Education Commons^™

Functions, Forms, And Accessibility Of English As A Second Language Courses In South-Central Kentucky, Mollie Todd

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

In the South-Central region of Kentucky there are several facilities that teach English as Second Language (ESL) courses. This thesis examines the forms and styles of these classes, as well as problems refugee students face in the classroom and the functions the classes may serve beyond the teaching of English. To accomplish this, I used anthropological field work methods, including semi-structured interviews with local ESL teachers, volunteers, and professionals in refugee services and participant observation. I will focus on the interviews I have conducted; what content has been collected, structure of the interviews, and what questions were asked. This paper …

The L1 Context Embedding Method In Foreign Language Vocabulary Instruction: A Comparative Study With The Keyword Method, Jordan V. Nanda

Linguistics Senior Research Projects

The L1 Context Embedding Method that has been proposed and tested by Zi-Gang (2015), consists of inserting target L2 vocabulary, with translations in brackets, into an L1 story text. It has been demonstrated by Zi-Gang (2015) to be more effective than rote memorization. This current study tested the L1 Context Embedding Method against the Keyword Method (Atkinson, 1975) to see if the two methods are comparable. Sixteen university students from an Elementary Spanish class were taught 10 novel Spanish words using each method in a counterbalanced presentation order. They were administered an immediate posttest for each set of 10 words …

Reaching For The Heart: An Analysis Of Language As A Weapon Of Empathy For Three Capetonians, Sarah Mcdonald

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In this paper, I examine the role that cross-cultural language study plays in the lives of three Capetonians in order to explore its capacity to foster empathy between people of different backgrounds. Framed in the context of South African history and modern academic discourse around language use in educational and public spaces in the country, I present the stories of my three interviewees and analyze particular experiences that they relayed in order to trace trends of empathy and understanding through their language use.

Through my discussion of this qualitative data, I reach the conclusion that language can be an effective …

"Ewondo In The Classes, French For The Masses." Mother-Tongue Education In Yaoundé, Cameroon., Parker Henry

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Cameroon is home to over two hundred eighty native languages coming from three language families, making it one of the most linguistically diverse countries on Earth. Despite this, native languages hold very few domains in Cameroonian society. In recent years, several experimental programs have begun to implement native languages in schools citing that children learn best in their mother tongue. Among these include ELAN-Afrique, an initiative put forth by La Francophonie with the main aim of helping students better learn French by way of their mother tongue. This paper seeks to differentiate the benefits prescribed or expected by overhead actors …

Welcome To Ilead: An Introduction To Intercultural Communication For Intensive English Program Students, Sharon Tjaden-Glass

Center for International Programs Publications and Presentations

Presentation introduces participants to the rationale, curriculum, and outcomes of the iLEAD intercultural communication program.

A Handbook And Materials For Ilead: An Intercultural Communication Program Between Intensive English Program And Teacher Education Students, Sharon Tjaden-Glass

Center for International Programs Publications and Presentations

iLEAD is an intercultural communication program for university students that focuses on developing intercultural competence through guided conversations and shared activities. iLEAD stands for “International Language Exchange and Dialogue.” It was developed through a partnership between the Intensive English Program and the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Dayton.

The educational context: There is a stark difference in how domestic and international students experience the university. The majority of university students fit into the description of traditional, residential students. However, many international students do not fit the traditional, residential student demographic. Many of our international students who come …

Perspectives On Effective Teaching In Dli And Foreign Language Classrooms, Karin Dejonge-Kannan, Maria Luisa Spicer-Ecalante, Elizabeth Abell, Aaron Salgado

Languages, Philosophy, and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Qualities, Practices, And Theories Held By Award-Winning Second Language College Teachers, Leendert Van Beek

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

It is important for second language college teachers to know what kinds of teaching and learning approaches are most effective for their students. This basic qualitative study presents the perspectives exceptional second language teachers have regarding their own qualities of excellence, practices, philosophies of teaching, and theories of learning. The purpose of the study was to identify, describe, and understand these perspectives. Sixteen of such teachers, all of whom had won one or more awards of excellence from professional organizations, were interviewed, and the collected data were analyzed through three levels of coding. The main research question regarding the perspectives …

Investigating Vocabulary Abilities In Bilingual Portuguese-English-Speaking Children, Ana Paula Fabian

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the vocabulary abilities of bilingual Portuguese-English-speaking children compared to their monolingual peers. Parental Report Surveys were conducted using the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs), which are standardized norms for vocabulary assessment. Electronic versions of the “Words and Sentences CDI” in English and Brazilian-Portuguese were used in order to assess the vocabulary of children between the ages of 16 and 36 months. Parents answered the surveys online.

