Examining Three Approaches To Supporting English Learners By Leveraging Technology, Jillian Conry

Teaching and Learning Theses and Dissertations

This three-article dissertation examines three distinct approaches to supporting English learners (ELs) by leveraging technology. Framed by the third generation of cultural-historical activity theory (Engeström, 1987; 2001), this research illuminates ways different stakeholder groups within varying activity systems support ELs, by examining technology as 1) an instructional tool in the classroom, 2) a mechanism for family engagement, and 3) a means for preparing teachers to serve ELs. Types of technologies implemented in these studies include various online multimodal tools (e.g., VoiceThread, Zaption), learning management systems (e.g., EdModo, Canvas), social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter), and mixed-reality simulation (MRS; e.g., Mursion). …

Language Study For Teachers Of Reading Edc 427, Joanna Burkhardt

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

Teacher Trainees’ Reasoning About Teaching Mathematics To English Learners In An Era Of Core Content State Standards, Sultan Turkan, Megan Schramm-Possinger

Journal of English Learner Education

Research has indicated over the years that English learners (ELs) are not supported to achieve their goals in learning academic content and acquiring English. Despite a growing body of research on the essential teacher knowledge-base for teaching ELs and effective linguistically-responsive teacher education, there is still a dearth of research on candidate content teachers’ reasoning and instructional decision-making especially regarding teaching mathematics to ELs. This paper explored how a group of ten future mathematics teachers reasoned about a handful of scenarios illustrative of teaching mathematics to ELs. Qualitative analyses of the candidates’ discourse revealed that pre-service mathematics teachers’ perceptions of …

Ell Families: Myths, Truths And Strategies For Engagement, Stephanie Knight, Marjaneh Gilpatrick

Journal of English Learner Education

This article is the first in our new category, Teaching Tips. These are practitioner articles designed to enhance existing in-service teacher's classroom strategies with ELs.

Parental involvement may be the strongest predictor of a child receiving a solid education. This means it is vital that teachers and administrators understand the students’ families’ culture and the way they view education. We also must be proactive with them so that we can empower them with literacy strategies to ensure academic success. Also, many English Language Learner (ELL) families are not familiar with the school system in the United States and may …

The Case For Grammar: What Preservice Teachers Need To Know About Metalinguistic Awareness, Aimee Schoonmaker, Kerry L. Purmensky

Journal of English Learner Education

The present study focused on preservice teachers’ grammar knowledge and its importance for their future students’ understanding and use of language, particularly English Learners. This quasi-experimental one-group pretest-posttest study investigated the grammar knowledge of preservice teachers who were enrolled in an undergraduate applied linguistics course at an urban university in the southern United States. The results confirmed prior research which found that preservice teachers are not knowledgeable enough about English grammar when explaining sentence level errors. This study demonstrated that preservice teachers’ basic understanding of English grammar can be increased in a short time, particularly in the recognition of simple …

Three Ways To Help Esl Content Linger Beyond The “El Course” In Teacher Preparation Programs, Melanie Gonzalez

Journal of English Learner Education

Like many other states, our teacher preparation program arrived at this compartmentalized, “single-experience” ESL-focused course model as a result of local, state, and federal policies in the United States that have increasingly placed ELs into mainstream classrooms rather than into language and literacy development courses (de Jong, 2014). TESOL faculty might have questioned: how can everything related to effective ESL teaching be covered in one semester? The fact of the matter is that the onus on this work largely rests upon teacher candidates’ shoulders after they depart the ESL-focused course. What follows are three practices that largely have arisen …

Welcoming Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing English Language Learners: A Guidebook For English Educators, Sarah Chang

Master's Projects and Capstones

Research in the Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) English Language (EL) Education has shown that there is a significant lack of published research and resources within the past ten years.

The purpose of this project is to fill the gap between what is available and what is needed to give EL educators in public universities in the United States a resource and a guide to help them when working with DHH English Language Learners (ELL). Useful information, suggestions, and practices are provided within this guidebook and separated into three different chapters. The goal is to help DHH ELLs feel …

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, …

Critical Intersections Through Poetry In A Tesol & World Language Graduate Education Program, Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor, Sharon M. Nuruddin, Kuo Zhang, Yixuan Wang, Amanda Brady Deaton, Xinyi Meng, Ashley Brown-Lemley, Ming Sun

Intersections: Critical Issues in Education

In this studio submission, Language Education students who took one or more poetry writing courses along with their instructor share one poem draft and critical reflection, noting the political climate of the work co-produced and inquiry regarding the impact of producing creative work as reflexive, critical teacher education scholarship. Together they draw a context and implications for creative and critical teacher education through shared poetry writing.

