First and Second Language Acquisition Commons^™

Effects Of Multimedia Instruction On L2 Acquisition Of High-Level, Low-Frequency English Vocabulary Words, Euna Cho

All Graduate Works by Year: Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study examined the effects of multimedia enhancement in video form in addition to textual information on L2 vocabulary instruction for high-level, low-frequency English words among Korean learners of English. Although input-based incidental learning of L2 vocabulary through extensive reading has been conventionally believed to be appropriate for high-frequency words, intentional or explicit vocabulary learning is suggested to be more sensible or realistic for the acquisition of low-frequency academic words. Multimedia support in foreign language instruction has revealed benefits in promoting direct teaching and explicit learning of L2 vocabulary; moreover, adding textual information to video seems to boost students ...

Escribiendo Para Desahogarme: Release And Resistance In A Middle School Bilingual Writing Workshop, Carla Espana

All Graduate Works by Year: Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines a teacher’s language ideologies, their impact on curriculum modifications and bilingual Latinx middle schoolers’ storytelling, to understand how a bilingual pedagogy builds on their cultural and linguistic resources. This qualitative study was conducted in a sixth grade writing workshop class in New York City as the focus teacher taught the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project Personal Narrative Unit of Study. The first two findings center on the factors that influence a teacher’s stance on language practices and bilingual pedagogy, and how these contributed to curriculum modifications that included using students’ full linguistic and cultural ...

First And Second Generation New York City Bilinguals: What Is The Role Of Input In Their Collocational Knowledge Of English And Spanish?, Ingrid T. Heidrick

All Graduate Works by Year: Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study compares monolinguals and different kinds of bilinguals with respect to their knowledge of the type of lexical phenomenon known as collocation. Collocations are word combinations that speakers use recurrently, forming the basis of conventionalized lexical patterns that are shared by a linguistic community. Examples of collocations typically used by speakers of English in the United States are make a decision, take a step, and have a coffee. Examples of collocations typically used by speakers of Spanish in Latin America and Spain are tomar una decisión ('make a decision', lit.: take a decision), dar un paso (‘take a step ...

Making Connections Across Language Barriers, Aaron Salgado

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports

This compilation of academic papers is a portfolio designed to invite the reader to explore the author’s beliefs and ideas concerning effective second language learning and teaching. Divided into three main parts, this portfolio addresses: 1. expressing the author’s teaching philosophy while putting his position into the context from which it formed, 2. exploring the research perspectives that drive the author to continue participating in this academic field, 3. and chronicling the process of studying the academic material that inspired the previous two sections. Major topics include a macro view of the U.S. government’s and its ...

Effectively Teaching A Second Language: Principles And Practices, Alexander Gatica

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports

This portfolio is the amalgamation of the author’s research and experience during his time in the Master of Second Language Teaching program. The first section contains the Teaching Philosophy, which centers on applying effective teaching methods, increasing learner motivation, and incorporating technology into the classroom. The next section consists of three artifacts in which the author further investigates specific aspects of language teaching. The language paper focuses on the effect that identity has on motivation to learn a language. The literacy paper discusses how to increase vocabulary acquisition via a mobile-assisted language learning application called Duolingo. The culture paper ...

Language And Entertainment: Can Language Be Learned Through Movies?, Elizabeth Carraher

Linguistics Senior Research Projects

This paper looks at second language acquisition and factors that affect second language acquisition. This project also utilizes a small experiment conducted to help determine how difficult or how easy it is for one to learn even a small number of words in another language. In this experiment a small number of college students watch a movie in another language and after finishing said movie take a short quiz to determine if the students were able to learn the meaning of some frequently used words. These students have had little to no interaction with the language in question. Even so ...

Immersion Schools And Language Learning: A Review Of Cherokee Lanugage Revitalization Efforts Among The Eastern Band Of Cherokee Indians, Elizabeth Albee

University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects

No abstract provided.

