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Enhancing Listening Comprehension Skills Through Exposure To Authentic Conversation, Michael Mcclure

Master's Projects and Capstones

In this field project, the author created a listening comprehension workbook for adult ESL students. The emphasis of the project was to improve the listening comprehension abilities of students through exposing them to authentic American English. The recordings were provided by StoryCorps.gov.

Practical Pragmatics: A Workshop To Learn Strategies For Teaching Pragmatic Awareness To Adult English Language Leaners, Sara G. Ziogas

Master's Projects and Capstones

The lack of teacher training and textbook teaching materials for developing pragmatic awareness in ESL (English as a second language) and EFL (English as a foreign language) classrooms has led to a gap in the development of students’ communicative competence in English as a second or foreign language. The purpose of this project is to provide an opportunity for teachers, who may be unaware of how to recognize their own first language pragmatic competence, to learn how to reverse-engineer their innate knowledge and then use those strategies to create practical, teachable lessons for their students to gain pragmatic awareness in …

Integrating Idea Mapping Into Professional Development And Practice: A Guidebook For Educators, Sarah Rose Parsons

Master's Projects and Capstones

The daily metrics of the teaching profession can prove emotionally and physically taxing, especially when compared to the current rapidly growing veil of technological advancement and a lack of support from one’s community and administration in their field. The means of support for professional development, which are often presented in schools for educators, focus mostly on students and content delivery. These programs rarely pay attention to the personal growth of the individual educator. Educators can in turn help themselves if they are provided with the tools and time to do so. Thus, this project seeks to serve that purpose, founded …

Integrating Language And Content Instruction: A Linguistic And Cultural Guide For Content-Area Teachers Of Asian International Secondary School Students In The Us, Joy R. Suzuki

Master's Projects and Capstones

As more and more international Asian ESL high school students seek an education at private American high schools, where students spend most of their time in content-area classrooms, it is imperative that content-area teachers understand the important role they play in their students’ linguistic development and cultural adjustment. The purpose of this project is to provide teachers of content-area classes with an easily accessible professional development opportunity, including tools they need to help their international ESL students achieve linguistic and academic success and guide these students through a rewarding cross-cultural experience. As supported by second language acquisition theory, with the …

The Mirror Up To Nature: Identity Exploration Through Drama For English Language Learners, Grace Hudkins

Master's Projects and Capstones

It is widely accepted that language acquisition through content, arts integration, and identity development in concert with foreign or second language development are all important and valid approaches to ESOL education. However, there is a lack of literature addressing these three elements in concert. This project attempts to bridge this gap through the creation of an International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (IB MYP) unit that addresses language acquisition, drama integration, and personal and cultural identity development. The unit also promotes intercultural understanding, as students share their personal and cultural identity backgrounds with one another throughout the course of the unit …

Sophrosyne In Aeschylus, Konstantinos Karathanasis

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This is a study on the semantics of sophrosyne, and the importance of this culturally significant term for the political vocabulary of Aeschylus. The author argues that the core of the semantics of sophrosyne is the status-based behavioral propriety within a hierarchy. By examining all the occurrences of the term’s cognates in the Aeschylean corpus, the author concludes that Aeschylus used sophrosyne as a tool in a pro-democratic rhetoric. Given that the deviance from status-based propriety in Aeschylean tragedy results in socio-political catastrophes, the monarchic societies of Greek myth and Persia are presented as political environments that endanger sophrosyne …

Writing & Linguistics News, Georgia Southern University

Writing & Linguistics News (2012-2022)

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Strategies For First-Year University Esl Students To Improve Essay Writing Skills, Mengjie Wei

Master's Projects and Capstones

This project provides a writing guidebook for first-year university level English as a Second Language (ESL) students and teachers. Most ESL students have difficulties in academic English writing, especially first-year university ESL students. Due to the differences in linguistic and education backgrounds, first-year university level ESL students desire a writing guidebook that is appropriate for them; ESL teachers should be provided with professional teaching methods and materials in delivering lectures too. By applying Schema Theory and Stephen D. Krashen’s Monitor Model, strategies for students and teachers are professionally designed in this guidebook.