“If We Don’T Include Literature, Where Do We Teach Our Students From?” An Effort To Introduce Children’S Literature To Indonesian Preservice Teachers, Tati L Durriyah

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Indonesia’s new literacy initiative called Gerakan Literasi Sekolah (GLS) focuses on developing literacy-rich school environments through a sequence of book engagements. As the locus of control in daily literacy activities (Lehman, 2007), teachers in Indonesia assume much of the responsibility for student literacy learning. Despite this, Indonesian teachers receive minimal preparation in facilitating literacy instruction using literature; for example, courses that introduce student teachers to children’s literature are not commonly offered in Indonesian teacher education. This study aims to fill in the dearth of data regarding the efforts to introduce Indonesian preservice teachers to literature for children and the pedagogy …

The Intersection Of Influential Reading With Writing In Multimodal Contexts, Grace Rusk Kerr

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Numerous studies have touted the importance of teacher self-efficacy on the motivation and achievement of their students (Ashton & Webb, 1986; Bandura, 1994 & 2002; Mojavezi & Tamiz, 2012). When teachers have high levels of self-efficacy (the level at which teachers believe they can affect student outcomes), their students achieve at higher levels and develop increased levels of motivation. By extension, we posit that if teachers have increased self-efficacy regarding their own writing abilities, it will translate into increased motivation and achievement levels for their students in the area of writing. The purpose of this three-article dissertation is to support …

No Habla Espanol: Are Monolingual Teachers Getting The Support They Need?, Rosa I. Castillo-Rocha

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

For this Capstone Project, the researchers investigated how monolingual teachers view the support and resources they received to teach English Language Learners (ELL) and what they thought could be done to improve their teaching effectiveness. An evidence-based argument is offered that monolingual teachers were not being provided with effective support and resources. More specifically, three themes emerged from an analysis of the data obtained from interviews of monolingual teachers and administrators. Based on the emergent themes, an action was undertaken to help monolingual teachers better address the needs of ELLs. This is an important issue for monolingual teachers because the …

Escapando Las Trampas: Teacher Preparation For Mexicanas, Monica Medrano

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Developing Maestras face and overcome linguistic, academic and cultural forms of gatekeeping while trying to navigate through our current education system. For this Capstone Project, the impact that gatekeeping has on developing Maestras and how it affects their academic and professional aspirations was investigated. This is an important issue for developing Maestras, the University of Gringolandia as well as for the education system of Nepantla county. The success of developing Maestras Mexicanas closes the racial gap and directly impacts the student success rate within Nepantla county. The literature and data results analysis indicate that the gatekeeping practices that keep Mexicanas …

Escapando Las Trampas: Teacher Preparation For Mexicanas, Larissa Perez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Developing Maestras face and overcome linguistic, academic and cultural forms of gatekeeping while trying to navigate through our current education system. For this Capstone Project, the impact that gatekeeping has on developing Maestras and how it affects their academic and professional aspirations was investigated. This is an important issue for developing Maestras, the University of Gringolandia as well as for the education system of Nepantla county. The success of developing Maestras Mexicanas closes the racial gap and directly impacts the student success rate within Nepantla county. The literature and data results analysis indicate that the gatekeeping practices that keep Mexicanas …

Outdoor Activities To Improve Writing, Alyssa Kyllonen

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

Multilingual/Translanguaging: Narrative Writing Through Authentic Language, Lucia E. Brea

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Yellow Pads And The Return Of The Writer, Gregory Shafer

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

Using Inquiry In Teacher Professional Learning To Build Efficacy For Writing Instruction, Jacqueline B. Koonce, Melissa Brooks-Yip, Kathleen Gibson

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Whitacre (2019) and Curtis (2017) found that participants’ efficacy impacted their writing instruction and ability to engage students. We share our experiences with a professional development program aimed to improve teacher efficacy and literacy of elementary teachers. In this professional learning network, the Study of Early Literacy (SOEL), a higher percentage of teachers reported to a Hanover Research survey that they felt less confident in teaching writing than other areas of literacy. To address this need, one of the authors developed a subgroup to specifically address the teaching of writing with an inquiry-based action research component. Most of the teachers …

An Examined Life Of A Language Teacher Of Chinese: An Autoethnographic Investigation Into Agency, Ying Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

There is a paucity of research about and done by L2 Chinese educators regarding the theoretical construct of agency. It is also noted that the qualitative inquiry is marginalized in L2 Chinese research field, let alone the narrative study of the agency of experienced by L2 Chinese-teachers. In this dissertation research, I aim at filling in the gap by conducting a longitudinal autoethnography which captures over a decade (1997-2017) of my personal and professional development with an agency perspective. The highly personalized autoethnographic accounts open up my personal and professional life as an experienced, college-level, transnational, early 40’s female native …

Teacher Professional Learning In Multiliteracies Pedagogy: Exploring The Lived Curriculum Of Preservice And In-Service Educators, Joelle Nagle

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this exploratory case study is to examine the lived curriculum (Aoki, 1993) of preservice teachers enrolled in a Bachelor of Education language arts course and in-service teachers enrolled in an online graduate program, both with a focus on multiliteracies pedagogy. Through this study, the rationale is to understand how these formal professional learning experiences shape teachers’ perceptions of their literacy pedagogy. Specifically, the aim is to gain insight into how to promote multiliteracies pedagogy in preservice and in-service professional learning. This dissertation research builds upon two qualitative exploratory case studies (Stake, 2010; Yin, 2012) rooted in a …

Jmer Vol. 9: The Power Of Voice: Contributions Of Ofelia García To Language Education

Journal of Multilingual Education Research

This special issue of The Journal of Multilingual Education Research is a tribute to Ofelia García as a scholar and as a mentor. Dr. García has made 'translanguaging' famous throughout the world. The fifteen articles in this issue reflect her impact on translanguaging.

