Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

The Effect Of Powerpoint And Nongraphic Paired List Presentations On The Vocabulary Production And Recognition Of Elementary-Level College French Students, Lucie Viakinnou-Brinson, Steven P. Cole

Faculty Articles

This study investigates the effect of presenting images via PowerPoint (PPT) and nongraphic paired lists to teach vocabulary. In this study nongraphic paired list (PL) refers to a list of French words paired with their English equivalent. The study, conducted with 38 elementary-level college students, examined their recall performance for written production and visual recognition of French vocabulary words. Students were taught French vocabulary via PPT and nongraphic PL presentations. Quantitative results indicated a significant difference between participants’ mean immediate test scores favoring the PPT condition for both written production and visual recognition. The study also investigated participants’ instructional perceptions …

Recuerda Que Yo Estoy Aqui Tambien : A Bilingual Picture Book, Liliana Ivette Funes

Graduate Student Independent Studies

My independent study for my Integrative Masters consists of a bilingual (Spanish/English) picture book that is based on personal experience, and endeavors to describe the emotional distress and anxiety children can experience as second language learners entering a monolingual classroom for the first time. The book addresses not only the emotional and academic struggles of the child, but also the ways in which peers and teachers can intervene to ease the child's transition into English. Thus the book can serve as a resource to support monolingual classrooms. The study also includes a personal reflection of the process and journey, I …

Cognitive Load And Its Major Pedagogical Implications, Focus On Education In Jordan, Bassam Kutkut

MA TESOL Collection

Through my teaching experience in Jordan, I noticed the amount of work students had to do. I noticed the tremendous amount information they received from their teachers on a daily basis. I also noticed that students forgot most of the information they learned in class right after their exams. I was wondering if that’s the right way of teaching. Then, after my study at SIT, I learned that this is a cognitive overload that can impair the learning process.

Cognitive load refers to the information processing abilities in the human memory system which has limitations. When these limitations are exceeded, …

Effective Vocabulary Teaching Strategies For The English For Academic Purposes Esl Classroom, Joseph Mukoroli

MA TESOL Collection

Vocabulary learning is an important and indispensable part of any language learning process. The author of this thesis focuses on effective vocabulary teaching strategies in the English for Academic Purposes ESL classroom. Drawing on findings obtained from observing three English for Academic Purposes ESL classrooms across the U.S.A, several current databases and his personal experience as a teacher and learner, the author discusses various effective vocabulary teaching strategies in the English for Academic Purposes classroom which could greatly assist English language learners in their journey of language acquisition and therefore expedite the language learning process.

The First Child In A Chinese Family Who Could Read Prior To Entry Into Elementary School: A Qualitative Intrinsic Case Study, Shu Ping Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study is an account of the literacy-related human environment a Chinese girl experienced as the first person in the history of her family who was able to read prior to entry into elementary school. Temporally speaking, the study spanned more than a decade from the initial, tentative research question to the formal, primary research question. Spatially speaking, it crossed three cultures: the Chinese, Korean, and American cultures. The study was inspired by the Zero Project in China, known as the "Project of Quality Education and Implementation for Children Aged Zero (fetus) to Six." The significance of the content issue …

Success Stories Of Students Of Mexican Descent, Wesley Montoya

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study tells the personal stories of three academically successful students of Mexican descent. The goal of this study was to give a counter to the stereotypical deficit view of Hispanic students in the eyes of teachers, parents, and other students.

The participants were three high school students of Mexican descent attending an urban high school in Colorado. The research question of this study allowed the participants to tell their story of what it was like to be a student. The research question was: What are the personal and academic stories of academically successful Mexican urban high school students?

Through …

Fostering A Consciousness Of Academic Success With Latino English Language Learners In High School: The Role Self-Efficacy And Social Capital Play, Miguel Angel Huerta LóPez

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study is to suggest ways in which educators can foster a consciousness of academic success with Latino English language learners in high school using self-efficacy and social capital as assets. The concentration of this study is to look at the English language learner population at Vista Valley High School. A total of twelve students participated in this study. Each student will be interviewed twice with at least six additional students being interviewed a third time.

