Reading and Language Commons^™

Dominican Spanish In New York : Language Attitudes And Variation Of Final /ɾ/ And /L/, Gabriel Valentín Guadalupe

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The objective of this dissertation is to contribute to the growing body of research on sociolinguistic variation of final liquids in Caribbean Spanish in a language and dialectal contact situation. To achieve that objective, this study analyzes the Spanish of Dominicans in the New York Metropolitan Area. The dissertation has two main goals. The first is to describe language attitudes among Dominicans in New York. Data extracted from questionnaires are analyzed to show how Dominicans evaluate their varieties of Spanish and those of others. Additionally, the dissertation looks at whether inter- and intra-group interactions affect language attitudes. The second goal …

Word Frequency Level And Lexical Coverage In The Reading Comprehension Texts Of The Malaysian University English Test, Melisa Charles Benedict, Ahmad Affendi Shabdin

PASAA

The central foundation of knowledge is through grasping what is being read. Therefore, it is significant to recognise the difficulty level of a reading text for better and comprehensive understanding. The present study is an attempt to identify the word frequency level and lexical coverage of the Malaysian University English Test (MUET) reading texts which is deemed to be intricate for students. The anticipation of the Education Ministry of Malaysia is that students are capable and competent in comprehending academic texts which is required of them at the university. Nonetheless, the problem lies in students’ lack of vocabulary size and …

The Relationship Between Culture And The Learning And Teaching Of English: A North-Eastern Thailand Perspective Under A Socio-Cultural Lens, Steven Graham

PASAA

This qualitative study focuses on the adoption of learner-centeredness in the English language classroom, and whether it is mediated by culture. With the use of observations, and interviews, and using a socio-cultural framework, this investigation examines primary school teachers’ perceptions of learner-centered teaching, how they implement that teaching in the classroom and how this is negotiated by culture. Students’ perceptions of their learning are also reflected upon. The research findings reveal that most teachers were able to demonstrate aspects of learnercentered teaching; however, they were not proficient in explaining theory. They emphasised that their effectiveness was impacted by a lack …

Using Ted Talks For Extensive Listening, Euodia Inge Gavenila, Mega Wulandari, Willy A. Renandya

PASAA

Extensive listening (EL) is an approach to teaching listening which can help students develop their listening fluency in a more enjoyable way. However, unlike extensive reading which has now enjoyed widespread recognition, EL has received relatively little attention, partly because of the limited availability of suitable listening materials. Given the popularity of TED Talks which are freely available online, we were interested in exploring this online resource as a source of EL materials for our college EFL students. Two questions guided our research: (1) what factors are considered important by EFL students when choosing TED Talks as their extensive listening …

Efl Students’ And Teachers’ Perceptions Of Sources Of Students’ Demotivation: A Comparative Study, Moriam Quadir

PASAA

EFL (English as a foreign language) learners’ demotivation has not yet received adequate research attention in the third world countries. This paper reports on a study that was carried out to explore students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the sources of learners’ demotivation to study English as a school subject at higher secondary (HS) level (grade 11 and 12) in Bangladesh. To collect qualitative data from HS students and teachers two interview guides were developed based on the identified EFL demotivation factors in a study (Quadir, 2017) conducted in the educational context of Bangladesh. 30 HS level students and 17 English …

Efl Teachers' Job Satisfaction And Burnout In Iran, Maryam Soleimani, Amin Bolourchi

PASAA

This study was an attempt to examine the relationship between EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers' job satisfaction and burnout in public schools and private institutes in Iran. Participants in this study were 120 EFL teachers (60 from public schools and 60 from private institutes) in Urmia, Iran. The researchers administered Ho and Au's (2006) job satisfaction questionnaire and Maslach, Jackson, and Leiter's (1996) burnout questionnaire, containing 22 items each, to measure the teachers' job satisfaction and burnout levels, respectively. Having collected the quantitative data, the researchers interviewed 10 participants to find out the sources of teachers' job dissatisfaction …

Thai Tertiary Learners’ Attitudes Towards Their Thai English Accent, Eric A. Ambele, Yusop Boonsuk

PASAA

The global spread of English nowadays has led to a shifted role in the use of English as an international lingua franca in expanding-circle contexts like Thailand. The purpose of this study was therefore to examine Thai university students’ attitudes towards their own Thai-English accent, in addition to how the notion of standard language ideology in Thailand plays an influential role in their English accent attitudes. The research further explores the perspectives of the students regarding their acceptability of Thai-English accent by adopting a mixed-method approach using both questionnaire and interview as research instruments. The findings reveal a controversial perspective …

Self-Representation Of Filipino Teachers And Korean Learners Of English In Online Classes, Leonardo Munalim, Betty Tuttle, Cecilia Genuino

