Arts and Humanities Commons^™

We Have Arabic At This School?: The Impact Of Neoliberalism And Orientalism On Arabic Education In The United States, Ella V. Pastore

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research examines Arabic education in the United States at the undergraduate level, highlighting the question: How do forces such as Orientalism, globalization, and neoliberalism affect the way that the Arabic language is taught and recognized in the United States? The Arabic programs of three highly accredited American universities are presented, in relation to their Japanese programs. While Japanese is a language that faces its own Orientalisms and imperial history with the West, Japan is currently not a country that is prioritized through national security interests, with Arabic being designated as a “Critical Language”. Through examination of the advertisement of …

Curriculum As Theology: A Framework For Analyzing Curriculum As Theological Text, Russell Miller

The Journal of Faith, Education, and Community

This article seeks to establish a framework that contemplates curriculum as theological text by exploring the works of Neil Postman, W.F. Pinar, and C.S. Lewis in relation to past and present research and commentary. The paper investigates a range of concepts related to theology and curriculum including culture and religion, ethics, and morality. The author argues that curriculum is intrinsically a theological endeavor due to the nature of humanity and the interaction between learning and spiritual development.

Fashion Around The Francophone World: A 20-Unit Lesson Plan For Teaching Students 7-12 How To Discuss Clothing In French, Justin Solheim

Honors Theses

This paper is the directions for a high school French world language curriculum at the novice-low level. The curriculum covers 20 class periods, or four weeks, and it uses a variety of pedagogical techniques and technologies to help students quickly learn and retain French vocabulary and grammar. Each class period is 40 minutes. The lessons use a variety of assessments and feedback to help students improve and allow the teachers to monitor student achievement. The following lessons focus on forming basic sentences and practicing the basics of subject-verb agreement, while teaching the vocabulary for different types of clothing in the …

Scaffolding Strategies That Benefit And Support Adult English As A Foreign Language Reading Comprehension: A Literature Review, Walkiris Mejia Ortega

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The poor reading proficiency and the lack of reading comprehension strategies have been a major flaw for adult university learners in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, particularly in the case of English majors at the School of Foreign Languages in the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Research has shown this reading gap can be improved through suitable instructional strategies and assistance referred to as scaffolding. The purpose of this literature review was to investigate how beneficial scaffolding is for EFL adults´ reading comprehension, which scaffolding strategies prove effective in supporting EFL reading comprehension, and how those …

Keynote: Story Culture Live: Black American Story Spaces As Actionable Antiracism Work, Clarissa J. Walker

Writing Center Journal

“Story Culture Live: Black American Story Spaces as Actionable Antiracism Work,“ was a keynote given at the Northeast Writing Centers Association Conference at the University of New Hampshire in spring 2023. The keynote details the genesis of my podcast, Story Culture Live, which reimagines storytelling as actionable activism in antiracist work and explores concepts such as Black teller agency, kinship, and collective responses to tensions through storytelling that can inform and build new stories in writing centers.

Front Matter

Writing Center Journal

Front matter and editors' introduction to The Writing Center Journal 41:2 (2023).

Embedded Vs. Drop-In Tutors In Developmental Writing Contexts: Course/Tutoring Perceptions And Impact On Student Writing Efficacy, Kendon Kurzer, Anna Hayden, Jennifer Nguyen

Writing Center Journal

Many higher education institutions offer drop-in tutoring programs hosted by writing specialists to support struggling students while others may also/alternatively embed tutors directly into courses. In this quasi-experimental study, we compared survey results from 100 students in basic/developmental courses that featured embedded peer tutors with 78 students who experienced tutoring via a walk-in writing center. Variables explored included writing efficacy and course/tutor perception survey items. While students generally found both embedded and walk-in tutoring to be helpful, the ratings for embedding tutoring tended to be statistically stronger for most variables we investigated, suggesting that students responded more positively to embedded …

Keynote: Butting Heads And The Agency To Yield: Maverick Considerations In The Writing Center, Rebecca Hallman Martini

Writing Center Journal

Despite their history of marginalization, writing centers need to be spaces where consultants, writers, and administrators act with agency. This requires both knowing when and how to act, as well as deciding when to yield. In challenging policies of seeming neutrality, I argue in this manuscript that writing center practitioners can center the needs and knowledge of consultants and writers alike. Finally, I call for more research about writer experiences with writing centers, which can (and should) meaningfully shape our administrative practices.