Culturally Responsive Curriculum For Latino Children's Ethnic Identity, Silvia Jenny Cardenas

Theses Digitization Project

This project studies the link between ethnic identity, culturally responsive pedagogy, and classroom achievement and offers a curriculum to address the need voiced by researchers for culturally responsive curriculum for Latino children in elementary school.

Defining A Niche For International Education As The Link To Building Global Civil Society, Thomas Millington

Office of International Programs Faculty/Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Lost In Translation: Strategies Japanese Language Learners Use In Communicating Culturally Specific L1 Expressions In English, Sarina Chugani Molina, Noriyuki Inoue

School of Leadership and Education Sciences: Faculty Scholarship

Communicating in a second language could be seen as a process requiring the deconstruction and reconstruction of cultural meanings. If this is the case, how do second language (L2) learners express cultural meanings of their first language (L1) expressions that do not have semantically equivalent L2 expressions? Twentynine Japanese students learning English as a second language in the US were asked to translate Japanese cultural expressions that do not have equivalent English expressions. This study found that the students either (a) entirely eliminated the expression from the statement, (b) replaced the expression with an English expression commonly used in a …

Closing The Achievement Gap: Favoring A Literacy-Based Approach To Solving The Nation's Education Crisis, Timothy M. Siverd

VA Engage Journal

This paper provides an overview of the educational achievement gap, paying particular attention to the gap between white and minority students. Additionally, this paper explores why closing the achievement gap is important, and why it is hard to do. The goal of this paper is to suggest that using a literacy-based method will produce superior results than using STEM-field methods by highlighting a “best practice,” Musick Elementary School in Newark, California.

Recognizing Samoan Students' Cultural Capital In Schools, Sane Aletoni Mataitusi

Theses Digitization Project

This research focused on Samoan parents' and students' perceptions of student success. This research confronts some of the barriers encountered by minority parents and students within the public education system. Recent research on Samoan students identified the struggle many encounter living as a minority group within the dominant societies of Australia, New Zealand and the United States. This study documented multiple pathways toward success that Samoan parents and students within these countries have identified.

Explicit Content-Area Vocabulary Instruction For English Learners: Impacts With Reading Comprehension, Catherine Ruthe Terrell

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to examine impacts of explicit content-area vocabulary instruction on reading comprehension. Effective instructional strategies include multiple texts at students' instructional levels, highly qualified teachers, daily explicit vocabulary instruction combined with student's application of instruction and evolution of instruction as student's reading achievement increases.

The Observation Protocol For Academic Literacies (Opal); A Tool For Supporting Teachers Of English Language Learners, Elvira G. Armas, Ed.D, Magaly Lavadenz, Ph.D.

Practitioner Journal Articles

Schools and school systems are experiencing an instructional support gap that results in limited opportunities for educators to analyze, reflect on and improve research-based practices for ELLs so that outcomes for culturally and linguistically diverse students can change. To address this need, an inter-disciplinary research team from the Center for Equity for English Learners, comprised of educational leaders, teachers, researchers, and content experts developed a classroom observational instrument—the Observation Protocol for Academic Literacies (OPAL). The OPAL is intended for teachers, educational leaders, coaches, and others to conduct focused classroom observations for three potential purposes: research/evaluation, professional development, and coaching. In …

Religion, Forced Migration And Schooling: Varying Influences Of Religious Capital Among Iraqi Christian Refugee Students In Jordan And The Usa, Bruce A. Collet

School of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications

This study is based on focus groups conducted with Christian Iraqi refugee secondary school students in the metropolitan Detroit area, and interviews with staff from volunteer aide agencies, non-governmental organizations, churches, and independent researchers in both Amman, Jordan as well as the Detroit metropolitan area. The article examines varying influences of religious capital among Iraqi Christian students. Examination of the operation of this capital within the context of the two countries’ economic and foreign policy interests including their refugee policies exposes macro-level forces that render religious capital to function in countervailing manners. Iraqi Christian students in both Amman and Detroit …

Examination Of Dispositions And Practices In Diversity: The Impact Of A Teacher Education Course Promoting Culturally And Responsive Pedagogy, Deuslene Leite Bastos

Wayne State University Dissertations

Assimilation ideology guiding teachers and policy makers to mainstream immigrant children into the American schools has prevailed in spite of pluralists' efforts for reform schools to provide more opportunities for culturally and linguistically diverse students. Research shows a need to change assimilation driven policies and practices which are harmful to students into a reconstructivist ideology that has shown to be more conducive for the application of culturally responsive teaching. Teacher education courses aimed to prepare teacher candidates for diverse classrooms have shown limitations due to abundant focus on theory or lack of elements in course work that are known to …

No.3, January 2011: The Promise Model: An English-Learner Focused Approach To School Reform, Laurie Olsen Ph.D.

