Digital Commons Network^™

Is It The Way To Teach Language The Way We Teach Language? English Language Teaching In Rural Pakistan, Ali Nawab

Professional Development Centre, Chitral

With the growing importance and need of English language in the global context, efforts are being made in the developing context to improve the quality of teaching English with the assumption that teaching of English facilitates the acquisition of English Language. What is Pakistani teachers approach to the teaching of English language and does the way they teach English facilitate the language acquisition? The current study explores this question at secondary level in the context of Chitral, a remote district of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province Pakistan. The researcher visited the randomly selected secondary schools and consulted English teachers interviewing them and …

There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here: A Critical Race Perspective, Cleveland Hayes, Brenda Juarez

Democracy & Education

In this article, we are concerned with White racial domination as a process that occurs in teacher education and the ways it operates to hinder the preparation of teachers to effectively teach all students. Our purpose is to identify and highlight moments within processes of White racial domination when individuals and groups have and make choices to support rather than to challenge White supremacy. By highlighting and critically examining moments when White racial domination has been instantiated and recreated within our own experiences, we attempt to open up a venue for imagining and re-creating teacher education in ways that are …

English Language Learners In Tennessee Public Schools, Tennessee. Comptroller Of The Treasury.

Office of Research and Education Accountability

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of The Achievement Gap On Students Formally Identified As Gifted. Does Giftedness Prevail?, Dwayne T. Chism

Student Work

This study shows that minority students who, based upon a standardized test, have shown a high academic performance capability have a readiness for rigorous courses in high school and can sustain high academic achievement over time when compared to non-minority peers. Therefore, the on-going question for many educators needs to be why doesn't this hold true in many of our public school across this country? Why, in light of the accountability placed upon our nation's schools in 2001, is the prevailing discussion still about minority students being left behind? The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ninth-grade to …

Thank You, Merci, Shukran! Private Education And Language In Egypt, Ericka Galegher

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis examines the processes by which the reproduction of power and social hierarchies transpire in the field of international, private schools in Egypt. More specifically, I will analyze how the linguistic system in these schools reproduce and reinforce forms of power and inequality. I will consider the process by which nonnative languages, principally English, became the dominant and legitimate linguistic system of these schools, and how the complexities of their habitus have influenced students' language beliefs and practices. Language is a place for ideological contestation and identity assertion reinforcing power relations between groups and individuals. Differences in accent, grammar, …

Horizontal Educational Inequalities And Civil Conflict: The Nexus Of Ethnicity, Inequality, And Violent Conflict, Katharine M. Lindquist

Undergraduate Economic Review

Development economists have long questioned the relationship between civil conflict, inequality, and ethnic heterogeneity. While most quantitative literature has focused on inequality between individuals, this study analyzes the relationship of horizontal inequality – between groups of individuals sharing a common identity – and propensity for the onset of civil conflict, focusing on horizontal educational inequality (HEI). Findings from Demographic and Health Survey data for 44 countries from 1986 to 2005 show that measures of both female and male HEI are marginally or not significant in predicting civil conflict but strongly significant in predicting ethnic civil conflict.

Inclusion, Signing, Socialization, And Language Skills, Virginia Heslinga Ed. D., Erica Nevenglosky

Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education

21st-century education finds schools challenged to increase the inclusion of students with widely varying learning abilities, language backgrounds, social diversity, and skills. Educators and administrators acknowledge a need for interactive learning that engages visual, auditory, linear, spatial, tactile, and kinetic learning styles. Students’ styles for learning vary in combinations and intensity and teachers need to combine flexibility and creativity to present material and practices that will build enthusiasm for learning. Adding sign language to a classroom of heterogeneous learners that includes English language learners (ELL) will aid in generating a positive learning environment, inclusive and interactive for varied learning needs …

A Descriptive Study Of 21st Century Instructional Practices In The Association Of Christian Schools International In Kentucky, Ohio And West Virginia, Melanie E. White

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Association of Christian Schools International serves the evangelical Christian community and includes preschools, elementary and secondary schools as well as postsecondary institutions. Offering a viable and authoritative voice in education and contributing to the public good, ACSI enables Christian school students worldwide to acquire wisdom, knowledge, and a biblical worldview as evidenced by a lifestyle of character, leadership, service, stewardship and worship. Core beliefs include spiritual and academic excellence while their statement of faith shows their commitment to providing assistance to the needs of Christian educators and schools (Association of Christian Schools International, 2009). The rationale of this research project …

