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A Case Study Mapping Literacy Learning Opportunities And Identity Construction Among African Immigrant Youth In A Canadian Secondary School, Wambui J. Gichuru

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Studies with immigrant and refugee youth highlight challenges, school failure and early push-out rates (Anisef, 2008; James, 2012; Roessingh, 2010). There is limited research about how immigrant students especially from continental Africa negotiate their identity at school for positive outcomes. The goal of this qualitative case study was to explore literacy learning opportunities afforded by the school for African youth who were learning to become literate in English as an additional language in a Canadian secondary school and the implications for the students’ communicative and identity options.

The study utilized ethnographic tools, i.e., interview, classroom observation, mapping literacy activities and …

A Crosslinguistic/Cultural Perspective Of Learning Chinese As A Foreign Language In Canadian Universities, Xiuhua Ke

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study examines adult student learning of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) in a Canadian university context, focusing in particular on how students’ diverse prior language(s) and experiences influence their CFL learning and how student motivation develops. It aims at gaining a better understanding of the nature of adult CFL learning; at yielding pedagogic implications and raising questions for further research. Framed by sociocultural theory and cognitive linguistic perspectives, the research was guided by the following questions: 1) What elements of Chinese as a foreign language challenge student learning? 2) How do students’ prior language(s) and language learning experience …