Keynote: Looking At Writing Centers Through Scientific Spectacles: The Expertise And Commitments That Characterize Contemporary Writing Centers, Bradley Hughes

Writing Center Journal

This article is adapted from a keynote address at the July 2022 European Writing Centers Association (EWCA) conference, sponsored by the University of Graz in Austria, whose theme focused on writing centers as spaces of empowerment. Designed for peer tutors as well as writing center faculty, this talk first celebrates some examples of writing centers empowering student writers and tutors. It then attempts to articulate what scientific spectacles allow us to see when we look deeper into these examples of empowerment: some of the big ideas, the abstract principles, the constellation of expertise and commitments that underlie our contemporary writing …

Prison: The New Frontier Of Collaborative Learning, Jamal Bakr

Writing Center Journal

This essay explores writing center theories and collaborative praxis from the perspective of an individual who has experienced long-term isolation and incarceration. This writer reflects on how participation in his college-in- prison community, including his service as a writing tutor and teaching fellow, has led to his immersion in prosocial healing behaviors that come with liberative and collaborative pedagogical processes.

Calling In Antiracist Accomplices Beyond The Writing Center, Hillary Coenen

Writing Center Journal

A reflective, ethnographic study of a grassroots, antiracist educational workshop (The Conversation Workshops, TCW) reveals that writing center (WC) pedagogy and feminist invitational rhetoric’s (FIR) influence on TCW enables participants to recognize their own and their partners’ expertise, meaningful experiences, valuable perspectives, and their need to be listened to, accounted for, and understood. In an invitational model, particularly one based on a one-with- one, interpersonal dynamic, participants are more like collaborators than audiences, an approach that can be applied in diverse educational settings, and which reflects the WC’s model of one-with- one pedagogy. This dynamic also reveals one of TCW’s …

Back Matter

Writing Center Journal

Back Matter for WCJ 41.2.

The Impact Of Writing Center Consultations On Student Writing Self-Efficacy, Isabelle M. Lundin, Victoria O'Connor, Sherry Wynn Perdue

Writing Center Journal

This study sought to determine the impact writing center consultations have on student writing self-efficacy and to illuminate effective consultant strategies for fostering student writing confidence. As part of a multimethods study, a survey was administered for students to reflect upon and to assess their feelings of writing self-efficacy by describing experiences in writing center consultations. Selected respondents were asked to elaborate on the strategies used by their peer consultant(s) in an optional open-ended interview. Findings suggest that writing center consultations help increase writing self-efficacy. The effective consultant strategies described by study participants are synthesized into an overarching consultant framework …

Destigmatizing Working With Dyslexic Learners, Riley N. Dandurand

Writing Center Journal

In the field of writing center research there is a paucity of information regarding tutoring students with dyslexia. This comes as no surprise considering it is only in the last 50 years that there has been a conscious effort to include those who have exceptionalities in all areas of education. In addition to a lack of research and training there is another issue that arises with disclosing exceptionalities. Those studying dyslexia have found that students are hesitant to disclose their learning disability because of the stigma and feelings of differentiation from their peers (Brizee et al., 2012). The question then …

Keynote: Notions Of Writing Center Community And Some Challenges To Them, Carol Severino

Writing Center Journal

It is crucial for writing center professionals who discuss community to ask ourselves what we mean by the term as applied to writing centers. In this keynote, I explore various notions of community that are influenced by writing center growth, expansion, and complexity, especially in relation to Iowa’s writing center. After relating a personal story about our new tutors’ traditional notion of community and an account of our own center’s expansion and growing complexity over the decades, which challenges their traditional notion, I discuss other obstacles to community, bringing in the critiques of writing center scholars. Finally, I synthesize what …

Review: Expanding Writing Center Research With Discourse Analysis, Sara Swaim, Randall W. Monty

Writing Center Journal

Corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) is a growing field of study that provides for holistic understandings of written texts, spoken discourse, rhetorical strategies, and the people who use them. Organized as a discussion of the topics, methods, and their potential applications for writing center research, this essay reviews three edited collections, Corpus Approaches to Discourse: A Critical Review by Charlotte Taylor and Anne Marchi (Routledge, 2018); The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Approaches to Discourse Analysis by Eric Friginal and Jack A. Hardy (Routledge, 2020); and Research Methods for Digital Discourse Analysis by Camilla Vásquez (Bloomsbury, 2022). Each introduces a range of …

Creating A Productive Ela Classroom Environment, Caroline E. Schack, Hagan Wells, Gary A. Pickle

New Jersey English Journal

Two early service teachers and one pre-service teacher offer strategies for creating a more effective, inclusive ELA classroom experience. The approaches include writing as a process, unification of behavioral management through class assignments, and a restorative approach to communication. Implementing these strategies can revive productivity in the ELA classroom.

