Language and Literacy Education Commons^™

Weighing Up Exercises On Phrasal Verbs: Retrieval Versus Trial-And-Error Practices, Brian Strong, Frank Boers

Education Publications

EFL textbooks and internet resources exhibit various formats and implementations of exercises on phrasal verbs. The experimental study reported here examines whether some of these might be more effective than others. EFL learners at a university in Japan were randomly assigned to four treatment groups. Two groups were presented first with phrasal verbs and their meaning before they were prompted to retrieve the particles from memory. The difference between these two retrieval groups was that one group studied and then retrieved items one at a time, while the other group studied and retrieved them in sets. The two other groups …

Bridging The Gap Between Researchers And Wider Audiences: Navigating A Community Literacy Collaboration In Real-Time, Terry S. Atkinson, Kimberly L. Anderson, Elizabeth A. Swaggerty

eJournal of Public Affairs

While campus-community partnerships are common, such engaged scholarship efforts often lead university researchers to community-centered presentations and publications; however, this type of scholarship and especially the venues in which it is often disseminated are of questionable value within the academy’s tenure and promotion process. Three literacy scholars who were invited to study the impact of community-wide Imagination Library implementation share challenges they encountered related to collaboration, communication, and dissemination of findings during the first two years of a five-year early literacy community partnership. Selected outcomes and implications for other community-engaged scholars include (a) investing in true multi-directional consistent collaboration and …

An Analysis Of High School Students' Self-Efficacy In Second Language Acquisition Through Digital Language Lab Learning: Exploring New Pathways To Proficiency, Lorna A. Fairess

Theses and Dissertations

Students are often faced with barriers acquiring a second language due to various factors such as language anxiety, learning differences, and a lack of speaking time with the language. The purposes of this qualitative study were to: a) determine students' perceptions of the effectiveness of a digital language lab on their self-efficacy in second language acquisition at the secondary level, and b) discern teachers' perceptions of the effectiveness of the lab as well as recommendations for best practices in teacher training and implementation. Twenty-seven Italian and Spanish students and 12 world language teachers from two fairly rural high schools in …

Teachers’ Stories About Teaching: Collaborative Dialogues As Open Educational Resources, Ekaterina Arshavskaya

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

This paper examines the nature of teacher learning through a social-constructivist perspective and describes instructional strategies utilized with teachers during an international teaching assistants’ (ITAs’) training workshop offered at the Utah State University (USU). The strategy used involved eliciting and structuring exemplary teachers’ stories about teaching to serve as a basis for class discussions and other assignments. These teachers’ stories, recorded on video, were then shared online through the university website and YouTube. In this way, new teachers gained access to co-constructed and pedagogically appropriate teacher knowledge represented by authentic teachers’ voices.

Cruzar Fronteras Em Espaços Acadêmicos: Transgressing “The Limits Of Translanguaging”, Brendan H. O’Connor, Katherine S. Mortimer, Lesley Bartlett, María Teresa De La Piedra, Ana Maria Rabelo Gomes, Ariana Mangual Figueroa, Gabriela Novaro, Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, Char Ullman

Publications and Research

Scholarship on translanguaging and related concepts has challenged traditional assumptions about how people use their multiple languages, urging us to move beyond the boundaries of named linguistic codes and toward conceptualizations of multilingual language use as flexible use of a speaker’s whole linguistic repertoire. Critiques of this theoretical shift have included assertions of translanguaging’s conceptual and practical limits—limits to its transformative potential as well as limits to its practical use. This paper takes up, in particular, the question of why we academics may assert the value of translanguaging in schools and communities while still largely failing to move beyond monoglossic …

New Approach To Chinese Writing: An Exploratory Study Of Writing Performance On Social Q&A Online Community, Lin Zhu

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

Many studies have investigated how the online community has informed language acquisition and teaching. In the scholarship of Computer-Mediated Communication Theory (CMC), while most of the studies have emphasized second language English writing using the CMC framework, evidence is shown to support CMC in foreign language instruction. However, there is a lack of research on how feedback from native speakers of Chinese influences Chinese learners’ writing in a web environment. In response to the research gap, drawing on sociocultural and CMC, the current exploratory study probes the nature of feedback on Zhihu, the largest Chinese social question-and-answer website, and how …