Error Analysis: A Case Study On Non-Native English Speaking College Applicants’ Electronic Mail Communications, Casey Kraichoke

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to discover major writing problems international college applicants make when composing electronic communications by analyzing the nature and distribution of their writing errors. Additionally, the researcher seeks to discover if there is a relationship between non-native English speakers’ (NNS) writing errors and demographics, which include: gender, country of origin, country of origin’s official language, program level, and program of study. The researcher hypothesizes that countries with English as an official language and the language of instruction in higher education are the most significant predictor of non-native English speakers’ writing errors in terms of ...

Erschaffung Interkultureller IdentitäT Durch Sprachkontakte In Den Texten Von Yoko Tawada, Shihao Du

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Mass migrations around our contemporary world enabled by the rapid technological development has rendered intercultural communication more profound than ever before. Unavoidably the traditional view of personal identity as a stable and determinate category becomes challenged by an emerging intercultural identity. This thesis attempts to investigate the creation of this very type of identity from the perspective of language contacts reflected in the literary works from Yoko Tawada. Tawada herself is a unique figure that stands on the very front line of cultural contacts in today’s world, engaging herself intensively in transferring her own intercultural experiences, emotions, and insights ...

The L1 Context Embedding Method In Foreign Language Vocabulary Instruction: A Comparative Study With The Keyword Method, Jordan V. Nanda

Linguistics Senior Research Projects

The L1 Context Embedding Method that has been proposed and tested by Zi-Gang (2015), consists of inserting target L2 vocabulary, with translations in brackets, into an L1 story text. It has been demonstrated by Zi-Gang (2015) to be more effective than rote memorization. This current study tested the L1 Context Embedding Method against the Keyword Method (Atkinson, 1975) to see if the two methods are comparable. Sixteen university students from an Elementary Spanish class were taught 10 novel Spanish words using each method in a counterbalanced presentation order. They were administered an immediate posttest for each set of 10 words ...

The Suzuki Method: Influences Of Shinichi Suzuki On Japanese Music Education, Moriah L. Richards

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis will study the history of Japanese music education philosophies and pedagogy techniques. Specific focus has been given to the music education methods and philosophies of renowned Japanese music educator, Shinichi Suzuki. Suzuki’s views on the learning processes of children have greatly impacted the field of music education. Suzuki held the belief that the language acquisition process and the learning processes of children were intricately connected. He spent years applying his research to the field of music education. His resulting pedagogy techniques are now known as the Suzuki Method. The Suzuki Method, which has been adapted in various ...

Drama For Social Justice: Embodying Identity And Emotion In Elt, Riah Werner

MA TESOL Collection

In this thesis, the author makes the case that drama is a powerful tool for language acquisition because it develops and engages embodiment, emotion and identity, important aspect of learning and communication that are often neglected in traditional language classrooms. The thesis establishes a theoretical foundation for the use of drama in the social justice-oriented language classroom, reviews research on drama for language learning and describes common drama techniques. The author connects the theories of embodied cognition and multiliteracies to an intersectional model of identity and argues that drama helps students re-examine the way society positions them based on their ...

An Analytical System For Determining Disciplinary Vocabulary For Data-Driven Learning: An Example From Civil Engineering, Philippa Jean Otto

Dissertations and Theses

Data-driven learning (DDL), an inductive teaching approach in which students learn through corpus interaction, has gained recent traction as way to teach specialized vocabulary in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) classes. There is little research, however, that addresses how to choose specialized vocabulary for teaching with DDL.

This study addressed this gap in research by exploring the potential of a three-part analytical, corpus-based system for determining vocabulary to teach with DDL for a specific context of language use. This system included (1) identifying words that were significantly more frequent in a specialized expert corpus than in a corpus of general ...

Lexical Bundles In Applied Linguistics And Literature Writing: A Comparison Of Intermediate English Learners And Professionals, Kathryn Marie Johnston

Dissertations and Theses

Lexical bundles (fixed sequences of three to four words) have been described as building blocks of discourse, both written and spoken (Biber & Barbieri, 2007), and as a useful mechanical device for creating writing that is suited for its academic field (Hyland, 2008). Having noticed that the academic theses of my students at Longdong University in Qingyang, China seemed very different from professional writing in their fields, I created a thesis project that addressed the question of how professionals in their fields were using bundles and how the learners' use of these bundles in terms of frequency, structure, and function varied ...