A Post-Pandemic Perspective: Challenges, Choices, And Adaptations, Joseph S. Pizzo

New Jersey English Journal

This poem deals with the challenges of returning to an in-person experience after having faced the challenges associated with teaching in remote and hybrid classrooms during the pandemic.

Decolonizing French: Afrophonics In Ken Bugul’S Aller Et Retour (2013), Hapsatou Wane

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article explores the innovative language strategies employed by Senegalese writer Ken Bugul in her novel Aller et retour to construct a dynamic and interconnected linguistic landscape that challenges fixed language boundaries. Ken Bugul's "langue fabriquée" combines elements of French, Wolof, and English, reflecting a transglocal dimension that embodies the essence of afrophonics—a poetics of resistance that empowers local cultures in a globalized context. Through a detailed analysis of Ken Bugul's linguistic choices, including the use of quotation marks, footnotes, and arbitrary transcription, the study reveals how she creates a language that defies categorization and decolonizes French without resorting to …

"I'M Really Just Scared Of The White Parents": A Teacher's Perceptions Of Barriers To Discussing Racial Injustice, Shimikqua Elece Ellis, Christian Goering

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose - This study explores the perceived barriers that a Secondary English teacher faced when attempting to discuss racial injustice through young adult literature in Mississippi.

Design/methodology/approach- The authors rely on Critical Whiteness Studies and qualitative methods to explore the following research question: What are the barriers that a White ELA teacher perceives when teaching about racial injustice through The Hate U Give?

Findings- The authors found that there were several perceived barriers to discussing modern racial injustice in the Mississippi ELA classroom. The participating teacher indicated the following barriers: a lack of racial literacy, fears of discomfort, and an …

Improving Students’ Confidence And Competence Using Critical Media Literacy Skills In A Secondary English Language Arts Class, Leeanne Kline

Doctor of Education in Secondary and Middle Grades Education Dissertations

This is a dissertation for a six-week action research study that investigated how self-regulated learning strategies can affect students’ perceived and demonstrated critical abilities in discussing informational media texts in the secondary ELA classroom. This dissertation examines topical research, gaps in the literature, and theoretical frameworks to justify the study. The qualitative action research study implemented a version of the Article of the Week program alongside self-regulated learning (SRL) and student-led discussion strategies to collect data on students’ self-reported levels and observed critical media literacy (CML) skills. The purpose of this study was to build upon existing research on SRL, …

Verb Strings And Other Weavings: An Exploration Of Grammatical Structures, Visual Arts, And Language Teaching, Mae Bash

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

In language education, visual arts are sometimes used as a tool to inspire communication and convey cultural concepts. However, limited research has looked into the application of visual arts in the classroom for the exploration of linguistic patterns. Both languages and weavings are complex systems governed by distinct sets of rules, yet they still permit infinite unique productions. This project explores this relationship by presenting five bandweavings, each of which is designed based on the rules and structures of different languages. These weavings show that it is possible to connect art and language through practical, structural methods, not only abstract …

Afl Students’ Perception Of Using Mnemonics As A Strategy To Enhance Their Vocabulary Acquisition And Retention, Elsayed Elsisi

Theses and Dissertations

Research in the field of language teaching and learning reveals that mnemonics is one of the most effective language learning strategies for vocabulary. Researchers like Rasiban, et al. (2019); Levin (1993); Zulfa (2019); Kayaaltu (2018) suggest that using mnemonics to learn new vocabulary has a positive effect on vocabulary retention and retrieval. Research also shows however that students’ perceptions may encourage or inhibit the usage of any learning strategy depending on their perceptions of its effectiveness. Hence the importance of detecting learner perception about any learning or teaching device. Despite the above there is limited research about students’ perceptions about …

