Digital Commons Network^™

An Analysis Of Japanese Learners' Comprehension Of Intonation In English, Misako Okubo

Dissertations and Theses

Typically, most native speakers of Japanese, who have been taught English in Japan, have had limited exposure to prosodic features of English. Consequently, their ability to understand the meaning of different intonation patterns is limited as well. Though it is generally accepted that intonation plays a crucial role in English communication, comprehensive pedagogical materials for teaching English intonation to native speakers of Japanese are not widely available or used in Japan. This is, in part, due to the complexity of English prosodic features and their abstractness. A better understanding of these barriers requires that the extent and the nature of …

The Cultural Adaptability Of Dental Hygiene, Medical Laboratory Sciences, Nursing And Physical Therapy Faculty, Irene Mary Connolly

Dental Hygiene Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the cultural adaptability of full time faculty in the College of Health Sciences, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia. The sample consisted of 40 health science faculty representing dental hygiene, medical laboratory sciences, nursing and physical therapy. The principal investigator personally administered the Cross-Cultural Adaptability Inventory (CCAI), a 50 item instrument, which contains questions to measure the construct cultural adaptability and its four dimensions: emotional resilience, flexibility/openness, perceptual acuity and personal autonomy. The CCAI is not targeted to one particular culture, but rather is designed to be culture general.

Analysis of …

Study Abroad And Self-Perceptions Of Cross-Cultural Adaptability, Heidi C. King

Dissertations and Theses

With growing recognition of the duality of language and culture, the TESOL profession is placing increasing emphasis on the importance of understanding intercultural dynamics in the second language classroom. Currently, however, there is a lack of empirical information and measurement instruments to aid understanding within the field of cross-cultural communication. In response to this lack of instrumentation, Kelley and Meyers (1993) recently created the Cross-Cultural Adaptability Inventory (CCAI), a 5 0-item, self-perception inventory designed to measure cross-cultural adaptability through a total score and four contributing dimensions: Emotional Resilience, Flexibility/Openness, Perceptual Acuity and Personal Autonomy. The two primary purposes of this …

A Cross-Cultural Study Of The Speech Act Of Refusing In English And German, Charla Margaret Teufel

Dissertations and Theses

Language students must learn to communicate effectively in cross-cultural settings, avoiding unwitting violations of culturally determined norms of behavior. This study compares German learners of English (GEs) with native speakers of English (AEs) and German (GGs), studying pragmatic transfer associated with the face-threatening speech act of refusal.

Data elicitation involved a written role-play questionnaire composed of twelve refusal situations, including four refusal stimulus types (requests, invitations, offers, and suggestions) and interlocutors of higher, lower, and equal status. Response strategies were identified and classified, and the three groups were compared in terms of frequency and content of strategies chosen.

Overall, the …

A Prolog Lexical Phrase Computer Assisted Language Learning Module, Yuji Gene Hirayama

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis presents the design of a computer assisted language learning (CALL) program written in the computer language, PROLOG. It will provide a practice exercise to teach "lexical phrases" to second language learning students of English. Lexical phrases are lexico-grammatical "chunks" of words, which possess specific pragmatic functions within spoken discourse (Nattinger and DeCarrico, 1992). These form/function composites of varying length aid conversational fluency. The program presents a scenario where the participants are college students who pass one another in the hallway. After they exchange initial greetings, the first participant (i.e., the computer) informs the other student that a test, …

Science Education At An Elementary School: Teaching The Scientific Processes To English Language Learners, Albert Steven Lozano

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.

A Literacy Journey Of Empowerment For Adult Hispanic Students In A Community College's Learning Center, Cecilia Torres Best

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.

Bilingual Policies Are Affected By Alternative Programs And Public Opinion: (A Study Of Alternative Bilingual Programs And Public Opinion In California From 1994-1996), Katherine Lynn Kimura-Gorecki

Theses Digitization Project

The researcher reviewed the Eastman Project, immersion programs, the Westminister Program and anti-bilingual sentiment to conclude that bilingual policies are affected by alternative programs and public opinion.