Different vocabulary score types were used in order to evaluate the children’s lexicons: The Total Vocabulary score, the Conceptual Vocabulary scores, and the Total Modified Vocabulary. The analyses of the results …

Ideology, Access, And Status: Spanish-English Bilinguals In The Foreign-Language Classroom, Michael E. Rolland

Graduate Student Publications and Research

Spanish language teaching in US higher education is today generally divided between ‘foreign language’ courses for novice learners and ‘heritage language’ courses for Hispanic/Latinx students with some knowledge of the language. However, ‘heritage’ students are a linguistically diverse group, and are also often enrolled at institutions where heritage courses are not offered. Little research to date has studied ‘heritage’ speakers enrolled in ‘foreign’ language courses. For this study I conducted semi-structured interviews to explore the affective and ideological characteristics of bilingual students enrolled in elementary Spanish courses. As the literature suggests, I find that these students have a generally low …

¿Vera O Verra? Using Principles Of Task-Based Language Teaching To Practice Spanish Rhotics, Avizia Long

Faculty Publications

Research on task-based language teaching and learning has demonstrated that tasks may encourage second/foreign language development, specifically by facilitating conditions believed to engage processes that are important for second language acquisition to occur (Robinson, 2011; Skehan, 2014). Recent studies conducted by Solon, Long, and Gurzynski-Weiss (2014, 2015) have demonstrated that tasks designed to make pronunciation task essential do encourage learner attention to pronunciation, and increasing task complexity leads to greater accuracy in the production of the Spanish vowels [o] and [u]. This micro-teaching lesson, inspired by Solon et al., will showcase a task designed to make the pronunciation of the …

Effects Of Parent Child Interaction And Language Stimulation On Children's Language Development, Rachel E. Timm, Helen Raikes

UCARE Research Products

Research Questions:

• Does parent positive regard relate to a child’s receptive language development?

• Does language stimulation relate to a child’s receptive language development?

• Does parent bookreading behavior (reading fluency, reading intonation/animation, comfort level, and child involvement) relate to a child’s receptive language development?

Measures:

• Preschool Language Scale-5 (PLS-5)
• Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-4 (PPVT-4)
• HOME Language and Literacy Scale
• Video Codes from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care

Results:

• Positive regard was not significantly related to the PLS-5 or the PPVT-4.
• The HOME Language and Literacy Scale was a significant predictor of the PPVT-4 and was related to the PLS-5 …

The Effects Of Bilingualism And Multilingualism On Lexical Retrieval, Sarah E. Young

Linguistics Senior Research Projects

This research reviews literature that has been written concerning the positive and negative cognitive impact bilingualism has on the speaker. It then takes this research one step further asking whether increasing the number of languages one speaks slows down the person’s lexical retrieval. Methods include an interview and two tests, the data from which strongly supports the hypothesis mentioned in the literature review that bilingualism slows down lexical processing. This research concludes that having more languages does increase a person’s difficulty with retrieving words on demand.

Key terms: bilingualism, lexical retrieval, RIF, retrieval induced forgetting, aphasia, tip of the tongue, …

Improving Head Start Teachers' Concept Development: Long Term Follow-Up Of A Training Program And Differences In Program Impact, Amanda Kr Lipp

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Children from a low socioeconomic status (SES) home environment are typically exposed to less vocabulary during the first few years of life and experience higher rates of poor school readiness, particularly in emergent literacy skills, when compared to middle-class peers (Bowey, 1995; Hart & Risley, 2003; Whitehurst, 1997). Early childhood education programs designed to expose this group to cognitively challenging utterances have found that low SES children tend to make greater gains in vocabulary development compared to middle-class peers (Justice, Meier, & Walpole, 2005).