PASAA

With an exhaustive survey of published studies, we found that no attempts have been made to analyze classroom talks between Filipino teachers and Korean students of English in online ESL classes. The reason may be attributed to the arduous labor of transcribing and analyzing the data both macro- and microscopically. This lacuna may have provided teachers and students a poor understanding of the features of talk of both interlocutors in an online modality. For this study, we looked at the way Filipino teachers and Korean students of English represented themselves using the first-person pronoun “I” (1PP) through the lens of …

“She Taught Me Words”: The Availability Of Vocabulary Help In Efl Classrooms During Cooperative Learning’S Peer Interaction, Puji Astuti, Leslie Barratt

PASAA

While literature suggests the significance of peer interaction for language learners, little is known about how the interaction specifically works to benefit them. Additionally, while putting students in groups has become a widespread practice in language classrooms, most teachers appear not to have a clear idea of how to structure classroom interaction and cooperation so that learning goes in the direction of helping learners to attain communicative competence. To address the gap in the literature and lessen the theory-practice contrast, this qualitative case study was conducted by looking at how cooperative learning (CL) processed in EFL classrooms, with specific attention …

You Understand I Na Ka?: A Study Of Comprehensibility Of Thai English To Foreign Tourists, Kukiet Phuengpitipornchai, Adisa Teo

PASAA

The objectives of this study were to explore foreign tourists’ responses to Thai English, a variety of English emerging in Thailand, in terms of comprehensibility, and to identify the linguistic features that made Thai English incomprehensible. One hundred international tourists in Bangkok from four regions including East Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and North America were surveyed after they listened to a set of five authentic speech samples from four speakers in Thai tourism industry. The data were collected and analysed quantitatively and qualitatively to yield multidimensional results. The results show that Thai English was comprehensible to most of the tourists …

Diversity Of Cultural Sources In Elt Activity Books: A Case Study Of A Multicultural Primary School In Thailand, Kulthida Saemee, Singhanat Nomnian

PASAA

Thai government schools have become multicultural due to an increasing number of migrant students whose parents are from neighboring ASEAN countries. Although published English language teaching (ELT) materials have been researched extensively, supplementary materials that are integrated as additional resources for teachers and students such as workbooks or activity books used in Thai government schools are under-researched. This study investigated the cultural diversity content represented in six ELT activity books used in a primary school located in Samut Sakhon province in Thailand. Cortazzi and Jin’s (1999) cultural concept was employed as a framework to analyze layers of cultural diversity represented …

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Literacy Instruction With Autistic Students During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Heather Ann Marzenski

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Families and educators have voiced concerns about the literacy skills of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the situation. Pandemic era studies have demonstrated the ramifications that students with ASD have faced, including regression of literacy skills, lower grades, lack of support services, and subpar instruction. Teachers' perceptions remained unexamined in the pandemic era studies. The purpose of this basic qualitative dissertation was to examine teachers’ perceptions about the materials and strategies used to deliver literacy instruction during the pandemic for students with ASD. The conceptual frameworks that underpinned this study were self-determination theory …

Teaching Persuasion In Multiple Contexts, Peter J. Capuano

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Teaching Persuasion in Multiple Contexts by Peter J. Capuano, a chapter in Approaches to Teaching Austen's Persuasion, edited by Marcia McClintock Folsom and John Wiltshire, published by the Modern Language Association of America, New York, 2021.

Introduction

Jane Austen's more well-known fiction has inspired strong attachments from many people (instructors and students alike), but Persuasion might be Austen's most dynamic and teachable novel. In fact, one of the many advantages of teaching Persuasion is that so many students-even the ones who come into my courses already professing their love for Austen's works-have never read the text before. They are …

Sites Of Interpretation In The “Gaza” Of Johannes De Alta Silva, James Johnson

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This essay places the reader at one of three sites of interpretation in Johannes de Alta Silva’s “Gaza,” located at the levels of 1) story, 2) frame narrative, and 3) reader. Identifying these levels as distinct spaces within which interpretation unfolds, I examine the level of the reader to demonstrate how the text explicitly shapes the reader’s role. Composed c. 1200 CE, “Gaza” is one of ten stories in Alta Silva’s Dolopathos, which forms a part of the larger medieval tradition known as The Seven Sages. Drawing upon concepts from narratology (Genette, Prince) and the phenomenology of reader response …

Educating For Global Competence: Co-Constructing Outcomes In The Field: An Action Research Project, Kristina A. Van Winkle

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Capacity building for globally competent educators is a 21st Century imperative to address contemporary complex and constantly changing challenges. This action research project is grounded in positive psychology, positive organizational scholarship, relational cultural theory, and relational leadership practices. It sought to identify adaptive challenges educators face as they try to integrate globally competent teaching practices into their curricula, demonstrate learning and growth experienced by the educators in this project, and provide guidance and solutions to the challenges globally competent educators face. Six educators participated in this three-phase project, which included focus groups, reflective journal entries, and an exit interview. Data …