Education and Policy Briefs

Findings from a 3-year (2006-2009) evaluation of the PROMISE Model pilot are presented in this policy brief that seeks to address three questions: 1) What is the PROMISE Model ?; 2) What changes occurred in schools as a results of implementing the PROMISE Model ?; and 3) What are the lessons learned from the PROMISE Model pilot that can contribute to an understanding of school reform for English Learners? A qualitative, ethnographic approach allowed for exploration of the research questions. The researcher identified five foundational elements to the PROMISE Model. Implementation of the PROMISE Model increased use of EL specific …

Creating Conditions For Transforming Practicing K-12 Mainstream Teachers Of English Language Learners, Susan R. Adams, Kathryn Brooks

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

Critical incident reflection journal writing provides a rich source for identifying high impact components of Project Alianza, a graduate course for mainstream secondary teachers funded by a US Department of Education Title III Professional Development grant. In this narrative pilot study featuring one strand of existing data, the co-authors, who are also co-instructors and co-researchers, begin the first rounds of analysis to identify emerging key conditions and contributing factors featured within specialized graduate courses for encouraging dispositional change and professional efficacy toward English language learners (ELLs) in practicing K-12 mainstream educators. Using Mezirow’s adult transformational learning theory (1991), Kegan’s stage …

English Learner Oral Language Production In Middle School Academic Classes, Kathryn Brooks

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

Because of current federal and state educational policies, oral language development is an often overlooked aspect of language and literacy use and development of English Learning (EL) students in K-12 schools in the United States. This article describes a study in which a researcher used an ecobehavioral approach to investigate the conditional probability that young adolescent EL students would produce language in content area classes as they engaged in four different instructional grouping configurations: whole class, small group, one-to-one, and individual instruction. Significant differences emerged between instructional grouping configurations in terms of EL student production of oral academic language. Overall, …

The Relationship Between Arabic Language Proficiency, English Language Proficiency, And Science Academic Achievement Of 11th Grade Arabic Speaking English Language Learners, Shadia Y. Zamlut

Wayne State University Dissertations

Limited schooling in the first language (L1) has allowed English Language Learners (ELLs) to face obstacles in their second language (L2) and science courses. Therefore, this study examines these variables in the following two hypotheses: (1) there is a significant relationship between Arabic language proficiency and English language proficiency and (2) there is a significant relationship between Arabic language proficiency and science academic achievement. A causal-comparative design was used to examine these hypotheses. The investigator selected sixty 11th grade Arabic-speaking students based on a nonrandom sampling method from one high school in the Metropolitan Schools (pseudonym) in Southeast Michigan. The …

Somali Dialects In The United States: How Intelligible Is Af-Maay To Speakers Of Af-Maxaa?, Deqa Hassan

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The objective of this study was to determine the degree of intelligibility of Af-Maay to Somali university student speakers (n=21) of Af-Maxaa in the United States by implementing a perceived intelligibility test. The investigator aimed to test whether time spent in the United States, language contact with Af-Maay speakers, native Somali dialect, or the region of origin in Somalia affected the intelligibility of Af-Maay. The one-sample t-test showed that Af-Maay is partially intelligible to speakers of Af-Maxaa; t(21)=4.623, p=.000. This appears to agree with Crystal's (1987) Type 5 language-dialect relationship category, where there is a partial intelligibility due to the …

Perceptions Of Access To Education: Inclusion And Exclusion For Non-Karen Refugees In Mae La Camp, Matthew Gross

Capstone Collection

Mae La refugee camp on the Thai/Burma border is the largest of the seven “Karen” refugee camps in the area and is considered the center of education for refugees. Continued fighting inside Burma between the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and the ethnic armies as well as the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis in 2008 have greatly altered the demographics in Mae La refugee camp. Perceptions of Access to Education: Inclusion and Exclusion for Non-Karen Refugees in Mae La Camp attempts to understand, through qualitative data, how non-Karen speaking refugees perceive their access to education. Is education in Mae …