An Investigation Of Transitional Bilingual Programs In Cook, Dupage, Kane And Will Counties In The State Of Illinois, Robert Schwindt

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to investigate transitional bilingual programs in Cook, DuPage, Kane, and Will counties in the State of Illinois. A review of literature reveals that the State of Illinois guideline of three years was not sufficient to allow non-English speaking students to be exited into regular education classes at a level commensurate with their English speaking peers. This study also reviewed transitional bilingual program models in Cook, Dupage, Kane and Will counties in Illinois and revealed a shortage of bilingual teachers and aides. Use of the results of the study will improve the existing transitional program …

English And Spanish Take-Home Reading Packets To Enhance Early Literacy And Parent Involvement, Catherine Mary Warren

All Graduate Projects

The purpose of this project was to influence student reading comprehension by involving parents in the literacy learning of their children. Researchers of language learning suggest that if children learn skills and content in their first language, they will later transfer that knowledge to their second language. To accomplish that end, literature packets that contain a book in Spanish or English with corresponding activities were created. The packets will be taken home by students to use with their parents to enhance reading skills and parent involvement.

Esl Development In A Mainstream Classroom : A Case Study, Silvia Davidson

Theses : Honours

Learning English as a second language is a challenge faced by many children. This research has focused on the language learning and acquisition of a middle primary school student, new to Australia, from France. The English language development of this French student in a mainstream classroom of a primary school within Western Australia has been examined. The student, Rene, is a nine year old male child who is a fluent speaker of the French language. His English language development was studied over a ten week period where he was taught in a mainstream classroom with the assistance of a bilingual …

American Students' Expectations Of Teachers In The Japanese Language Classroom, Nariyo Kono

Dissertations and Theses

The Japanese as a foreign language classroom in the United States is full of information about the target culture and cross-cultural interaction between American students and Japanese instructors. This cross-cultural interaction promotes culture learning but sometimes produces potential conflicts due to American students and Japanese instructors having different expectations of each other.

The purpose of this study was to investigate student expectations of their Japanese teachers and to explore similarities and differences among Japanese and American expectations. The research questions addressed were 1) What do American students expect of their Japanese teachers in the Japanese language classroom? Do their expectations …

The Use Of The First Language (L1) And The Target Language (Tl) In The Foreign Language Classroom, Jeanine L. Huber

Dissertations and Theses

Oftentimes it is the foreign language classroom that provides the basic foundation for language exposure and acquisition. In the context of the foreign language classroom there is not much exposure to the TL outside of this setting. This being the case, the quantity of the TL should be relatively high as it is an essential requisite for language acquisition. In addition, most recent research tends to suggest that high quantities of TL from the instructor is ideal. The main purpose of this study has been to focus on university-level foreign language classrooms to explore the issue of language choice, Ll …

Russian-Speaking Pentecostal Refugees And Adult Esl Programs: Barriers To Participation, Elena Valerijevna Zaitseva

Dissertations and Theses

Pentecostals from the former Soviet Union are the most recent and fastest growing refugee group in Oregon. Because the refugee population's low English skills may increase their dependence upon welfare assistance, their nonparticipation in ESL programs is treated as a social issue. Efforts to increase the English literacy levels of Russian-speaking Pentecostal refugees are limited by lack of empirical data regarding forces that affect this population's decision to participate or not to participate in educational activities. The purpose of this study was to gather information about barriers to participation in ESL programs by adult Russian-speaking Pentecostal refugees. To this end …

American Deaf Students In Ennl Classes: A Case Study, Janice Elisabeth Ruhl

Dissertations and Theses

Many deaf students who seek post secondary education need some sort of developmental education in reading and writing to ensure success in college. These students often end up in college preparatory or remedial classes that are designed for native speakers of English. For many of the deaf students entering college, English is a second language or a first language that they have failed to achieve fluency in.

