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Articles 1 - 16 of 16
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Experiences Of Dyslexic Students Learning A Second Language: A Review Of The Literature, Lauren Ricci
Experiences Of Dyslexic Students Learning A Second Language: A Review Of The Literature, Lauren Ricci
Senior Honors Theses
A systematic review of the literature was conducted to explore the experiences that college students with dyslexia face learning a second language in the classroom setting while studying at a private institution in Central Virginia. This literature review offers an analysis of the scholarly research related to this topic. The processability theory is discussed in the first section, followed by a review of recent literature on how dyslexia affects the brain’s processing, specific experiences of students, and how to best support these students in second language acquisition (SLA). Lastly, the literature surrounds phonological processing, working memory, specific struggles in the …
Reading Rate Gain In A Second Language: The Effect Of Unassisted Repeated Reading And Intensity On Word-Level Reading Measures, Grant Eckstein, Krista Rich, Ethan Lynn
Reading Rate Gain In A Second Language: The Effect Of Unassisted Repeated Reading And Intensity On Word-Level Reading Measures, Grant Eckstein, Krista Rich, Ethan Lynn
Faculty Publications
Repeated reading is a popular intervention used to help struggling readers by exposing them to the same text multiple times. While the approach has been effective in L1 and some EFL settings, little research has explored its effectiveness compared against a control group or among ESL learners. Our study examined reading rate gains using words per minute and four eye-tracking measures with 46 mid-intermediate ESL learners grouped into three 14-week treatment groups: a control group that read 26 text passages (about two per week) just once through, another that read the same passages twice in each sitting, and a third …
Black Lives Matter In Teaching English As A Second Language!, Kristin Lems
Black Lives Matter In Teaching English As A Second Language!, Kristin Lems
Faculty Publications
The Winter 2020 issue of theIllinois Reading Council Journal published a special issue focusing on “action for equity,” with thoughtful articles and abundant family and classroom resources. This issue of the “wELLcome”column, which is dedicated to topics regarding English language learners (ELLs), continues in that same vein. In this issue, we place the spotlight on ELLs of African descent, their teachers, and their schools.
Khmer Phonetics & Phonology: Theoretical Implications For Esl Instruction, Alex Donley
Khmer Phonetics & Phonology: Theoretical Implications For Esl Instruction, Alex Donley
Senior Honors Theses
This thesis develops an approach to English teaching for Khmer-speaking students that centers on Khmer phonetics and phonology. Cambodia has a strong demand for English instruction, but consistently underperforms next to other nations in terms of proficiency. A significant reason for Cambodia’s skill gap is the lack of research into linguistic hurdles Khmer speakers face when learning English. This paper aims to bridge Khmer and English with an understanding of the speech systems that both languages use before turning to the unique challenges Khmer speakers must overcome based on the tenets of L1 Transfer Theory. It closes by outlining strategies …
All About The American Flap, Kristin Lems
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)
Teaching English To Refugees Through Storytelling, Emily Camplejohn
Teaching English To Refugees Through Storytelling, Emily Camplejohn
Senior Honors Theses
Many refugees are trying to learn English while assimilating to a new culture. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has identified several needs and goals of refugees including competence in the language of the receiving culture and participation in a new, welcoming community. Storytelling, expressing or receiving a narrative through oral or written communication, can be implemented for teaching English to refugees with these goals and can link academic learning with real life experiences. In addition to using storytelling as a meaningful way to interact with language, storytelling also fosters a community within the classroom. The teacher is …
Project On Designing Activities For Teaching Grammar, Sunny Hyon
Project On Designing Activities For Teaching Grammar, Sunny Hyon
Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy
This document outlines a project for a course in second language acquisition taken by undergraduates who intend to be high school or university teachers/professors. The project asks the undergraduates to design a sequence of activities for teaching English language learners (ELLs) a particular English grammatical construction, and to connect those activities to reading or writing assignments in their future classrooms. The students also must explain how their activities will facilitate ELLs' grammatical learning, drawing on research on language acquisition presented in the course.