Assessing The Presence And Use Of Nonverbal Communication In Primary Reading Instruction, Amelia C. Ferrell

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This research examined the presence and types of nonverbal communication presented in primary reading instruction. Primary instructors were surveyed about their use and types of nonverbal communication employed during reading instruction. Nonverbal communication variables studied were determined from relevant literature regarding nonverbal immediacy, primary education, and reading instruction. Findings revealed that almost all nonverbal communication variables studied were employed frequently and most respondents had no prior training. Findings suggest how future studies can better evaluate the role of nonverbal communication in reading instruction and provide education for primary teachers in hopes of improving literacy education.

An Analysis Of Indiana Schools Implementing Alternative Teacher Evaluation Systems, Corey Wade Austin

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this content analysis research project was to determine if there were predictive qualities of the demographic groupings; student population, free and reduced percentage, and geographic setting on the teacher evaluation tools that are an alternative to the Indiana RISE model. This study surveyed Indiana superintendents regarding their anticipated 2012-13 evaluation tool. The schools that designated they would be using an alternative teacher evaluation tool were then asked to make available their research of their document for comparison to a research-based template. The research-based template is a derivative of the work of Danielson (2007), Marshall (2005), and Marzano …

Culturally Responsive Curriculum: Enrichment Projects For School Age-Children, MóNica Balbuena De La Sancha

Theses Digitization Project

This project addresses the need of a culturally responsive curriculum for children of Mexican descent. This culturally responsive curriculum was developed to expose children to Mexico's unique history, culture, traditions, and indigenous peoples.

News Capsule, Academy Of Student Pharmacists - University Of The Pacific

News Capsule

No abstract provided.

Saudi College Students' Preferences For Synchronous And Asynchronous Web-Based Courses: An Exploratory Study, Abdullah Al-Jabri

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Technology has become an essential component of the teaching-learning process, and online learning, in particular, has captivated the interest of manyEducational institutions throughout the world. Web-based learning has provided both students and teachers with new and unique ways of communicating with each other. As a result, many studies have been conducted to investigate factors affecting the establishment of productive communications in web-based settings. Likewise, the focus of this study is how the number of courses completed and the participants' perception of their English language competence impacted their preferences for synchronous and asynchronous web-based learning in English instruction and in Arabic …

A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Language Policy In California, Steven Gomez

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis aims to investigate the issues surrounding California's Proposition 227, an important language policy passed in June of 1998 which drastically limited bilingual education. This proposition requires that all public school systems be in English only. Using a method known as Critical Discourse Analysis, this study exposes the underlying bias embedded in the discourse of newspaper articles from: the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register, and the Sacramento Bee. After analyzing articles from these newspapers various themes emerged which indicated that each newspaper adhered to either assimilationists' position which is conservative, or a pluralist position which is backed …

Art As Method: Complicating Tales Of Visual Stenography And Implications For Urban Education And Research, Vanessa M. Jones

ETD Archive

How Black artists-othered and positioned at the margins of "civilization" in the United States-construct knowledge, context, and historical memory is informative to urban education research and policy. The exploration of this reflects the wisdom of an African proverb that others will tell the story of the struggle should it not first be told by those who live it. To create reciprocity between participants and the researcher, this study employed participatory methods and critical analysis of data from interview sessions, observation, works of art, journal reflections, and information from existing studies and artist documentaries. The study uncovers an approach to the …

The Effect Of A Dropout Prevention Program For Black High School Males In The Cleveland Metropolitan School District, RenéE T. Willis

ETD Archive

There is a new endangered species in this country - the black male. The education of the black male in the United States has recently garnered much-needed national attention. Two national reports in 2010 have heightened the awareness of the fact that the black male student is not successfully navigating our public school systems, often dropping out. Unfortunately, it now appears that this chorus of pessimism has entrenched itself in the minds of black boys, teachers, and even parents. At the very least, there are economic and moral reasons as to why we must help our black male students graduate …

The History Of Inequality In Education, Amity L. Noltemeyer, Julie Mujic, Caven S. Mcloughlin

