms. The implementation of student-centered discourse practices is essential to orchestrating productive mathematical discussions. However, the common practice is teacher-centered instruction where teacher talk is prevalent. Although the school district in this study provided professional development (PD) to address student-centered practices, PD for teaching ELs to interact in English in their mathematics classrooms remained to be addressed. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of teachers’ experiences with new discourse practices and …

Exploring Elementary Education Teachers’ Instruction Of Academic Language For English Language Learners, Irina Malykhina

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

General education teachers who teach language arts, math, science, and social studies are challenged with incorporating academic language instruction into content instruction for English language learners (ELLs). Little is known about how general education teachers use instructional strategies for teaching academic language to ELLs. A deeper understanding of teacher experiences with implementing academic language instruction to ELLs can help guide future efforts to collaborate on implementation for effective literacy programs that address ELLs’ academic language needs. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how elementary general education teachers plan, implement, and assess academic vocabulary instruction to ELLs. …

Engaging Middle School Emergent Bilinguals In Language Awareness: A Practitioner Researcher Study, Carol Lickenbrock

Dissertations

This practitioner research study (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) traced the journey toward critical literacy of a group of seven emergent bilinguals and me, their teacher, over the course of a four-month unit on argument as part of our English for Speakers of Other Languages 3 (ESOL3) class. Many of these students, like many emergent bilinguals in the United States, had been disempowered because they had not had access to the academic texts of school. As part of this research, students worked with tools of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to analyze the interpersonal, ideational and textual metafunctions of argumentation in lessons …

Understanding The Whole Student Approach And Its Influence On The Graduation Rates Of Hispanic/Latino Ell Students Within Catholic High Schools, Pamela Marie Patnode

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Spanish speaking English Language Learners (ELLs) represent a large and rapidly growing student population. Although many Hispanic/Latino ELL students are at risk for academic failure, Hispanic/Latino students who attend Catholic schools are more likely than their public school peers to graduate from both high school and college. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential role that student validation plays within the academic, cultural, and spiritual practices that lead to Hispanic/Latino ELL student academic achievement in Catholic high schools. The researcher performed on-site observations, document analysis, as well as interviews and focus groups at a culturally diverse, high …

Making Space For Writing: Makerspace Activities And Academic Language In A Middle School Science Classroom, Ashley Stewart

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Over recent decades, the maker movement has expanded from the private sector, libraries, and higher education institutions to K-12 schools. While many studies provide implications of STEM and maker activities and their effects on learning in informal settings, few have framed such investigations within the context of a makerspace in K-12 schools. Furthermore, few have investigated maker activities and writing, particularly in developing academic language features. Prior research suggests that secondary students struggle to apply academic language features. Meanwhile, they are motivated to engage in STEM and maker activities. This mixed methods case study attempted to make a connection between …

Retrofitting Educators Through Sheltered Instruction Training: A Longitudinal Case Study Examining The Efficacy Of A Five-Year District-Wide Intervention Effort, Marisa Ferraro

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the impact of a district-wide professional development initiative to foster equitable pedagogies and practices for emergent bilingual students. The initiative spanned five years, 2012-2017, across one of the largest school districts in the Northeast. This quasi-experimental, mixed methods case study was conducted across twelve schools to investigate the efficacy of a sheltered instruction professional development program in three areas: 1) teacher learning and knowledge about sheltered instructional practices (n=1457) and application of the newly learned practices (n=70), 2) student learner outcomes, as measured by a standardized assessment, through three cohorts of third through eighth graders (n=457) and …

A Semiotic Analysis Of Linguistic And Conceptual Development In Mathematics For English Language Learners, Hyunsook Shin

Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores how an elementary mathematics teacher supported English language leaners’ (ELLs’) academic language and concept development in the context of current high- stakes school reform. The conceptual frameworks informing this study include Halliday’s theory of systemic functional linguistics (e.g., Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) and Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of concept development (Vygotsky, 1986). Specifically, this study analyzes the interplay between academic and everyday language and how this interplay can facilitate the development of what Vygotsky referred to as “real” or complete concepts as students shift from “spontaneous” to more “scientific” understanding of phenomenon (Vygotsky, 1986, p.173). This year-long qualitative …

Content Area Teaching In Linguistically Diverse Classrooms, Meghan Odsliv Bratkovich

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Educators and teacher educators in the United States have worked for decades to provide English language learners (ELLs) and other linguistically diverse students access to education. While ELLs’ rising high school graduation rates suggest that efforts have helped ELLs access schools, classrooms, and scholastic tasks, more steps need to be taken toward ensuring that linguistically diverse students can also meaningfully access college or 21st century careers.

This qualitative study is at the nexus of language, culture, academic content, literacy, teaching, and teacher education and uses a bricolage approach to examine the teaching of four secondary science and mathematics teachers recognized …

Talking About How: Variation In The Use Of How And Its Definition, Maili Jonas

All Master's Theses

This study identified the patterns that represent the unconventional ways that students used how in academic essays, determined the frequency of each pattern, and for the sake of comparison, searched for those patterns in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), in both the spoken and academic written registers. The results showed that a sample of first-year students at Central Washington University (CWU) used the complementizer how as that in their essays, a usage more common in spoken registers. However, there was some evidence of how as that in academic COCA searches, showing that the usage may be in the …

Using Systemic Functional Linguistics To Inform A Language Pedagogy In A Middle School English Classroom A Case Study, Holly I. Graham

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative case study analyzes how a middle school teacher used the tools of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and genre based pedagogy (GBP) to support linguistically and culturally diverse students in analyzing informational texts critically in the context of curricular and school reforms in the United States. Using a combination of ethnographic case study methods (Dyson, 1993; Davies, 1999; Merriam, 2005; Dyson & Genishi, 2005) and critical discourse analysis (Eggins, 1999; Fairclough, 1995) the teacher collected an extensive corpus of diverse data over a school year. Focused data collection consistent with case study methods included instructional materials, paper and electronic …

Teaching To Learn: Tapping The Rich Language Resources Of Three African American Preschool Boys, Virginia Akright Miller

Theses and Dissertations

The initial purpose of the study was to better understand the effect of book genre (fiction or informational) and text choice on the spontaneous language production of African American, preschool boys from low SES households. Its methodological approach was action research that consisted of teacher/child book sharing with three participants during one-on-one, 30 minute sessions over a period of 14 weeks. Discussion during these sessions centered on the participants' book choice and were audio recorded. The transcripts of these recordings became case studies that were analyzed for behavioral patterns of both participants and teacher. Discovery of such patterns revealed changes …

Exploring Elaborated Noun Phrase Use Of Middle School English Language Learners Following Writing Strategy Instruction, Stephanie R. Cooper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

English Language Learners (ELLs) are a growing population within the U.S. school system. In the secondary grades, this diverse group requires instruction to improve not only English language proficiency but also utilization of the academic language register, especially in writing tasks. The present study focused on ELLs in middle school. The aim was to explore the effects of enhanced Self–Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) writing instruction on the use of complex language, particularly elaborated noun phrases (ENPs) when SRSD was combined with linguistic instruction on increased sentence complexity.

As a part of a larger study exploring critical literacy and the persuasive …