Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Mother Tongue Interference In English Language Pronunciation Of The Chinese Immigrant In The United States, Chaowei Hu

Master's Projects and Capstones

English is one of the most widely used languages in the world. As an unofficial lingua franca, it serves a key role in cross-cultural communication. Chinese immigrants in the US will certainly encounter many difficulties in acquiring L2 proficiency. Some of these challenges are tied to 1) Chinese immigrants’ history in the US and the variety of Chinese dialects; 2) distinctions between Chinese and English phonological systems; 3) diversity among Chinese Americans; 3) mother tongue influence on English language learning; and 4) foreign language anxiety.

A Literacy-Level Curriculum For Adult Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners With Limited Formal Education, Kirsten L. Keihl

Master's Projects and Capstones

Many Spanish-speaking adult immigrants in the United States face an immediate need to learn English, but also suffer from a lack of formal education as many did not complete middle school or high school. These learners need a curriculum that is tailored specifically to their needs. This project provides a communicative curriculum for teaching English and Spanish literacy, English speaking and listening skills, and basic classroom skills utilizing native language instruction when helpful using learning strategies and authentic materials that are appropriate for adults. It also addresses sociocultural and sociopolitical concerns of this population and utilizes culturally relevant materials.

Digital Lessons For Enhancing Communicative Skills: A Handbook For Turkish Efl Teachers, Hale H. Demirel

Master's Projects and Capstones

It is necessary for English teachers who are interested in exposing their students to the authentic and communicative use of English to have access to model instructional materials. This project sought to develop a handbook and an accompanying website for teachers of English working with intermediate ESL/EFL students at university level. The handbook includes two theme-based lessons that emphasize the development of communicative competence with the help of engaging free digital tools. The content of the handbook can be improvised or modified and adapted to meet the needs of unique teaching-learning situations in case of need.

A Deeper Semiotic Richness: Empowering English Language Students Through Digital Storytelling, Karah Parks

Master's Projects and Capstones

The current philosophies underpinning TESOL higher education curricula and classroom practices still reinforce the essentialized narrative of the native speaker and teach English as an objective, disinterested, linguistic system of static signs (Blommaert, 2010; Kramsch, 2009; Larsen-Freeman, 2015; Pennycook, 1997). This has significantly limited the development students’ identities, and agency within English language speaking communities. To address this issue, this project contains a supplemental, online digital storytelling curriculum for intermediate to advanced adult learners at the university level in U.S. colleges as a means of scaffolding intentional identity development through multimodal, symbolic competence in the English language. Entitled Creative ESOL: …

Developing A Student-Centered Curriculum For High Intermediate And Advanced Writing Community College Esl Students To Promote Their Discovery Of Campus Resources, Sandra S. Fonseca Gardiner

Master's Projects and Capstones

Non-native speaker students in California community colleges face several challenges beyond the linguistic objectives they must achieve in their ESL courses. Many students come to the classroom with previous experiences of discrimination within the educational system. This is especially true of undocumented students. Income level is also often an obstacle to gaining access to an education, as is the previous educational experiences students have had in their own countries. While overcoming language barriers should be one of the main goal of ESL classes, attitudes toward non-native speakers can affect students’ learning because of perceived limitations in communication outside of the …

Encouraging Esl Teachers To Empower Their Students To Read, Rachael M. Van Liefde

Master's Projects and Capstones

In the US, thousands of international students are studying, or are preparing to study, at institutions of higher education. Unfortunately, the below satisfactory English skills of these students are a concern worldwide. One of the most critical factors affecting their academic progress is their reading skills.

It is widely accepted that a successful student in higher education must be able to read and comprehend assigned readings quickly. However, reading speed and comprehension pose a significant obstacle for ESL students who are pursuing these goals. How can ESL teachers assist their students at the high beginning, intermediate or advanced levels in …

Teaching English In Saudi Arabia Through The Use Of Multimedia, Linah A. Sofi

Master's Projects and Capstones

The purpose of this project is to design model lesson plans which will require the use of available modern technology and movies, songs and graphic novels, etc, to enhance students’ communicative competence and motivate critical thinking. In fact, The project will be constructed to implement the use of technology in the Saudi Arabian traditional classrooms. It will serve as a model for teachers to build their own lesson plans accordingly, using a communicative language teaching approach. Finally, it is hoped that with this handbook, Saudi Arabian English language learners will develop critical thinking skills and enhance higher communicative competence in …

Strategies To Reduce Foreign Language Anxiety In Adult Efl Students Of The European Union, Kathleen Hershner

Master's Projects and Capstones

One of paradoxes in adult foreign language learning is that older learners must communicate in the very language, in this case English, they struggle to acquire. The discomfort that arises from needing to use deficient or non-existent skills in a new language is more acutely felt in adults than children. Adults approach learning new languages with an assumed level of control over themselves and their environment and can easily become frustrated when they're unable to maintain their usual levels of confidence and competence, which can lead to foreign language anxiety. FLA is a specific kind of anxiety defined as an …

Incorporating Community Cultural Wealth In A Community-Based Organization, Henriette S. Ako-Asare

Master's Projects and Capstones

This project examined how Hack the Hood, a Bay Area non-profit organization, successfully works with low-income youth of color in an outside of school context using technological skills to empower them. Critical Race Theory, community cultural wealth, and the many studies on academic success provided a model through which to examine the efficacy and cultural relevance of Hack the Hood programming using interviews and data already gathered on the organization. Based on the analysis of Hack the Hood and the promising findings related to how their work advance several of the tenets of the community cultural wealth model, this project …

