Education Commons^™

The Culture Boundary: How Awareness Informs Teaching Practice, Angela Richardson

MA TESOL Collection

In this paper I discuss the value of exploring student culture through ongoing reflective processes for effective and responsible language teaching. I reflect on my own experience of teaching in a foreign language context for the first time, and discuss how developing cultural awareness helped me move from a place of frustration to understanding, and how a change in attitude and teaching approach impacted my relationships and significantly improved the quality of teaching and learning in my classroom. Using Pat Moran’s ‘Cultural Knowings’ framework as a guide, I reflect on my personal transformation while working in South Korea and report …

Portuguese As A Foreign Language: Teaching And Learning In The United States: A Dissertation, Celia Bianconi

Educational Studies Dissertations

This dissertation reviewed the history of foreign language education in the United States relating it to political and economic world events. A quantitative study and a hypothesis generating case study revealed the motivation of learners of Portuguese as a foreign language. Portuguese teachers in higher education in the United States were surveyed and three recently published Portuguese textbooks were analyzed. The results showed that the main reasons that motivate students to learn Portuguese as a foreign language are interest in Brazilian culture, plans to travel in a Portuguese-speaking country, familiarity with Spanish language, skills needed to reach professional goals and …

Perceptions Of Hispanic Female Esl Students Toward First-Year College Writing Courses: A Phenomenological Examination Of Cultural Influences, Barbara B. Booker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The role of culture as a phenomenon guided this qualitative study, which examined the influence of diverse Hispanic cultures on the attitudes and perceptions towards college writing courses of female Hispanic students who are non-native speakers of English. With the increasing number of Hispanic immigrants coming to the U.S., the minority student population at our nation's colleges and universities has also risen. Community colleges have become the means through which many of these Hispanic immigrants obtain a college education.

The eight women who participated in this study self-identified as Hispanic. All were first generation college students who had been born …