Education Commons^™

A Case Study Of Hanban’S Chinese Language Teaching Program At Western Kentucky University: Developmental History And Preliminary Outcomes, Sheng-Huei Yu

Dissertations

This case study provides a historical overview of foreign language development (especially Chinese) in the United States and the growing number of Confucius Institutes (CIs) established in the U.S through Hanban, China’s National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language. This case study specifically captures the growth of the Western Kentucky University (WKU) CI from its inception in 2010. According to Hanban’s annual assessment reporting guidelines, since the conception of CIs sheer quantity of teachers and students has always been the primary focus. Therefore, the growth in the numbers of Hanban Chinese teachers and number of students enrolled in …

The Influence Of Culture On The Use Of Healthcare Services By Refugees In Southcentral Kentucky: A Mixed Study, Chika N. Ejike

Dissertations

The world as a global village has become a ubiquitous trope in the popular discourse, and Bowling Green, Kentucky, with its substantial immigrant population, may be considered an exemplar of this idealized community. It has become an ideal location for research regarding the challenges faced by immigrants. Due to the diverse cultural identities of the refugee/immigrant population, it is particularly well suited for studies into complex culturally dependent healthcare utilization patterns.

The central research question for the study was as follows: What are the healthcare-seeking behavioral patterns (as influenced by culture) among refugees at their nearest healthcare facilities? This mixed …

Using Collaborative Discussions In College Classrooms, Komako Suzuki

Dissertations

The purpose of the current study is to investigate whether an open-format, small group discussion approach, Collaborative Reasoning (CR), positively affects the English language development of college English as Second Language (ESL) students. According to Zhang and Dougherty Stahl (2011), CR is an approach to discussion that makes use of small groups and is designed to encourage students to become more intellectually and personally engaged.

In order to measure the effectiveness of the CR approach in English classes with ESL students, data were collected from the six classrooms at an international English language institute at a university in the southeastern …