Pre-Service Teachers' Implicit Bias: Impacts Of Confrontation, Reflection, And Discussion, Katherine E. Batchelor, Kendra Dewater, Kennedy Thompson

Journal of Educational Research and Innovation

Abstract: Although there is much research regarding implicit bias in numerous fields, such as criminal justice, psychology, and health, little research has examined pre-service teachers’ attitudes and beliefs regarding implicit biases they carry, especially when it comes to race. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to fill the gap in qualitative research regarding how pre-service teachers address, confront, and talk about biases. We begin by defining implicit bias. Next, we situate our research within sociocultural theory with an emphasis on critical literacy practices. Then, we share our findings, which centered on the course environment, students’ reactions to their results …

The Effects Of Technology Use In A Third Grade Inclusion Classroom, Jamie C. Ott

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this single-subject, ABAB research design study was to examine if the integration of Google Classroom and digital texts on Chromebooks promotes student academic performance, specifically their reading level, and active engagement in an inclusive setting. This research was designed to identify the effects that introducing digital texts and comprehension response items in Google Classroom has on students' comprehension and engagement. This study was conducted in an inner-city public k-8 grade school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The scores gathered from students' TDA responses and engagement were converted into percentages and put into tables. The data from these two variables …

Crossing The Final Frontier: Exploring The Numeracy Demands Of Texts Read In English Language Arts, Ellen C. Agnello, Kevin M. Agnello

Numeracy

Incited by the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ 2009 Reading Framework and the Common Core State Standards, recent shifts in national education goals have urged English language arts teachers to make curriculum adjustments. One such adjustment is to shift their focus from fiction, which has traditionally dominated the curriculum, to nonfiction. Doing so has the potential to increase students’ exposure to informational texts which often employ numeric modes to represent quantitative data, thus necessitating numeracy knowledge. This article presents a study of 60 nonfiction texts taught in secondary ELA classrooms. Through analysis of these texts, it addresses the questions: Which …

The Ultimatum Game: An Introduction To Quantitative Literacy In A Social Justice Context, Robert G. Root

Numeracy

The Ultimatum Game is a two-person, multiple-strategy game widely used in the experimental social sciences to demonstrate the human propensity for costly punishment in response to inequitable treatment. The game serves to provide quantitative evidence for a diversity of fairness norms across cultures. The play of the game and its interpretation offer nuanced views of the nature and importance of quantitative literacy. Its use in a writing seminar connecting quantitative literacy and social justice is described.

A Dialectical Relational Analysis Of Tesol Quarterly 2006 Special Issue On Race: Discourse, Race, And White Supremacist Ideology, Ginger A. Looney

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Although the field of TESOL is not racially neutral this dialectical relational analysis examined (1) what discourses did the authors use to deploy race in the articles in the 2006 TESOL Quarterly Special Issue on Race (TQSIR)? and (2) how do these discourses work to either conform to, or resist white supremacist ideology? Analysis of the texts identified four key discourse: racialization, whiteness, emotional labor of racism, and sonic and optic negation of racism. These discourses were examined in the domains of scholarship, curriculum, teachers, and students. In 21 instances, these four discourses work to resist white supremacist ideology. …

The Experience Of Co-Teaching For Emergent Arabic-English Literacy, Anna M. Dillon, Kay Gallagher

The Qualitative Report

In this paper we explore teachers’ experiences of co-teaching within a new bilingual (Arabic/ English) model in public Kindergarten schools in the United Arab Emirates. The main objective was to understand teachers’ experiences with intercultural teaching for biliteracy in this context. We interviewed six pairs of co-teachers. These co-teachers represent six of the nationalities of teachers working in public Kindergartens in Abu Dhabi, thereby representing a cross-section of the cultural context of teaching in the reformed public schools. The data highlight teachers’ varied co-teaching practices and point to aspects such as classroom management and translanguaging as aspects of classroom practice …

Gjr Volume 42 Number 1 Summer 2019, Lina B. Soares

The Georgia Journal of Reading Archive

The Georgia Journal of Reading's Summer 2019 issue includes:

Message From the Chair by Davetta Grigsby (pg. 4)

Message from the Editor by Lina B. Soares (pg. 5)

Diversity in Literacy Education: How Are Literacy Teacher Educators Preparing Teacher Candidates? by Rebekah E. Piper, Laurie A. Sharp and Roberta D. Raymond (pg.6)