Emi (English-Medium Instruction) In Cambodian Higher Education, Benedict Lin, Kingsley Bolton, John Bacon-Shone, Bophan Khan

English Faculty Publications

This article is based on empirical research carried out at the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), Cambodia, between 2018 and 2019. The research involved both quantitative and qualitative approaches. In the case of the former, the researchers conducted a large-scale survey of students involving 956 respondents, of whom 79 were postgraduate students, while the overwhelming majority were studying at the undergraduate level. The qualitative data collected in this project comprised detailed interviews with undergraduates studying at RUPP. The results of both types of data collection indicated that, although many students faced difficulties in studying through the medium of English, …

Emi (English-Medium Instruction) In Indonesian Higher Education, Kingsley Bolton, Christopher Hill, John Bacon-Shone, Karen Peyronnin

English Faculty Publications

This article reports on the investigation of English-medium instruction (EMI) in Indonesian higher education. Two separate but related studies were carried out. In Phase One, a mixed method approach using a questionnaire and interviews was used at a private university in Jakarta in order to gauge the responses of undergraduates studying a range of subjects through English. The results of Phase One suggested that the students at this university generally had high levels of proficiency in English and coped rather well with EMI. Phase Two of the study involved interviewing 17 educators across multiple institutions, and the results of this …

Emi (English-Medium Instruction) Across The Asian Region, Kingsley Bolton, John Bacon-Shone, Werner Botha

English Faculty Publications

This article has two main aims. First, to describe the general background to English-medium instruction (EMI) with reference to Outer Circle and Expanding Circle societies in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. Second, it analyses data from each of the four case studies in the symposium in this issue in order to identify and explain the background to, and varying forms, of EMI in higher education in Cambodia, Indonesia, Singapore, and South Korea.

Emi (English-Medium Instruction) In South Korean Elite Universities, Kingsley Bolton, Hyejeong Ahn, Werner Botha, John Bacon-Shone

English Faculty Publications

This article provides an extensive review of previous research on English-medium instruction (EMI) in South Korean higher education. It then goes on to discuss the findings of a 2017 survey at four elite universities in South Korea, which were Seoul National University, Korea University, Yonsei University, and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). While some of the results could be regarded as predictable, there were a number of findings which extended previous research. Despite the extensive complaint tradition about English in South Korea, many of the students in our sample rated their proficiency rather highly. Notwithstanding the extensive …

Emi (English-Medium Instruction) In Singapore's Major Universities, Werner Botha, Kingsley Bolton, John Bacon-Shone

English Faculty Publications

In this article we report on the dynamics of English-medium instruction (EMI) in Singaporean higher education, where we describe the context of EMI with reference to the multilingual background and multilingual practices of university students in their educational as well as personal lives. Our study surveyed over one thousand students from Singapore's six main universities, where we investigated the multilingual backgrounds of students at these universities, their language practices, and their experience of EMI education. Whereas our previous research has focused on the language policies and practices in just one of Singapore's universities, this project surveyed language use in all …

Representaciones Ideológicas Del Lenguaje Entre La Población Mexicana En Nueva York, Maria Del Rocio Carranza Brito

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the linguistic ideologies that Mexican migrants bring when migrating and reproduce in their daily interactions with other Spanish and English speakers, as well as the representations of the language presented in their linguistic behaviors. This work presents an intersectional analysis where the factors of gender, migratory status, education, and work are determining factors in the adoption, maintenance, and reproduction of language ideologies, which affect the linguistic decisions of the speakers in their use of Spanish, learning of English and the support of bilingualism. Based on the stereotypical idea of Spanish as the …

Silently Correcting Your Grammar: Responses To Feedback And Adult Learners' Rural Writing Ecosystems, Jessica Marie Kubiak

English Theses & Dissertations

Over a century ago, rhetoricians called on writing instructors in the U.S. to accept and even encourage language diversity among learners. Yet scholars of composition, rhetoric, and writing studies are still advocating for this via arguments for linguistic justice and translingualism, even referring to strict adherence to a single, mainstream standard for language use as a kind of violence. This disconnect between scholarship and practice is evident in the silences surrounding first-year composition language instruction. This dissertation charts that disciplinary disconnect and then describes how adult students at a rural, open-access community college experience first-year composition feedback, with special attention …