An Extensive, Critical, And Academic Listening Module For Advanced English Language Learners, Sharon Tjaden-Glass

Center for International Programs Publications and Presentations

Listening and note-taking is a challenging skill for many advanced English language learners because it involves multiple cognitive processes: listening, writing, and reading. Even with targeted instruction of listening strategies, a recurring complaint from advanced English learners is that they simply cannot handle listening to long stretches of English. In this paper, the author presents a supplemental instructional component that provides extensive, critical, and academic listening practice for students who need to strengthen their listening skills.

Nonstandard Languages: The Outcasts Of The Language Revitalization Movement, Whitney Snowden

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis compares the failures of the creolization movement with the success of the language revitalization movement and seeks to determine which elements are missing from the former to make it as successful as the latter. Education policy, identity, and language ideology are all examined as contributors to the future success of creole inclusivity in education and society, as well as the potential benefits such a movement would include. Specifically examined are Siegel’s research on creole education and Armstrong’s work on language ideology.

The Effect Of Two Foreign Language Teaching Approaches, Communicative Language Teaching And Teaching Proficiency Through Reading And Storytelling, On Motivation And Proficiency For Spanish Iii Students In High School, Maite Blanton

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this comparative study was to examine the effects of two foreign language teaching approaches--communicative language teaching and teaching proficiency through reading and storytelling--on motivation and proficiency for Spanish III students in high school. These two teaching approaches have gained prominence over the last couple of decades and no consensus exists between second language (L2) researchers and practitioners on which approach might be best to increase students' motivation to learn and to become proficient. One hundred and seventeen Spanish III students in high school studying with the TPRS or the CLT teaching approach, completed the LLOS-IEA Motivation Scale …

Use Of Phonetics In The Beginner French Classroom: An Analysis Of Textbooks, Melissa B. Scarbrough

Honors Scholar Theses

Textbooks are a common resource for teachers in a variety of content areas, as such it is important that teachers know whether or not textbooks are aligned to standards and current research. This study investigates if common textbooks, reported to be in use in schools across Connecticut, are aligned to recent second language acquisition and French linguistics studies.

Order Of Acquisition: A Comparison Of L1 And L2 English And Spanish Morpheme Acquisition, Kyle A. Mcferren

Senior Honors Theses

This paper examines the order of acquisition for grammatical morphemes in Spanish and English first and second language learners. Brown’s first morpheme order study, conducted in 1973, laid the foundation for what would become one of the most common types of study conducted within the field of second language acquisition. The four orders of acquisition relevant here are examined and compared in order to support the roles of salience, morphophonological regularity, complexity, input frequency, and native language transfer in first and/or second language acquisition. The conclusion is that these five determinants work interdependently in determining the difficulty of acquiring a …

Is Service-Learning The Answer? Preparing Teacher Candidates To Work With Ells Through Service-Learning Experiences, Sandra Rodriguez-Arroyo

Scholarship of Metropolitan Mission

In an effort to address the gaps in preparing teacher candidates (TCs) to work with English Language Learners (ELLs), service-learning experiences (SLE) were integrated into two courses within a teacher education program. This exploratory case study sought to explore the outcomes of teacher candidates (TCs) engaged in SLE with diverse students and families, particularly ELLs. Content analysis of students’ reflections provided insights of the impact of the SLE. Findings indicate that participating in service-learning with ELLs provides opportunities for TCs to engage in positive interactions that help to address misconceptions about students, families, and communities. TCs also began to confront …

Comparing Interaction And Use Of Space In Traditional And Innovative Classrooms, Laura Gurzynski-Weiss, Avizia Long, Megan Solon

Faculty Publications

Despite myriad changes to language teaching methods over time, university-level classroom spaces have largely remained the same—until now. Recent innovations in classroom space design center on technological advances, include movable furniture and coffee-shop style rooms, and are believed to facilitate language learning in several ways. Specifically, compared to traditional classrooms, innovative spaces are designed in the hope of decreasing pre-task set up, increasing student-centered interaction, and facilitating collaborative work with multiple partners—features believed to be important for classroom learning. However, whether or not such features are present in these innovative spaces, or more so than in traditional classrooms, has yet …

Tradición Y Actualidad En La Enseñanza De La Escritura Académica En El Entorno Europeo (Reseña De Rethinking Academic Writing Pedagogy For The European University), David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

A Review Of Motivation And Foreign Language Learning: From Theory To Practice, Avizia Long

Faculty Publications

A review of Motivation and foreign language learning: From theory to practice, by David Lasagabaster, Aintzane Doiz, and Juan Manuel Sierra (Eds.). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Benjamins, 2014. Pp. viii + 190.

