Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

“That Felt Weird”: International Graduate Students’ Emerging Critical Awareness Of Their Experiences With Microaggression, Romaisha Rahman

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to uncover and understand international graduate students’ experiences with microaggressions that stem from native speaker fallacy; microaggressions are the subtle discriminatory behaviors executed toward marginalized groups and native speaker fallacy is the false belief that only some “native” English speakers are effective teachers and users of the language. Put simply, this research aimed at unveiling the subtle language-based discriminations that international graduate students experience in their day-to-day lives in U.S. educational settings. To collect data for the study, the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) was utilized. CIT is a method that allows the …

Creating Counter-Hegemonic Spaces In A Spanish Language Arts Classroom, Mercedes Valenzuela

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

This qualitative case study used practitioner research methods to address the question: How does a Mexican American teacher create counter-hegemonic spaces in a Spanish Language Arts classroom utilizing critical race and borderlands theories? The research focused on how I as a teacher-built trust and respect through place—here, the classroom, classroom activities, and discussions—thereby creating a place for students to express their thoughts and feelings and to build relationships with the teacher and their classmates for learning to occur. This study also analyzed how using critical race and borderlands theories influences and shapes Mexican American students’ educational experiences beyond a …

An Application Of Tajfel’S Social Identity Theory To Understand Gamer As A Social Identity Among Saudi College-Level Students, Mohammad M. Assiri

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Understanding the social identity construction of Saudi college-level students who self-identify as gamers in Saudi Arabia is essential when designing a student-centered education. Although support exists within the literature for exploring what it means to be a gamer from the perspective of gamers, a review of the literature revealed a gap in this regard in the context of Saudi Arabia. Therefore, this grounded theory study explored self-identification as a gamer in Saudi Arabia using Tajfel's (1981) three tenets of self-identification with a group. A social identity framework was used to understand the characteristics of Saudi gamers, their positive or negative …

Issue In Equity For Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Students With Complex Support Needs: A Comparative Analysis Of District-Level Student Data, Rosalia Pacheco

Special Education ETDs

Research has shown that English learners with disabilities should have access to both special education and Title III services as required by law (de Valenzuela et al., 2006, 2018, 2016, 2022; de Valenzuela & Copeland, 2018; Kangas, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2021). This quantitative study uncovers issues of educational inequities related to: (a) the identification of these students as English learners; (b) their access to Title III services; and (c) the instructional settings in which they are educated for culturally and linguistically diverse students with Autism (ASD), Developmental Delay (DD), Intellectual Disability (ID), Multiple Disabilities (MD), or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). …

English Proficiency Or Post-School Success? The Miseducation Of English Learners, Jatnna Acosta

Intersections: Critical Issues in Education

English learners in the U.S. are academically unprepared at the secondary level, ad such systemic barriers lead to limited opportunities for post-school success (Umansky, 2016). Additional research is necessary to examine the correlation between the impact of a school’s ethnic diversity on the academic achievement of students identified as ELs. The purpose of this study is to investigate the educational outcomes of ELs at the high school level as a result of the school’s ethnic diversity. This study provides quantitative data from the Ed-Data Education Data Partnership. The data is disaggregated by the ethnic diversity index, percentage of enrolled ELs …

The Effect Of Semantic Neighborhood Density On Vocabulary Learning In Spanish As A Second Language And Spanish As A Heritage Language, Marián Giráldez Elizo

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

This dissertation reviews the results from an online survey created to identify and compare how second language (L2) learners and heritage language (HL) learners of Spanish, enrolled in beginning-level coursework at the college level, acquired and built vocabulary. A total of 451 participants completed the survey. The purpose of the online survey was to serve as a baseline for pedagogical purposes, since it provided information about participants’ language profiles and the way they build vocabulary based on sematic relatedness. Overall, the findings from the survey showed that HL and L2 learners differ in the way they build semantic neighborhoods and, …

Indigenous Wisdom, Storytelling, And Language Renewal Ꭰꮒᏸꭺꭹ, Ꭰꮒᏼꮻꮿ Ꭰꭷꮩꭵꭿꮝꮧ Ꭴꮒꭽ, Ꭰꮴꭿꮠꮧᏹ Ꭶꮼꮒꭿꮝꮧ, Arlo Starr

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Abstract ᎧᏃᎮᏍᎩ

Language, cultural immersion, and intergenerational land-based education have shown the potential to vastly improve dire health issues that Indigenous people face. What is the most effective way to produce a large number of second language learners who speak at a basic level in order to improve Indigenous health?

