Education Commons^™

The Lived Experiences Of Christian Missionaries Who Need To Learn A Foreign Language To Fulfill A Call To Serve In Immersed Settings: A Phenomenological Study, Stephanie Blankenship

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

he purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe the experiences of Christian missionaries living immersed cross-culturally who need to learn a foreign language in order to fulfill a Christian vocational calling. The theories guiding this study were Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory and Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory as pertains to the social aspects and interactions of immersion in second language acquisition. This study was important in offering support and guidance in the ongoing understanding of second language acquisition, in particular to individuals who have answered the Christian call to missions (Dixon et al., 2012; Price, 2013). This study …

Environmental Education In A Dual Immersion Classroom, Annaka Marie Larson

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this project was, how can environmental education curricula be implemented in dual immersion classrooms? It describes how the author used a unit planning framework designed for dual immersion to adapt lessons from the environmental education curriculum Project WILD for her first grade Spanish immersion class. Both curriculum design and action research were incorporated into the project. She details the process of modifying the lessons, what happened when she implemented the lessons in her classroom, and how the lessons improved students’ content knowledge, language abilities, and appreciation for the environment. She concludes that environmental education can …

Rendaku: The Sociolinguistics Of Its Use In Japanese, Matthew Sofus Joseph

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed is, do sociolinguistic variables influence the use of rendaku among native speakers of Japanese? The motivating factor for this capstone was that rendaku use seems to be inconsistent. This capstone records the rendaku use of twelve native Japanese speakers in semistructured interviews to examine if aspects of their sociolinguistic backgrounds correlate with rendaku use. Key influences for this capstone were the writer’s own experience with rendaku as a Japanese learner in Japan and his professor who recognized the potential for rendaku to be studied through the prism of sociolinguistics. The research was done using semi-structured interviews …

The Acquisition Of Bare Nominals By Three Populations Of Spanish-English Bilingual Adults, Lauren Elizabeth Miller

Open Access Dissertations

The present study contributes to our understanding of cross-linguistic influence by studying three different groups of Spanish-English speakers’ knowledge of the distribution of definite articles in both of their languages using a battery of tests that require them to draw on different linguistic abilities. These three groups include native English speakers who learned Spanish after adolescence, native Spanish speakers who learned English after adolescence and simultaneous bilinguals who grew up in the United States speaking both English and Spanish from birth. Specifically, this study explores interpretation, production and intuition regarding the acceptability of definite articles in different contexts. Since the …

The Influence Of Parent Language Use On The Dual Language Development Of Simultaneous Bilinguals, Berit Erin Gelvez

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

This study included bilingual families who have the goal of raising their child to be 5 bilingual. The purpose was to examine how parents use both English and Spanish with 6 their child and whether that resulted in their child being bilingual. This research used a 7 mixed methods approach, which included an interview with parents to learn how they use 8 each language with their child. The second part included a vocabulary assessment with 9 the child in both English and Spanish. Results of the vocabulary assessment and 10 information from parent interviews were analyzed to see if there …

The Effect Of Gamification On Elementary Students’ Spanish Language Achievement And Academic Self-Efficacy, Jason Rachels

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, non-equivalent control group design was used to examine the effect of gamification on third and fourth grade students’ Spanish language achievement and student academic self-efficacy. In this study, the primary means of incorporating gamification into the experimental group’s Spanish language instruction was through the use of Duolingo®, a computer and mobile app that uses gamification and adaptive learning technology to teach foreign languages. Students in the control group received their regularly scheduled English L1/Spanish L2 class learning activities. The study was 12 weeks in duration. Students were assessed with a 50 question, multiple-choice English to Spanish and …

The Effect Of Gamification On Elementary Students’ Spanish Language Achievement And Academic Self-Efficacy, Jason Rachels

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, non-equivalent control group design was used to examine the effect of gamification on third and fourth grade students’ Spanish language achievement and student academic self-efficacy. In this study, the primary means of incorporating gamification into the experimental group’s Spanish language instruction was through the use of Duolingo®, a computer and mobile app that uses gamification and adaptive learning technology to teach foreign languages. Students in the control group received their regularly scheduled English L1/Spanish L2 class learning activities. The study was 12 weeks in duration. Students were assessed with a 50 question, multiple-choice English to Spanish and …

A Study Of Effective Teaching Strategies In A Kindergarten Chinese Immersion Class, Shengjia Ni

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this capstone is, what teaching methods or strategies are effective in terms of teaching the target language, Chinese, as well as teaching other content areas through the target language for kindergarten students in a Chinese immersion program. The motivating factor for this capstone is the scarcity of existing research about specific teaching methods in this type of schools in the United States. The author looks for the effectiveness of Units of Inquiry learning model by documenting students’ response and reaction for multiple activities or projects. She tries to find out whether such learning model generates …

Effects Of A Timed Dictation Activity In The Introductory Course In Japanese Focusing On The Accuracy And Fluency Of Writing Katakana, Aya Okada

Open Access Theses

The importance of mastering one of the Japanese syllabaries, Katakana, is acknowledged by both Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) learners and teachers. Katakana is a phonetic syllabary that is used to transcribe loanwords primarily from European languages and onomatopoeia words. These loanwords are nowadays called Katakana words. The number of Katakana words in Japanese language has been increasing, and it is reported that many JFL learners in Japan often encounter difficulty in understanding these words. Though teachers are also aware of the importance of teaching Katakana, it is treated less importantly. For example, after spending some time and effort …

Use Of Student Created Video Podcasts To Promote Foreign Language Grammar Acquisition In Middle School, Sergio Parra

CCE Theses and Dissertations

The use of video podcasts in education has emerged as a phenomenon that has gained a considerable amount of attention over the last few years. Although video podcasting is becoming a well-established technology in higher education, new multimedia instructional strategies such as student-created video podcasts in grades K-12 are under-researched.

The study investigated the effects of video podcasts created by students to promote foreign language grammar acquisition at the middle school level and find how students described such experience. The current investigation was conducted by using the explanatory sequential design, which is a mixed methods research design that occurs in …