History Faculty Publications

The purpose of this chapter is to consider a sampling of the critical events that demonstrate this history of inequity, with the understanding that they have contributed to the current status of American schools. To this end, we will explore relevant events related to the education of individuals of different racial, gender, language, and disability backgrounds. We do not intend to provide an exhaustive overview of the history of American education, nor will we provide a detailed account of the history of equity in the broader society outside of the educational sector. Rather, we will provide a cursory glimpse at …

Women, Men And Education In Azerbaijan, Kifayat Aghayeva

Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

There is a very popular saying in my country, “science is for a man, a woman’s place is at home.” Many talented women have struggled for a doctoral degree and most of them could not complete it because of one reason, a “violence rule of the main gatekeepers” of academia who are inclined to preserve the ideals to authorize their positions. As my research and teaching focus is gender, I always raise gender inequality problems in my scientific works. I have some articles dealing with marginalization of women within academia or slow inclusion of women into the National Academia of …

Educative Encounters: An Analysis Of Dewey, Buber And Noddings To Understand The Role Of Encountering Self, Others And The World In Teaching And Learning In Higher Education, Carrie Maureen Nolan

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation provides a novel conception of educative encounter as a means of providing a pedagogical framework for directing experience in the classroom for the purpose of cultivating growth, and specifically cultivating care (N. Noddings, 2003a). By honing in on encounter as the relational aspect of experience, emphasizing the importance of the relational quality of the learning experience, and articulating a different approach to teaching in higher education, this conception helps educators attend to strengthening learning outcomes oriented towards the growth of students. This serves towards the illumination of learning through and for educative encounter by addressing both the meaning …

International Pen Pals Engaging In A Transformational Early Childhood Project, Marcie Hill

All ETDs from UAB

The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to utilize an international pen pal project to enact transformation education by enabling students to gain a stronger respect for cultural diversity and changing students' perceptions of a diverse culture. A total of 39 sixth grade students, 16 second grade students, and two teachers participated in this study. One sixth grade teacher in Jakarta, Indonesia and one second grade teacher in north Alabama were participants and served as collaborative member checkers. Limited literature exists on the topic of pen pal writing between children who live in different nations with the goal …

Comparing Heritage And Non-Heritage Learning Outcomes And Target-Language Utilization In The Overseas Immersion Context: A Preliminary Study Of The Russian Flagship, Dan E. Davidson, Maria D. Lekic

Russian Language Journal

The heritage learner within U.S. foreign language education has received increasing attention over the past two decades, as university programs with substantial numbers of heritage students have developed improved diagnostic and curricular offerings for addressing the particular needs of those whose learning of their native language was incomplete or interrupted due to immigration to the U.S. (Valdés, 2000; Kagan & Dillon, 2004). While the heritage learner within the domestic language learning context is relatively well represented in the literature, relatively little research has been devoted to the acquisition experiences of heritage learners engaged in overseas immersion study (re-learning) of their …

The Effectiveness Of Etymological Elaboration As A Method Of Teaching Idioms To Adolescent English Language Learners, Julia L. Coryell

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The prevalence of idioms in both spoken and written English makes learning to comprehend and produce them important for English language learners. It may be particularly important for preadolescent and adolescent learners to become proficient with idioms because of their need to fit in with peers and the frequency with which idioms occur in classroom communication and academic texts. Idioms pose difficulties for non-native speakers because of their nature as both formulaic and figurative language, their cultural specificity, and the fact that their figurative meaning cannot necessarily be determined from the literal meanings of the constituent words.

Education In Juticalpa, Honduras : Analyzing Nonprofit Education's Impact On Socio-Cultural Reproduction, Eric Macias

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This Master's project explores education's impact on socio-cultural and economic reproduction in Juticalpa, Honduras. Utilizing comparative analysis, I investigate the education system in Juticalpa employing a public, private, and a nonprofit school as analytical lenses to illustrate how schools reproduce certain existing inequalities and create new ones in this city. The purpose in the following pages is three-fold. First, I conceptualize and explain the neoliberal education discourses on the need to create alternatives to public education, such as private and nonprofit education institutions. Secondly, after contextualizing these education discourses, I use social reproduction theory to investigate how schools reproduce existing …

A Postcolonial Comparative Study Of Secondary Education And Its Ideological Implications For West Indian Communities In Puerto Limon, Costa Rica ; Bluefields, Nicaragua ; And Old Providence Island, Colombia, Raquel Sanmiguel