Spanish Language, Cultural Knowledge And Teachers’ Professional Development In An English-Only Environment, Sara Soledad Garcia

Teacher Education

This study documents the findings of action research projects generated by two teachers with different cultural backgrounds and grade levels; one is a bilingual Spanish-English high school teacher and the other is an English monolingual first grade-reading teacher. Teachers’ cognitive and professional development is examined by taking into account the results of the action research project on the literacy needs of their students. Qualitative data from teacher interviews and reflections have been collected and analyzed. These teachers as researchers of their own practice plan and integrate cultural interpretation produced by the children to better understand how learners construct knowledge through …

Second Language Research In Practice: Exploring Foreign Language Teaching, Maria Luisa Spicer-Ecalante, Karin Dejonge-Kannan, Aliza M. Atkin Kroek

Languages, Philosophy, and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Rule, Pattern, And Meaning In The Second-Language Teaching Of Grammar, Joseph C. M. Davis

Publications and Research

This is a position paper aimed at the interface between meaning-oriented linguistics generally and instructed language-learning. The alliance between usage-based linguistics and form-focused instruction in language teaching stands to benefit from advances on both sides: a recognition by theoretical linguists that systematic meanings of grammatical forms are responsible for observed, emerging patterns of usage; and a greater willingness on the part of advocates of the teaching of grammar to engage in focusing upon individual, meaningful grammatical forms, as distinct from unanalyzed, holistic form. Explicit knowledge of forms and their meanings can usefully guide the practice of teachers and, …

Rimanchis Runasimita: La Enseñanza En Quechua Como Una Herramienta Del Mantenimiento De La Identidad Cultural De Los Jóvenes Quechua Hablantes / Rimanchis Runasimita:Teaching In Quechua As A Tool To Maintaincultural Identity Of Young Quechua Speakers, Willow Shram

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study examines the use of teaching in Quechua as a tool to help maintain the cultural identity and strengthen the self-esteem of young Quechua speakers. I went to three rural schools to complete my fieldwork: I.E. Nº 50492 in Ocongate, I.E. Nº 50765 in Sallikancha, and I.E. Nº 501432 in Kumunkancha. All the schools use the method of Bilingual Intercultural Education in Quechua and Spanish, and are part of the project “Fe y Alegría”. The objectives of this investigation are to describe, analyze, and explain the method of teaching in Quechua in bilingual intercultural schools in rural communities to …

Engagement Differences For 2-Year-Olds Identified As Late Talkers, Brianna Hendrickson, Shari L. Deveney

Special Education and Communication Disorders Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

This poster discusses: Background, Research Question, Methods, Results, Conclusions, Clinical Implications, and Limitations & Future Directions.

The Academic And Cultural Adaptation Of Chinese International Students At Umass Boston: The Struggles And Progress From The Perspectives Of Students And Professors, Pingping Chen, Theodora Chocos, Lorena Fuentes

English Faculty Publication Series

This panel will articulate the struggles and progress of Chinese international students in their learning processes at UMass Boston. Additionally, the challenges some professors have faced in teaching Chinese international students and the pedagogical practice they have used to engage these learners in their courses will be addressed.

This panel was presented as part of the 2014 8th Annual University Conference on Teaching, Learning, and Technology on May 15, 2014. The theme of the conference was "Teaching both What and How for Deep Learning at Every Level."

Comparison Of Two Word Learning Techniques And The Effect Of Neighborhood Density For Late Talkers, Shari L. Deveney, Cynthia J. Cress, Robert Reid

Special Education and Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

The investigators compared two techniques for teaching expressive vocabulary to late talkers: modeling with an expectant pause and modeling with an evoked child production. They also explored the influence of neighborhood density on children’s real word learning. Three late talkers (ages 25–33 months) received two alternating vocabulary treatments (expectant pause and evoked production) in the home. Two participants were identified as having an expressive language delay, and one participant was identified as having an expressive and receptive language delay. During the expectant pause treatment, the clinician paused several seconds after each target word model, looking at the child expectantly. In …