Exploring the Reading Motivation of Less-Motivated Adolescent Latinx English Learners by Robert A. Griffn (pg. 18)

Ready, Set, Grow: Exploring the Readiness and Preparation of Kindergarten Students within a Title 1 School by Morgan Mitchell, Sybil Keesbury and Vicki Luther (pg. 31)

Theory And The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning: Inquiry And Practice With Intention, Nancy L. Chick

Faculty Publications

Theory in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) is the conceptual basis for the practice of SoTL—or, more precisely, the conceptual bases for the practices of SoTL—as well as the bodies of knowledge, methodological assumptions, and explanations of phenomena that are deployed (explicitly or implicitly) from a range of contexts within SoTL. Put another way, theory is thinking on a meta level, a metacognitive move in which practitioners become aware, critical, and intentional of how and why they are doing their practice. It involves taking stock of the existing conversations to move beyond definitions, to critically evaluate gaps and …

A Transcendental Phenomenological Study Of The Experiences Of African American Male High School Sophomores Who Are Struggling Readers, Nechellar Franklin

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of African American male high school sophomores in the metro-Atlanta area who are struggling readers. The study encompassed investigation of the self-efficacy, future outlook, and how past and present reading experiences impact African American adolescent males’ ability to be hopeful and optimistic in their future career paths and postsecondary options. Participants comprised 12 African American high school sophomores enrolled in a Title I school found in the metro-Atlanta, Georgia area. The study was guided by one central research question and two research subquestions. In general, the research …

English Language Proficiency And Aviation Safety, Robert Fowler Jr.

Student Works

The goal of this research study is to determine if aviation incidents and accidents due to deficiencies in English language proficiency have increased in the last 10 years based on data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS). In addition, this study will determine whether deficiencies in English language proficiency have a significant impact on aviation safety. There are currently 184,636 student pilots according to the Federal Aviation Administration Airmen Certification System. Included in this number are 11,776 student pilots with a foreign address (Federal Aviation Administration [FAA], 2019). Findings presented at a NASA …

High School Science And Social Studies Teachers' Self-Efficacy Regarding Literacy Instruction: A Transcendental Phenomenological Study, Jennifer L. Ryan

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to explore high school teachers’ self-efficacy regarding the incorporation of literacy instruction in high school science and social studies classes in a rural, public school district. In this qualitative research study, self-efficacy was generally defined as the teachers’ belief in how well they succeed at the task of including literacy instruction into their content area lessons. Albert Bandura’s (1997) self-efficacy theory and Shulman's (1986) pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) theory guided this study as it explored the teachers’ beliefs in their teaching abilities. Literacy instruction was defined as explicit instruction in word study, …

Effects Of Primary Grade Literacy Field Experiences On Preservice Teachers' Self-Efficacy: A Causal-Comparative Study, Lauren E. Kirk

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Learning to read is an essential skill, yet many new teachers enter the profession unprepared to be effective literacy teachers. Teacher preparation has been at the forefront of many reforms in education. However, discrepancies still exist in how teachers are prepared to enter the profession. This study investigated preservice teachers’ sense of efficacy for primary literacy instruction by the amount of field experience. The levels of field experience included no/ introductory field experience, reading practicum experience, and clinical teaching experience. Participants were preservice teachers who had been accepted into the educator preparation program at small, private universities in Texas and …

Movement And Action: Action-Based Learning In The Classroom, Jordan Nguyen

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

The purpose of this literature review is to explain what action-based learning is, how does action-based-learning fit within the classroom, and what are the effects it has on English Language learners and students who are placed in academic support programs in the classroom. The hope of this literature review is to gain more knowledge about what is action-based learning and to gain insight on how educators can effectively implement action-based learning within their classrooms. After analyzing the literature on this topic, the results of the analysis determined the effectiveness of action-based learning within the classroom on English Language Learners and …

Impacts Of Parental Involvement On Early Literacy Skills, Sara Harlan

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

This action research was conducted to identify a correlation in high literacy skills with parental involvement and support. Baseline data was gathered from kindergarten student's winter FAST screener scores. Parental involvement began by sending homework for my students to work on with an adult in their home. A spreadsheet was kept tracking which students returned their parent signature sheet weekly and which students did not. All students were progress monitored on letter sounds weekly. The spring FAST screener data was then used to gather ending data. Growth was compared from the winter to spring data with the amount of parental …