Relationship is a vital part of Indigenous cosmology. Rather than promoting the consumption of words as things, acquisition will be more readily integrated into relationship-based thought when also interacting with them in context through story, and cultural activities that are fun, understandable, and engage community. Many successful language immersion models …

Critical Intersections Through Poetry In A Tesol & World Language Graduate Education Program, Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor, Sharon M. Nuruddin, Kuo Zhang, Yixuan Wang, Amanda Brady Deaton, Xinyi Meng, Ashley Brown-Lemley, Ming Sun

Intersections: Critical Issues in Education

In this studio submission, Language Education students who took one or more poetry writing courses along with their instructor share one poem draft and critical reflection, noting the political climate of the work co-produced and inquiry regarding the impact of producing creative work as reflexive, critical teacher education scholarship. Together they draw a context and implications for creative and critical teacher education through shared poetry writing.

A Dialectical Relational Analysis Of Tesol Quarterly 2006 Special Issue On Race: Discourse, Race, And White Supremacist Ideology, Ginger A. Looney

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Although the field of TESOL is not racially neutral this dialectical relational analysis examined (1) what discourses did the authors use to deploy race in the articles in the 2006 TESOL Quarterly Special Issue on Race (TQSIR)? and (2) how do these discourses work to either conform to, or resist white supremacist ideology? Analysis of the texts identified four key discourse: racialization, whiteness, emotional labor of racism, and sonic and optic negation of racism. These discourses were examined in the domains of scholarship, curriculum, teachers, and students. In 21 instances, these four discourses work to resist white supremacist ideology. …

What Can We Learn From Adult Esl Students’ Responses To Children’S Literature?, Monique C. Stone

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Some teachers face frequently changing populations of students, making it difficult to gain cultural knowledge that is important to support student learning. The aim of this study was to explore how adult language-learner students in intensive English programs (IEPs) respond to children’s picture books portraying their home countries or cultures. Reader response theory (Rosenblatt, 1995) and cultural scaffolding (Gay, 2002; i.e., the use of student culture to support student learning) are the initial frameworks upon which the study was developed. The study was qualitative in nature and driven by a desire for the researcher to gain more cultural knowledge about …

Pakistani English Language Teachers’ Preparedness: An Investigation Of Ideological Meaning-Making In Higher Education Institutions In Pakistan, Yasir Hussain

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

This research study is an attempt to understand the ideological preparedness of English language teachers at the higher education institutions (HEIs) in Pakistan. The construct of preparedness is unique in this study because the phenomenon of preparedness is simplified for pedagogical methodologies and teaching practices. This study is a journey of understanding ideology, its representations through discourse, and its enactment through discursive practices of the participant-teachers. In this hermeneutical phenomenological study, I used interview texts as the data source and critical discourse analysis (CDA) as the analytical framework. The participants included 15 English language teachers at nine different HEIs in …

Decolonial Gestures Of Andean Bilingual College Students Promoting Quechua: Community-Based Participatory Research With Photovoice, Yuliana H. Kenfield

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Andean college students in Cusco, Peru, struggle to overcome discrimination against bilingualism during their pursuit of higher education. To examine this situation and possibilities for change, I employed a participatory method, photovoice (Wang & Burris, 1994) within a community-based participatory research framework, to facilitate Quechua-Spanish bilingual college students’ exploration of Quechuan practices in their university. Participatory research methodology promoted critical dialogues to challenge ideologies that have obstructed the revitalization, maintenance, development of the Quechua language in higher education. Although university policies in Cusco formally promote inclusion of indigenous knowledge and practices, bilingual Spanish-Quechua practices on campus have remained largely symbolic. …

Teachers’ Professional Identity Construction: A Narrative Inquiry Of Non-Native English Speaking Teachers In Saudi Arabia, Mustafa Abdo Hersi