This study describes the experience of two deaf students enrolled in English as a Non-Native Language classes for the first time at an Oregon community college. The Office of Students with Disabilities and …

Use Of Language Learning Strategies By Proficient And Less Proficient Learners, Charlene Frances Mills

Dissertations and Theses

Recent research has found that the use of good language learning strategies can affect students' chances of gaining proficiency in a second language. The purpose of this study was to see if there is a relationship between strategy use and language learning proficiency. It sought to answer these questions: (1) Does a successful learner use different strategies on specific tasks than does a less successful learner? and (2) Will the successful learner use more metacognitive and affective strategies while doing tasks than will a less successful learner? For the first part of the study, 17 students in an ESL program …

Making The Transition From East To West: Evangelical Christian High School Students From The Former Soviet Union, Sharon Kay Link

Dissertations and Theses

This study documents the educational and cultural experiences of Soviet Evangelical high school students, the most recent refugee population to the Portland-Vancouver school districts.

Soviet Evangelical high school students have experienced a slow and difficult transition to the American classroom. The students were often negatively characterized by their ESL teachers and other school personnel as "difficult" due to their classroom behaviors. Many times, these behaviors did not meet the ESL teacher's expectations, resulting in a culture clash between the teacher and the Soviet Evangelical students.

The study found that Soviet Evangelical high school students came to the United States with …

English-Speaking Three-Year-Olds In A Spanish Language Immersion Program, Alice Golstein

Dissertations and Theses

Foreign language immersion programs, wherein the regular school curriculum is taught through the foreign language, have become increasingly widespread in recent years. Although there have been a plethora of studies reporting on second language immersion programs involving school-age programs, there is a dearth of information describing such programs for preschoolers. The purpose of this study was to observe and describe an immersion program for three-year-olds, particularly with respect to specific features of early stages of the language acquisition process.

The primary area of interest was to determine the existence of and features of a silent period for these children. Secondary …

Student Attitudes Toward Word Processing And Writing In The English As A Second Or Other Language Classroom, Greg Lynn Buchan

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the attitudes of English as a second or other language (ESOL) students who used computers/word processors to develop skills in writing English. Two primary questions were investigated: what are students' attitudes toward using computers to write English and what are students' attitudes toward learning computer and word processing skills? The subjects were 40 ESOL students enrolled at South Seattle Community College (SSCC) in technical programs and were required to complete a transitional English class that included business and technical writing . Students received 10 weeks of writing instruction on word processors. A 38-item attitude inventory created by …

Teaching English Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondences To Chinese Students, Li-Ching Lin

Dissertations and Theses

This study investigates whether or not instruction of English graphophonic correspondences, i.e., the link between letters and sounds, will help Chinese students in learning English vocabulary. Following other related research, I assume that Chinese students can benefit from instruction of English grapheme-phoneme correspondences in learning English words. If this assumption is true, there should be a statistically significant difference between students who have instruction of English graphophonic correspondences for learning English words and students who do not. 1. Chinese students who have been given lessons in both pronunciation and grapheme-phoneme correspondences will recall more English words on a short-term vocabulary …

Functional Uses Of Language In The Conversational Discourse Of A Person With Alzheimer's Disease, Julie Anne Haun

Dissertations and Theses

Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, is estimated to occur in up to sixteen percent of people between the ages of 75 and 84. Deficits in linguistic skills that effect communication are a hallmark of the disease and have been the primary focus of past Alzheimer's research. Among other deficits, researchers have found that people with Alzheimer's often use indexical expressions without clear referents and convey less information that is relevant to the task they have been asked to perform than healthy subjects. Relatively little research has examined how Alzheimer's subjects use their linguistic knowledge to communicate with …

English In The Workplace: Case Study Of A Pilot Program, Kim Roth Franklin

Dissertations and Theses

This study is participant observational research focused on a description of an United States Department of Education grant-funded English in the Workplace pilot program. The survey of the literature shows that there is an increasing need to provide educational opportunities for workers who, for various reasons, are not currently being served by traditional education providers. The study presented here describes a pilot program and asks "How is an English in the Workplace program developed and implemented? What do those characteristics of workplace education programs, as identified in the literature, 'look like' once such a program has been implemented?" The researcher …

The Effect Of A Physician's Pronunciation On Nurses' Perceptions Of The Physician's Medical Competency, Laura Anne Horani