In order to help ESL students better their …

Improving The Reading Level Of Middle School English Learners In English Language Development Classes., Anastasiia V. Mixcoatl-Martinez

Master's Projects and Capstones

Presently, there are about 2,664,921 English Language Learners (ELLs) and Fluent English Proficient (FEP) speakers in California public schools who speak a language other than English at home (CalEdFacts, 2016). Some of these students have immigrated to the United States from other countries, while others were born and have been raised in the United States. According to the California Department of Education, the vast majority of ELLs (83.5%) in California come from low-income families and speak a language other than English at home. 73% of ELLs attend English Language Development (ELD) classes kindergarten through grade six, and 27% are in …

With Language Brings Light: Narratives By Deaf Ethiopians And Their Right To Sign Language, Jackie M. Eugster

Master's Theses

The goal of this case study is to share the narratives of Deaf individuals in Ethiopia and how the Deaf community uses Deaf Community Cultural Wealth in order to explore and flourish in audist and colonized spaces. This study engaged photovoice, in a participatory action research technique that can empower and enhance the community’s sense of identity (Wang & Burris, 1997). This study considers the influence of American missionaries and how colonization of African nations has also influenced the trajectory of Deaf education in Ethiopia. Moving away from deficient thinking, DCCW attempts to reframe the Deaf experience as one that …

Phenomenal Marks, Ruptured Spaces, Relearning Language, Crossing Cultures, Meelee Ahn

Graduate School of Art Theses

The form of my thesis is one of interruptions, or “Ruptures,” as I call them. These are events of my personal history, or stories from the lives of artists, that intervene against my narrative through graphic and language devices meant to be understood as equivalent to the material affects in my painting. Important artists and movements mentioned are Gerhard Richter, Franz Kline, Helen Frankenhauler, Lee Ufan, Doho Suh, and Abstract Expressionism. Writers and philosophers Maurice Merlou-Ponty, Gaston Bachelard, Joan Banach, Sigmund Freud, John Gage, Brian Massumi, Allen Weiss, Clement Greenburg, Shin-Chulgyu, and Yoon-Dongju are also discussed. The idea discussed include …

[Insert Body Here], Katie Yun

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

The personal is political. Using humor and my individual narrative, I illustrate the main three factors that drive my work and relate them to corresponding theoretical frameworks: 1) My OCD tendencies and labor as art concept 2) Assimilation and the appeal of the White Cube 3) Reclamation of identity and Abject art. Through textual and visual research, I provide scholarly backing and precedents set by other artists to situate these personal narratives as part of a larger structural system of oppression, while being transparent of my culpability and participation in these structures. I posit that my work provides a nuanced …

Open To The Public: The Political Zoo, Mary Brown

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

Open to the Public: The Political Zoo is a two-part project that began as an experiment, a creative curiosity into the intersections of co-authorship, political censorship, and mail art. Spurred in a moment when the news media is being challenged by those in the highest offices, the analog nature of this project explores the potential of a world in which online self-expression is hindered. Mail art projects, while out of the box in this digital era, are situated in a history of 20th century artistic practices. Used as a tool for creative exploration and community in Western countries, in Eastern …

( )* *This Smells Familiar, Sachi Nagase

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

Fragments from quotidian sensory experience conjure memories from personal history. Vague manifestations of feelings become interpretations of memories, which are investigated through immersive installation, sculpture, and video. Imagined scenarios are constructed to expose moments of cultural disconnect and reveal states of inbetweenness, which settle within territories amongst imagination and reality, adult and childhood, and loss and comfort. Within the works, sensory experiences including smell, sound and taste develop to relay meaning and affect. Haptic, olfactory, and auditory stimulation allow active participation, while subjectivity inherent in taste and smell generate space for new meaning. Color is used to immerse, to delineate …

Mechanically Derived Narrative Through Perception Of Video Game Characters, Matthew Cappo

Lexia: Undergraduate Journal in Writing, Rhetoric & Technical Communication

In this research paper composed for WRTC 200: Introduction to Studies in Writing, Rhetoric and Technical Communication, Cappo uses industry-related articles and academic studies to demonstrate how various interactive design choices in video games serve to influence the impression players feel toward a game's world and its characters. Thorough and analytical, the piece serves as a guiding example of how interactive elements of a video game can work constructively with its storytelling to create an enjoyable and immersive experience.