Curriculum-Making And Development In A Pakistani University, Said Imran, Mark Wyatt

The Qualitative Report

Despite frequent calls for increased teacher engagement in curriculum-making and development, there are still many English language teachers worldwide who are required to work with materials that are either culturally inappropriate or inadequate. A related concern is that such materials may deprive teachers of their creative and professional capabilities to address students’ needs and interests, so that, weighed down by contextual challenges, the teachers then simply deliver the materials, adhering to the textbook closely. Contextual challenges faced by teachers may be more acute in the developing world. However, it is unclear to what extent teachers in under-resourced contexts cope. In …

All About The American Flap, Kristin Lems

Faculty Publications

In this column, I am going to talk about the American flap, a phonological feature of the American English dialect. Those of us with backgrounds in ESL/EFL learn about this in our master’s programs, but I have found that even teachers who have taken a course in linguistics may not be aware of the flap and its important implications for listening, reading, and spelling in English (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2017)

Editorial Review Board Rh V.58 N.2

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

No abstract provided.

Developing Open Practices In Teacher Education: An Example Of Integrating Oer And Developing Renewable Assignments, Jennifer Van Allen, Stacy Katz

Publications and Research

This manuscript offers a reasoning for and example of integrating Open Educational Resources (OER) and open pedagogy within a teacher education course. We highlight a collaborative partnership between library faculty and education faculty and the decision points and processes we used when redesigning this course to provide an example of adopting OER and our considerations for developing a renewable assignment. The benefits of using OER for K-12 teachers include increasing awareness of and providing opportunities to develop open practices. The transition to a renewable assignment creates a space for teaching candidates to meaningfully contribute to the profession and engage in …

Serving The Less-Commonly-Trained Teacher: Perspectives From Arabic Instructors, Dustin De Felice, Amanda Lanier, Paula Winke

The Qualitative Report

As proficient speakers of less-commonly-taught languages seek to meet the demand for qualified instructors, they face a range of personal and professional challenges. In an effort to understand the perspectives of these instructors and their particular educational experiences and needs, we conducted a phenomenological case study of two aspiring Arabic teachers. Specifically, we sought insights into their lived experiences, their motivations for pursuing a graduate degree, their attempts to connect coursework with pedagogical practices, and their needs in terms of professional development. Our findings illuminate the intersecting objectives these instructors must achieve. They need to position themselves as qualified candidates …

We The People: Elementary Pre-Service Teachers And Constitutional Readability, Lori T. Meier, Karin Keith, Edward J. Dwyer

Lori Meier

In light of increasing mandates to incorporate close reading of primary source historical documents at the elementary level, this study explored the reading difficulty level of the US Constitution with preservice elementary teachers using a traditional cloze assessment procedure. While best practice pedagogy of social studies has long included thoughtful reading of primary sources, new language arts guidelines situate the analysis of primary documents within formulaic quantifiable frameworks, often problematic to the pre-service teacher. With implications for reading and social studies, this paper explores several relevant issues to both pre-service teachers and the elementary classrooms they will teach in.

White Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions And Their Development Of Culturally Relevant Literacy Practices, Lakia M. Scott, Elena Venegas

Journal of Multicultural Affairs

Existent literature purports that providing White teacher candidates with increased exposure to urban schools in order to create culturally competent educators has failed. These findings reflect the notion that teacher ideologies and overall perspectives about working with diverse student groups must be harnessed in a genuine ethic of care and intentionality for students of color. However, few studies have taken the approach of examining the development of culturally relevant pedagogy through context-specific field experiences using content-specific courses. This study examines the perspectives of twenty-five White pre-service teachers from a predominately White, private university regarding their initial perceptions and gained conceptual …

Increasing Collective Teacher Efficacy Through Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit And Coaching: A Community-Based Approach, Brenda Mercer

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

Abstract

Instructional coaching in one remote northern community focuses on teacher mentorship and professional learning and prioritizes the implementation of prepackaged literacy resources. This focus on the implementation of prepackaged programs and data collection, promotes neo-liberal priorities and the privatization of education, over the methods that support the inclusion of Inuit cultural knowledge. Kostogriz (2011) states that we should be cautious about accepting the neo-liberal discourse of the literacy crisis and standardized reforms, the author suggests that low levels of literacy are not a large-scale problem so much as a result of under-provision of a socially just education.

This Problem …

The Rise Of Infographics: Why Teachers And Teacher Educators Should Take Heed, Katie Alford

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

How can teacher educators utilize infographics to prepare preservice ELA teachers for the complex task of creating both critical consumers and conscious creators of this 21st-century genre? As what counts as “text” expands because of our digital world, teachers are struggling to keep up with the demands of knowing and being able to support students in both their reading and writing of many new genres. Infographics have proliferated on the internet and have now hit print media, so they are a growing reality in our world today. This article lays out what we know about infographics in education today and …