Dissertations and Theses

Although many researchers have studied language attitudes in the last three decades, none of the studies have been conducted in the hospital setting, where there are more serious consequences for those working with patients being labeled linguistically "incompetent," as charges of incompetence in language are apt to lead to charges of incompetence in other areas of mastery as well (e.g., Ryan, 1983). This study examines the attitudes of a sample of nurses from three Portland-area hospitals towards nonnative English speaking physicians. The subjects, 156 medical-surgical nurses, listened to three anonymous audiotaped physicians who were from three different ethnic backgrounds: American, …

An Examination Of The English Vocabulary Knowledge Of Adult English-For-Academic-Purposes Students: Correlation With English Second-Language Proficiency And The Validity Of Yes/No Vocabulary Tests, Robert Scott Fetter

Dissertations and Theses

The importance given to vocabulary in second language instruction and in theories of second language acquisition has increased greatly in the last fifteen years. It is thus important for second language teachers/researchers to have valid, useful methods of assessing the vocabulary needs and vocabulary knowledge of their students as well as valid and useful methods of assessing the efficacy of various methods and techniques of teaching and learning vocabulary.

This study examines the usefulness and validity of a relatively new type of checklist vocabulary test method known as the 'YES/NO' method. In the YES/NO method, nonsense words are listed together …

Revista Digital Amigos - Vol 5, Número 33, Aspectos Culturales, Semos Unlimited

Amigos Revista Digital

Christine P. Sims 1
Idiomas de las Tribus de Indios Pueblo 2
Some Unique Aspects of Bilingual Education 3
Summer Institute of Linguistics for Native Americans (SILNA) 4
Gus Keene 5
Preparen un Cuaderno sobre las Tribus de Indios que Viven en el área donde tu vives 6

An Exploration Of The Value Of Future Tesol Teachers Reflecting On Their Pasts As Language Learners, Sarah Elizabeth Lawrence

Dissertations and Theses

Virtually all future teachers of ESL/EFL have been foreign- or second-language learners themselves. However, reflection on their own past language-learning experiences is usually not integrated into the coursework of professional TESOL preparation programs and there has been little published research in TESOL in which students in professional TESOL preparation programs reflect on their past language learning experiences. The purpose of this research was to explore the effects on TESOL Methods students of revisiting a past language-learning experience.

The subjects were students in a TESOL Methods class. This study examined an assignment given to these students to write a short "language …

Classroom As Text: A Study Of The Integration Of Multiculturalism, Penny Marie Drake

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.

Prereading And Postreading Activities For Children's Multicultural Trade Books, Sandra Gail Beardsley

All Graduate Projects

A review of literature was completed to support the need for, and value of, using multicultural literature within the elementary classroom. The criteria for selecting multicultural literature was also reviewed. The project consisted of a booklist and prereading and postreading activities for twenty-five multicultural trade books. The purpose of the project was to heighten student's awareness of the multicultural community in which they live and appreciation of cultures throughout the world. The strategies and activities developed for these books were based on the whole language philosophy. The twenty-five trade books were divided into four themes: 1. Grandparents, 2. Folktales and …

A Bilingual Developmentally Appropriate Preschool Program, Margarita Clara Lopez

All Graduate Projects

Developmental and learning theories of the twentieth century have influenced the role of the preschool programs in public education. The debate over what is appropriate curriculum for young children is nation wide. The need to have a bilingual summer program that is appropriate to young children in the Granger School District was studied. The result was to design and develop a bilingual summer program that would fit the needs of the preschool aged children. The bilingual summer program was piloted in the Granger, Washington School District.

Language And Communication Enhancement For Two-Way Education : Report, Ian G. Malcolm

Research outputs pre 2011

Indigenous Australians command many languages including autochthonous (Indigenous) and contact languages (creoles and Aboriginal English). This project is concerned with the majority who speak English, especially those who speak English as a first language, in an Aboriginal English variety. The project was developed by Edith Cowan University in cooperation with the Education Department of Western Australia as a response to an increasing demand from teachers of Indigenous students for help in providing for their needs as speakers of Aboriginal English. It was funded from the DEBT National Priority (Reserve) Fund to enable the University to develop course modules in Aboriginal …