The Challenges And Solutions Of Online Surveys, Rachel Cannon, Amanda Loh, Dan Dewey

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Surveys are a valuable tool in research. However, there is currently no place where researchers can find compiled information about the challenges of online surveys and their corresponding solutions. Research publications typically address a specific single issue, and these articles are published in a wide range of journals, making it difficult to access various findings. Our findings, which we presented as a work in progress at the Georgetown University Round Table (GURT) 2016 conference, provide a useful source that researchers can use to easily learn about the challenges of online surveys and the solutions to these challenges, helping them to …

Control / ContrôLe: Comparing Discourses Of Power And Rebellion In Hair Care Products, Chanelle M. Fournier

English

Since the Antiquity, female hair has been a powerful social semiotic, used to determine women's sexuality, mental states, and adherence to gender norms. As a result of this extensive signifying power, many disciplinary practices have evolved to regulate female hair. In this thesis, I use critical discourse analysis methods to determine what ideologies are present on consumer hair care products. I investigate a selection of products found within a Fairbanks, AK beauty store, analyzing the English and French text on the labels. The results of this analysis show that hair product labels directly address the disciplinary practices that circulate through …

Using Technology To Enhance Second Language Literacy, Emily Adriana Pace, R. Kirk Belnap

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This project is the beginning of a revision of a previous research project of the BYU Arabic department known as RAFT (Readable Article Finding Tool). This tool aims to assist learners of second languages with suitable reading material by using a list of vocabulary known by the user and providing the user with a set of articles that contain a high percentage of those known words.

Modern Mythologies: The Epic Imagination In Contemporary Indian Literature, Sucheta Kanjilal

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project delineates a cultural history of modern Hinduism in conversation with contemporary Indian literature. Its central focus is literary adaptations of the Sanskrit epic the Mahābhārata, in English, Hindi, and Bengali. Among Hindu religious texts, this epic has been most persistently reproduced in literary and popular discourses because its scale matches the grandeur of the Indian national imagining. Further, many epic adaptations explicitly invite devotion to the nation, often emboldening conservative Hindu nationalism. This interdisciplinary project draws its methodology from literary theory, history, gender, and religious studies. Little scholarship has put Indian Anglophone literatures in conversation with other …

Collaboration To Support Rural Student Social-Emotional Needs, Lindsey M. Nichols, Anisa N. Goforth, Michaela Sacra, Kaitlyn Ahlers

The Rural Educator

There is a growing emphasis in U.S. schools to focus on the social-emotional issues of rural students. Specifically, the effect of mental health issues on school success underscores the importance of collaboration between, and among, educators and specialized support personnel (SSP; e.g., school counselors). In rural areas, school counselors and school psychologists are positioned to assist students and their families to provide support within and surrounding the school environment. The purpose of this paper is to: (1) discuss students’ social-emotional needs and SSP-educator collaboration in the context of rural schools, and (2) to discuss promising and best practices in collaboration …

Displacing Phallogocentrism: Fragmented Subjects & Transgendered Bodies, Tara N. Knight

English

"Displacing Phallogocentrism: Fragmented Subjects and Transgendered Bodies" synthesizes theories about gender construction and identity formation as proposed by Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan, and proposes that the cultural sediment created by heteronormativity and phallogocentrism can be displaced by the proliferative re-conceptualization and re-signification of transgendered subjects. Because the relationship between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary, Simone de Beauvoir's theory about the inner identity's desire for transcendence and Judith Butler's theory about the materiality of the signifier demonstrate how subjects are 1.) always already transgendered, and 2.) constantly reshaping the material world …

The Real Face Of Arabic Symbols, Leena Yahya Sonbuol

Theses

This is a brief insight into my thesis: "The Real Face of Arabic Symbols". I have examined in depth the artwork I completed for my Masters of Fine Arts degree at Rochester Institute of Technology, the work for which was exhibited in the Bevier Gallery for two weeks during March 2017.