Effective Techniques For Teaching Phrasal Verbs To Improve Communicate Competence Of Chinese English Learners, Guohua Fu

Master's Projects and Capstones

Effective Techniques for Teaching Phrasal Verbs to Improve Communicate Competence of Chinese English learners

Teaching Reading Comprehension Skills To Saudi Female Students At The University Levels: A Handbook For Teachers, Dina Sofi

Master's Projects and Capstones

By using innovative language teaching techniques and methodologies based on Communicative Language Teaching Approach and Multiple Intelligences Theory , the author of this project aimed to develop a handbook for EFL female teachers in Saudi Arabia. The handbook serves as a guide for teaching reading comprehension to Saudi female students at the university levels. The handbook illustrates different teaching methods that activate different learning modalities. It also include sample units with reading passages and activities that model teaching reading, integrate different language skills and enhance the students’ communicative skills.

Incorporating Digital Storytelling In The English Language Class For Korean University Students, Hyun Il Choi

Master's Projects and Capstones

The purpose of this project is to suggest practical ways to incorporate digital storytelling in the English classroom at the university level. To be specific, this project provides curriculum which includes set of practical activities and free digital media resources teachers can adapt. Using such devices for learning in a classroom will increase the students’ motivation for learning (Hagood & Skinner, 2008; Reinders, 2011). Each activity and lesson is focused on students being able to create their own digital story. Student will select a topic for their digital story and each lesson outlines how to develop the story using a …

Effective Techniques For Teaching Phrasal Verbs To Improve The Communicative Competence Of Chinese English Learners, Guohua Fu

Master's Projects and Capstones

This project provides a teaching guidebook for both English as a Second Language (ESL) students and teachers. Most learners do not know how to use phrasal verbs in their daily conversation even if they have already learned them. Moreover, it is hard for students to remember phrasal verbs they learned if they don’t practice them in meaningful contexts. This project will address the problem of the ineffective instruction of English in China and the exclusion of two-word verbs from the Chinese curriculum. Due to the differences in linguistic and education backgrounds, ESL teachers and students desire a guidebook that is …

Queering Social Justice Curricula Within Higher Education, Kate P. Cabot

Master's Projects and Capstones

Within higher education, social justice education has gained significant ground. While issues of gender, race, and class are increasingly addressed and incorporated into classes there remains a lack in inclusive curricula and pedagogies within colleges and universities when it comes to issues of gender and sexual identity. The social construction of gender and sexualities remains overlooked on the majority of college and university campuses, as well as the discrimination faced by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual (LGBTQIA) students unaddressed within curricula. The representation of the LGBTQIA community can be attended to within classrooms, campuses, and curriculums in …

Teaching Respect, Inclusion, And Acceptance In Ethnically And Culturally Diverse Early Childhood Classrooms, Romina S. Sapinoso

Master's Projects and Capstones

Given the increasingly diverse demographics of American public schools, it is necessary for teachers who are interested in exposing their students to concepts of inclusion, respect, and acceptance to have access to a resource guide and model for implementing a curriculum that is culturally and ethnically inclusive. This project sought to develop a resource guide for teachers of early childhood in schools to teach about inclusion, respect, and acceptance in a diverse classroom setting. This resource will be useful for teachers in grades Transitional Kindergarten, Kindergarten, first and second in creating a safe space to celebrate students’ differences and increase …

Nonformal Bilingual Education, Lesley Bartlett, Monisha Bajaj

School of Education Faculty Research

No abstract provided.

Listening To The Voices: Multi-Ethnic Women In Education, Betty Taylor

Listening to the Voices: Multi-ethnic Women in Education

"This book is an effort to engage the University of San Francisco community, to strengthen its understanding of the role of multi-ethnic women in education and their participation in enhancing the community’s academic discourse."

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Keeping Kids In School: A Slippery Slope For Miskitu Families Living In The Pearl Lagoon Basin Of Nicaragua, Patricia Ann Conway

Doctoral Dissertations

In 2014, Miskitu participants in the communities of Raitipura and Kahkabila and several of their children had dropped out of school. Earlier quantitative research revealed a problem of low matriculation in elementary and high schools in all of Nicaragua. This inquiry differed from others in that it was a qualitative study focusing on one group of people: the Miskitu community members living on Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast. This investigation employed the participatory-action research methodology, allowing participants to tell their own stories about the events leading up to their dematriculation.

The six participants, male and female, are of Miskitu heritage, were at …

Latina Immigrant Mothers' Counterstories Of Education: Challenging Deficit Myths, Nancy Aileen Mcnee

Doctoral Dissertations

Despite major gains in working-class Latin@ immigrant graduation rates and college attendance in recent years, most educators and administrators still perceive Latin@ students with deficit mindsets. Majoritarian storytelling perpetuates deficit myths about working-class Latin@ immigrant students and their families not valuing education. This study joins a growing body of research that uses counterstories to challenge deficit mentalities in education toward working-class Latin@ immigrant students and their families.

This qualitative study involved individual, focus group, and member checking interviews with four Latin@ immigrant mothers in the San Francisco Bay Area. The goal of the study was to learn about the following …