Culturally And Linguistically Humble: A Preparation For Living Abroad, Diana Gonzalez

Northwestern Review

Presented in 2016 at Baekseok University in Cheonan City, South Korea at the 8^th international conference of the International Association for the Promotion of Christian Higher Education (IAPCHE), this paper lays out the rationale for the approach taken in Northwestern College’s required preparations for students studying abroad. Elements in the preparation include getting students to identify influences on them of their home culture; to talk about their motivations and goals for studying abroad; to engage with Duane Elmer’s Cross-Cultural Connections and David Smith’s Learning from the Stranger; and perhaps most importantly, to engage with E. Hockett ...

Teacher And Student Perceptions Of World Englishes (We) Pronunciations In Two Us Settings, Marie Arrieta

Dissertations and Theses

The present study investigated the perceptions and attitudes of two groups each of ESL teachers and students in the United States regarding World Englishes (WE) pronunciations before and after watching a video on WE accents. Data gathered via online surveys were analyzed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The results show that the perceptions of the teachers in the study ranged from somewhat negative to mildly positive, both pre- and post-video, which is consistent with Brown's (1993) findings that teachers' perceptions changed little if at all after being briefly exposed to WE stimuli. The education of the ...

Parent Report And Audio Recording Patterns In Bilingual Children Who Speak A Minority Language At Home, Angela Kathryn Brickman

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Bilingualism is when an individual is able to utilize at least two languages. If a person speaks two languages, it is beneficial for them both socially and for their brain development. This study focuses on the language input of sequential bilingual children in a bilingual Head Start program that promotes early childhood development and school readiness for low income families. There were six participants and their families in this study. To examine these children's use of language, parental questionnaires and auditory recordings from the children's day were utilized. Each family that participated in this study completed a questionnaire ...

Verb Bias And Plausibility In English Sentence Processing, Kendra Buck

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study tests language processing models previously explored by linguistics in terms of the parsing of temporarily ambiguous English sentences. The two primary models examined in this study are the garden-path model and the constraint-based model. Each of these models provides a possible explanation for sentence processing difficulty. John Trueswell (1996) previously found properties and lexical cues attached to certain verbs in their past participle forms and lexical information in nouns which aid or inhibit readers in accurately predicting the outcome of a temporarily ambiguous sentence. His results support the constraint-based model while providing some evidence for the garden-path model ...

Investigating The Language Learning Potential Of Data-Driven Teaching Materials On Source Use For College Students In A Writing Course, Huong Thi Tram Le

CIRTL Reports

This report documents the results of the investigation into the language learning potential of data-driven teaching materials on source use for undergraduates in a college-level writing course at a large land-grant Midwestern university. The investigation is a part of a large project which comprises three major stages: linguistic analyses on source use of 149 documented essays written by college students, development of data-driven materials on source use, and evaluation of the materials. The data-driven teaching materials consist of a corpus-based web tool and a computer-delivered online lesson on source use. The corpus-based web tool provides examples of citing sentences in ...

Linguistic And Conceptual Metaphors Of ‘Heart’ In Learner Corpora, Aurora Mathews Adams

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

This corpus-based study examined English and Spanish learner language for ‘heart’ metaphors. Gutiérrez Pérez (2008) compared ‘heart’ metaphors across five languages and that study served as a reference framework for the work presented here. This work intended to find evidence of metaphor transfer and/or new metaphor learning in second language writing. Conceptual metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) and linguistic or lexical metaphors (Falck, 2012) from both languages were considered in the analysis. This work analyzed ‘heart’ metaphors taken from two learner corpora, the Cambridge Learner Corpus and the Corpus de Aprendices de Español. Results were compared to the findings ...