The aim of this study is to explore differences in symbolic language between the Eastern and Western cultures in visual arts and explain the misconception of Arabic symbols in the western world. It examines Arabic cultural symbols in contemporary art, and the creation of a symbolic language for a …

Cultivating Servant Leaders In Secondary Schooling, Kong Wah Cora Chan, Gloria So

Servant Leadership: Theory & Practice

No abstract provided.

Detecting Deception In Asynchronous Text, Fletcher Glancy

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Glancy and Yadav (2010) developed a computational fraud detection model (CFDM) that successfully detected financial reporting fraud in the text of the management’s discussion and analysis (MDA) portion of annual filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This work extends the use of the CFDM to additional genres, demonstrates the generalizability of the CFDM and the use of text mining for quantitatively detecting deception in asynchronous text. It also demonstrates that writers committing fraud use words differently from truth tellers.

The Fluency Principle: Why Foreign Accent Strength Negatively Biases Language Attitudes, Nicholas Tatum

Communication and Sociology

Two experiments tested the prediction that heavy foreign-accented

speakers are evaluated more negatively than mild foreign-accented

speakers because the former are perceived as more prototypical (i.e.,

representative) of their respective group and their speech disrupts

listeners’ processing fluency (i.e., is more difficult to process).

Participants listened to a mild or heavy Punjabi- (Study 1) or

Mandarin-accented (Study 2) speaker. Compared to the mildaccented

speaker, the heavy-accented speaker in both studies was

attributed less status (but not solidarity), was perceived as more

prototypical of their respective group, disrupted listeners’

processing fluency, and elicited a more negative affective

reaction. The negative effects …

Mongolian Vowel Harmony And Palatalization, Joshua Sims, Dirk Elzinga

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Mongolian language is spoken by approximately 3,000,000 people in the East Asian nation of Mongolia. The language exhibits vowel harmony, a rare phenomenon where the vowels in a single word must belong to matching categories. Mongolian grammars traditionally classify the seven vowels as either “male” or “female,” as well as rounded or unrounded. The “male” vowels are pronounced with a retracted tongue root (RTR), sounding “darker,” while “female” vowels are pronounced with an advanced tongue root (ATR), sounding “lighter.” The vowel /i/ is considered neutral, neither male nor female, but its presence tends to change the pronunciation of male …

The Transnational Case In Conflict Of Laws: Two Suggestions For The New Restatement Third Of Conflict Of Laws—Judicial Jurisdiction Over Foreign Defendants And Party Autonomy In International Contracts, Linda J. Silberman, Nathan D. Yaffe

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

No abstract provided.

Survive Or Thrive: A Mixed Method Study Of Visiting Chinese Language Teachers' Identity Formation In The U.S. Classrooms, Li Xiang

Dissertations and Theses

In recent years in the United States, an increasing number of people are learning Mandarin, the dominant Chinese language in China. Because of the shortage of Mandarin teachers, many visiting teachers from China with Chinese educational background are teaching Mandarin in the U.S. schools. In the U.S. classrooms, these teachers are challenged to adapt to a new setting. This experience can lead them to changing their teaching identity, that is, their basic beliefs, attitudes and practices about teaching. Understanding how Chinese teachers may form a new teaching identity in the U.S. context serves to inform future professional development activities designed …

Mitigating The Conflict Between Pitfall-Trap Sampling And Conservation Of Terrestrial Subterranean Communities In Caves, Peter Kozel, Tanja Pipan, Nina Šajna, Slavko Polak, Tone Novak

International Journal of Speleology

Subterranean habitats are known for their rich endemic fauna and high vulnerability to disturbance. Many methods and techniques are used to sample the biodiversity of terrestrial invertebrate fauna in caves, among which pitfall trapping remains one of the most frequently used and effective ones. However, this method has turned out to be harmful to subterranean communities if applied inappropriately. Traditionally, pitfall traps have been placed in caves solely on the ground. Here we present an optimized technique of pitfall trapping to achieve a balance between sampling completeness and minimal disturbance of the fauna in the cave. Monthly we placed traps …

2016 "Meeting Of The Minds" Research Symposium Abstracts

OSRI Journal of Student Research and Innovation

No abstract provided.