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The present study sets out to identify the ideological implications that the current national systems of secondary education have for West Indians who ended up living in the “"buffer zone"” between Latin American and Anglophone Caribbean histories: Raizales in Old Providence Island, Colombia; Afrolimonenses in Limón, Costa Rica, and Creoles in Bluefields, Nicaragua. The axis of examination is the school curriculum both as practice and as a set of pre-determined content and goals that teachers have to follow. It is a critical analysis of the ideologies that inform education, supported by an inquiry into the historical and cultural factors that …

Undergraduate Latinas' Self-Definition Of Academic Success, Carla Machado Rodrigues

Master's Theses and Capstones

This master's level thesis's objective was to gain a better understanding of how a sample of 13 undergraduate Latinas who graduated high school and immediately enrolled into college define academic success. Through interviews, these undergraduate Latinas explain where these self-definitions came from, mentors that may have influenced these definitions, and if their ethnicity and gender has played any role in the way they perceive academic success. The study also considers findings from previous research regarding academic resilience factors associated with Latinas, such as: being involved in college ready initiatives, obtaining academic support from significant others, having mentors, receiving various messages …

How Porous Are The Walls That Separate Us?: Transformative Service-Learning, Women’S Incarceration, And The Unsettled Self, Coralynn V. Davis, Carol Wayne White

Faculty Journal Articles

In this article, we refine a politics of thinking from the margins by exploring a pedagogical model that advances transformative notions of service learning as social justice teaching. Drawing on a recent course we taught involving both incarcerated women and traditional college students, we contend that when communication among differentiated and stratified parties occurs, one possible result is not just a view of the other but also a transformation of the self and other. More specifically, we suggest that an engaged feminist praxis of teaching incarcerated women together with college students helps illuminate the porous nature of fixed markers that …

‘Because When Governments Speak, They Are Not Always Right’: National Construction And Orthographic Conflicts In Mid-Nineteenth Century Spain, Laura Villa

Global Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper analyzes the polemics surrounding the discursive legitimation and political institutionalization of different spelling systems circulating in mid-nineteenth-century Spain. In 1843, teachers associated with Madrid's Literary and Scientific Academy of Primary Education developed a simplified orthography and began to implement it in schools. In response to this independent initiative, Queen Isabel II signed a Royal Decree in 1844 that mandated the exclusive use of Royal Spanish Academy's orthography in Spain's primary education. The Literary and Scientific Academy contested the imposition and took actions to oppose its implementation, by organizing meetings and publishing essays to defend both the simplified orthography …

Catholic Schools, Charter Schools, And Urban Neighborhoods, Margaret F. Brinig, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Journal Articles

This paper addresses implications for urban neighborhoods of two dramatic shifts in the American educational landscape: (1) the rapid disappearance of Catholic schools from urban neighborhoods, and (2) the rise of charter schools. In previous studies, we linked Catholic school closures to increased disorder and crime, and decreased social cohesion, in Chicago neighborhoods. This paper turns to two questions unanswered in our previous investigations. First, because we focused exclusively on school closures in our previous studies, we were uncertain whether our results reflected the work that open Catholic schools do as neighborhood institutions or whether we were finding a “loss …

Multilingualism And Multiculturalism: Transatlantic Discourses On Language, Identity, And Immigrant Schooling, Rosemary C. Salomone

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In September 2010, an eye-catching article appeared on the front page of the New York Times “Arts” section. The headline read, “Cultures United to Honor Separatism.” Basque and Catalan nationalists, Sinn Fein leaders, and others were convening on the island of Corsica, not to chart out war strategies, as might have been expected, but rather to discuss cultural politics. As time would tell, pitched battles over sovereignty and independence seemed to be yielding to equally passionate calls for linguistic and cultural recognition. Facing the pressure of English as the global lingua franca, historically militant groups were placing their …

Perceptions Of Elementary Teachers From An Urban School District In Southern California Regarding Their Inquiry-Based Science Instructional Practices, Assessment Methods, And Professional Development, Romanus Iroabuchi Ugwu

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to describe the perceptions of elementary teachers from an urban school district in Southern California regarding their inquiry-based science instructional practices, assessment methods and professional development. The district's inquiry professional development called the California Mathematics and Science Projected, CaMSP lasted for two years. The CaMSP is a competitive grant awarded by the California Department of Education for the National Science Foundation (NSF) to schools and districts that meet the grant criteria for inquiry-based professional development. This district's professional development model was the five essential features of science inquiry recommended by the National Science …