Digital Storytelling: Enriching Reflection And Reentry For Princeton In Africa Fellowship Participants, Stephanie C. Hooper

Capstone Collection

Princeton in Africa’s digital storytelling reentry project was designed to fill gaps in reentry programming by encouraging returned fellowship participants to reflect on their experiences living and working in Africa and by helping them identify areas of personal growth and transformation. This project also aims to strengthen the connection Fellows feel to the Princeton in Africa community and their cohort of Fellows. The digital storytelling project will assist the organization with marketing, recruitment, attracting attention from potential partner organizations, engaging donors and other program needs. A pilot digital storytelling project took place at the end of the 2010-11 fellowship year …

Pace 9/11 Oral History Project, Maria T. Iacullo-Bird, Ellen Sowchek, Jennifer Thomas

Cornerstone 2 Reports : Community Outreach and Empowerment Through Service Learning and Volunteerism

No abstract provided.

Laser Cutting Informatics, Charlotte Becket

Cornerstone 2 Reports : Community Outreach and Empowerment Through Service Learning and Volunteerism

No abstract provided.

Work And Mexican American Parent-Adolescent Relationships: The Mediating Role Of Parent Well-Being, Lorey A. Wheeler, Kimberly A. Updegraff

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

This study of Mexican American two-parent families (N = 246) examined the role of parents’ well-being (i.e., depressive symptoms, role overload) as a potential mechanism through which parent occupational conditions (i.e., self-direction, hazardous conditions, physical activity, work pressure) are linked to parent-adolescent relationship qualities (i.e., warmth, conflict, disclosure). Depressive symptoms mediated the links between maternal and paternal work pressure and parentadolescent warmth, conflict, and disclosure. For mothers, depressive symptoms also mediated the links between self-direction and mother-adolescent warmth, conflict, and disclosure; for fathers, role overload mediated the links between work pressure and hazardous conditions with fatheradolescent warmth.

Multilingual Education In South Africa: The Role Of Publishers, Viv Edwards, Jacob Marriote Ngwaru

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

The South African constitution and related legislative tools provide a supportive framework for multilingual education. Successful implementation, however, requires appropriate learning materials and questions remain as to the vision and commitment of publishers to producing them. Based on an analysis of currently available books for children and interviews with publishers and key figures in the book value chain, this paper explores both the educational rationale for African language publishing and the issues that constrain expansion. These issues include the heavy dependence on the schools market in a society where the majority of the population cannot or do not buy books, …

A Study Of Turkish And English Refusal Speech Acts With A Secondary Examination For Bi-Directional Language Transferrals, Morgan Jerome Moody

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

It has been found that when students learn new languages, certain aspects of their native language can transfer to their L2 in usage and the L2 may alter the usage of the native language. One method used to examine the possibility of transfers between languages, or compare languages, is the discourse completion task (DCT). The present study examines the linguistic past of Turkey. The current study had monolingual Turkish speakers, monolingual English speakers of North America and bilingual Turkish/English individuals in Turkey as participants. The results of the present study show differences as well as similarities in the way that …

Effective Teacher Education: From Student-Teacher Candidates To Novice Teachers Prepared For Urban Education, Chavon Latrece Jackson

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine to what extent a teacher education program prepares teacher candidates to be effective urban educators who are reflective, innovative, and committed to diversity based on the perceptions and insight from students. As the nation grapples with an extreme range of outputs from our public schools, an investigation into such an integral component of developing effective educators is essential, if not mandatory (Spring, 2009). Given the goals and standards for educators today, teacher education programs have to consider their role in this process and determine what is required of them to support teachers …

Exploring Call Options For Teaching Efl In Vietnam, Nhon Thanh Dang

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Research has demonstrated that computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has the capacity to enhance second language learning. Therefore, in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts like Vietnam, the government has invested in computers in schools as a way to address the lack of quality in education. However, Vietnamese EFL teachers have made little or no use of these computers. The purpose of this Alternate Plan Paper (APP) is to assist Vietnamese ESL teachers in choosing appropriate CALL programs. I select some of the most effective, user-friendly, and cost-effective CALL options for language areas and language skills. The options are selected …