Evaluation In Moderation: Evaluative Adjectives In Student Academic Presentations, Alla Zareva
Evaluation In Moderation: Evaluative Adjectives In Student Academic Presentations, Alla Zareva
English Faculty Publications
Evaluation is inherent in academic discourse and fundamental to shaping college students’ critical thinking and ability to assess the status of discipline-specific information. The current study focused on the use of evaluative adjectives in native English speaking (L1) and English as a second language (L2) college student academic presentations (N = 40). The goal was to find out how the two groups of presenters compared on their frequency, referential choices, variability of evaluative adjectives, patterns of adjectival structures, and level of sophistication of the adjectives they used and also to identify common trends for both groups along the categories. The …
Is Service-Learning The Answer? Preparing Teacher Candidates To Work With Ells Through Service-Learning Experiences, Sandra Rodriguez-Arroyo
Is Service-Learning The Answer? Preparing Teacher Candidates To Work With Ells Through Service-Learning Experiences, Sandra Rodriguez-Arroyo
Scholarship of Metropolitan Mission
In an effort to address the gaps in preparing teacher candidates (TCs) to work with English Language Learners (ELLs), service-learning experiences (SLE) were integrated into two courses within a teacher education program. This exploratory case study sought to explore the outcomes of teacher candidates (TCs) engaged in SLE with diverse students and families, particularly ELLs. Content analysis of students’ reflections provided insights of the impact of the SLE. Findings indicate that participating in service-learning with ELLs provides opportunities for TCs to engage in positive interactions that help to address misconceptions about students, families, and communities. TCs also began to confront …
English In South Asia And Pedagogical Implications, Brittany R. Ehret
English In South Asia And Pedagogical Implications, Brittany R. Ehret
Senior Honors Theses
English at present maintains a significant role as a second or foreign language in the region of South Asia as well as globally. In a discussion of this topic, it is important to explore a brief history of the expansion of English and its origins in South Asia. It is also essential to provide a background of South Asian English and its unique linguistic characteristics as well as its use in different contexts of South Asia. The perspectives of linguists and educators who are native to the region of South Asia should be included as much as possible in this …
Expanding Audiences For Online Writing Labs: Owls In The English As A Foreign Language Context, Joshua Paiz
Expanding Audiences For Online Writing Labs: Owls In The English As A Foreign Language Context, Joshua Paiz
Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Graduate Student Presentations
This presentation from the 2014 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) discusses online writing labs (OWLs), specifically the Purdue OWL, in the traditionally-defined English as a foreign language (EFL) context. The ELF context often presents unique challenges for the teaching of English writing, including challenges of finding appropriate resources. This may lead EFL writing practitioners to rely on the information presented by OWLs to supplement their teaching. However, many OWLs were originally designed for the so-called native speaker (North American, UK, Australian, New Zealand) audience. This raises the question of whether or not OWLs are meeting the needs of …
Online Writing Labs: Resources For Second Language Writers, Joshua Paiz, Ghada Gherwash
Online Writing Labs: Resources For Second Language Writers, Joshua Paiz, Ghada Gherwash
Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Graduate Student Presentations
This presentation at the 2014 TESOL Developer's Showcase discusses best practices and special considerations for using Online Writing Labs as L2 writing support tools. This discussion is grounded both in recent OWL/Writing Center theory, as well as from the presenter's experiences working on a largescale OWL in a variety of capacities. To add to the discussion on special considerations when using OWLs, this presentation also provides a discussion of a recently completed research project involving the Purdue OWL and how it is used to support EFL writing. It will highlight how, even in resources labeled as "ESL," can be overly …
Owls Across Borders: An Exploratory Study On The Place Of Online Writing Labs In The Efl Context, Joshua Paiz
Owls Across Borders: An Exploratory Study On The Place Of Online Writing Labs In The Efl Context, Joshua Paiz
Purdue Writing Lab/Purdue OWL Graduate Student Presentations
The study reported on in this presentation at the 2013 Symposium on Second Language Writing (SSLW) examined the content creation best practices of four content development teams working on the Purdue OWL. Utilizing focus group methods the study sought to examine what strategies developers utilized to overcome the challenges faced while developing L2 instructional content for a global audience. By examining the various drafts of resources before they finally went live on the Purdue OWL, this study investigated the linguistic and rhetorical choices that developers made in an attempt to create content that would be of maximal user to L2 …
Linguistic Discrimination In Writing Assessment: How Raters React To African American “Errors,” Esl Errors, And Standard English Errors On A State-Mandated Writing Exam, David M. Johnson, Lewis Vanbrackle
Linguistic Discrimination In Writing Assessment: How Raters React To African American “Errors,” Esl Errors, And Standard English Errors On A State-Mandated Writing Exam, David M. Johnson, Lewis Vanbrackle
Faculty and Research Publications
Raters of Georgia''s (USA) state-mandated college-level writing exam, which is intended to ensure a minimal university-level writing competency, are trained to grade holistically when assessing these exams. A guiding principle in holistic grading is to not focus exclusively on any one aspect of writing but rather to give equal weight to style, vocabulary, mechanics, content, and development. This study details how raters react to “errors” typical of African American English writers, of ESL writers, and of standard American English writers. Using a log-linear model to generate odds ratios for comparison of essays with these error types, results indicate linguistic discrimination …
Blogs & Glogs: Revitalizing Class Projects, Krista Bittenbender Royal
Blogs & Glogs: Revitalizing Class Projects, Krista Bittenbender Royal
INTO Faculty and Staff Publications
This workshop looks at two technologies that can be used to energize traditional poster and writing assignments to bring them beyond text: Glogster and Blogger. Both are free, easy to use websites with which students can create web pages with images, text, and audio to share with their classmates and the world. In the workshop, intended for instructors and curriculum coordinators, we will look at each of these platforms, discuss examples of project assignment guides using each of the sites, and talk about other ways they could be integrated into courses. I will also share some student feedback and some …
A Special Case Of Second Language Acquisition: Nthla, Naomi Gurevich
A Special Case Of Second Language Acquisition: Nthla, Naomi Gurevich
Faculty Research and Creative Activity
In investigating the process of language acquisition, researchers differentiate between the acquisition of a learner’s native language (L1) and non-native language. Second Language Acquisition (SLA) has traditionally come to mean any language learned by an individual after the L1. Some researchers have started distinguishing between monolinguals acquiring a second language (2ndLA) and bi- or multi-linguals acquiring another language (NthLA). It is claimed that having undergone the language acquisition process once, multilingual individuals approach this task with a more universal understanding of the rules and forms of language. A review of four studies shows aspects of how NthLA is different from …