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

This qualitative study examineshow five in-service male non-native English speaking teachers (NNESTs) constructed and negotiated their professional identity as teachers to make meaning of their lived experiences in an EFL milieu, a Saudi Arabian university. The study also explores the challenges related to NNESTs’ teaching lives and how they negotiated them as they constructed their professional identities. I approached the studied phenomena by employing a narrative inquiry method. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and an autobiography. The study draws on Clandinin and Connelly’s framework of three-dimensional space (temporality, sociality, and place), Bourdieu’s theory of forms of capital,and Gee’s …

A Case Study Of Two Taiwanese Students With Hearing Loss Navigating The English As A Foreign Language Requirement At Their University, Yu Chen

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Many institutions of higher education (IHE) students in Taiwan now need to meet the English proficiency requirement to earn their higher education degrees. In this case study, I intended to a) provide the opportunity for IHE students with hearing loss in Taiwan to share their opinions, thoughts, and experiences of learning English as a foreign language in higher education institutes; and b) understand how English as a foreign language policies and educational practices contribute to create opportunities and barriers for IHE students with hearing loss. The research question I intended to examine was “what are the perceptions of the lived …

Indonesian Students' Perceptions Of Written Feedback In Second Language Writing, Rahmah Fithriani

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Grounded in sociocultural theory, written feedback activities in second language (L2) writing provide the social interactions that help learners develop their psychical functions within the zone of proximal development (ZPD) as they co-construct knowledge with teachers and peers through guided learning (De Guerrero & Villamil, 2000). Written feedback can also help student writers improve their writing proficiency, including organization of their texts and awareness of the mechanics of the language necessary for successful communication of the intended message (Chandler, 2003; Ferris, 2006; Jahin, 2012; Kamimura, 2006).

Regarding the eminence of feedback in L2 writing, a large body of research has …

Agency, The Uncanny, And Strangeways: An Autoethnographic Journey Through An International Wunderland., Roberto T. Ollivier

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

The African diaspora and postcolonial studies author George Lamming writes in his book “The Pleasures of Exile” that the Caliban character from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” “cannot be revealed in any relation to himself-for he has no self which is not a reaction to circumstances imposed upon his life” (Lamming, 1992, p. 107). One could argue that the only hope this half-human half-monstrous creature, or for that matter, any of us have to find peace, lies in the attempt to find resolution through the metaphorical slaying of our respective pasts. Like Caliban, many of us are never …

Efl Teachers’ Perceptions And Practices About Assessment At The Universidad Central Del Ecuador, Evelyn Veronica Almeida Garcia

Research and Development Supported by El Centro

Despite rising interest in understanding how language mastery is assessed, our knowledge of language assessment, alternatives in assessment, feedback, peer and self-assessment, as well as our understanding of teachers’ perceptions of assessment and their subsequent assessment practices is still quite limited. In my experience, language assessment is not always aligned with what and how students learn in their EFL classes. My aim is to conduct a case study of three EFL teachers from the Centro de Idiomas (Language Center) in the UCE and examining how their knowledge and beliefs about assessment influence their practices in class. I will collect data …

Towards Becoming Bilingual -- Cognitive And Semantic Considerations On Language Acquisition, Gnaneswaran Thiruraj Perinpanayagam

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Language learning is both culture-bound and individual-skill-bound, structured on an innate, biological capacity to acquire language. While it is a remarkable phenomenon when it occurs in the acquisition of a first language, it is even more remarkable in the acquisition of a second language where the main objective concerning competence is to bring the two languages into equilibrium. This equilibrium does not result in a final co-ordinate bilingual, which is only an abstract ideal. It is, rather, the complex bilingualism - the only bilingualism it is possible to demonstrate - and the equilibrium is judged on the needs and purposes …

The Relationship Between Bilingualism And Verbal Test Performance, Donald Fred Mead

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

It is the principal purpose of the present study to investigate the relationship between bilingualism as measure by an objectively oriented scale, the Hoffman Bilingual Schedule, and test performances with a comparatively new vocabulary instrument which merely requires the subject to point in response to the spoken word. The Latter is the Ammons Full-Range Picture Vocabulary Test. A secondary purpose is to establish tentative Spanish Norms for 17,18, and 19 year-olds for the Ammons test.