Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Parental Support For Newcomer Children’S Education In A Smaller Centre, Xuemei Li, Antoinette Doyle, Maureen Lymburner, Needal Yasin Ghadi

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

This study explored the issues around parental support for newcomer children’s transition to school in a smaller urban centre in Atlantic Canada where newcomer support is relatively limited. Data were drawn from semi-structured interviews with 11 newcomer parents, five children, and one settlement worker. The findings revealed newcomer parents’ difficulties in understanding the school system, limited engagement with the school community, isolation from other parents, and barriers to understanding and connecting with other parents. Among these newcomers, refugee parents are particularly challenged. We conclude that newcomer children’s parental involvement need to be viewed multi-dimensionally, and that the creation of a …

The Acquisition Of Bare Nominals By Three Populations Of Spanish-English Bilingual Adults, Lauren Elizabeth Miller

Open Access Dissertations

The present study contributes to our understanding of cross-linguistic influence by studying three different groups of Spanish-English speakers’ knowledge of the distribution of definite articles in both of their languages using a battery of tests that require them to draw on different linguistic abilities. These three groups include native English speakers who learned Spanish after adolescence, native Spanish speakers who learned English after adolescence and simultaneous bilinguals who grew up in the United States speaking both English and Spanish from birth. Specifically, this study explores interpretation, production and intuition regarding the acceptability of definite articles in different contexts. Since the …

L2 Effect On Bilingual Spanish/English Encoding Of Motion Events: Does Manner Salience Transfer?, Heidi E. Parker

Open Access Dissertations

This study explores the potential effect of a second language (L2) on first language (L1) encoding of motion events. The domain of interest is MANNER and the goal is to investigate if the degree of manner salience can be restructured under the effect of a L2. Slobin (2004, 2006) proposes an expansion of Talmy’s (1985, 1991, 2000) binary typology and observes that the degree of manner saliencevaries cross-linguistically. The two languages investigated in this study, Spanish and English, are at divergent points along the cline of manner salience. In addition, Slobin (1996b) suggests dividing MANNER into tier one (T1) …

Analysis Of African American And White American Cognitive Profiles For Language And Cultural Influences, Nicole Jones

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

Abstract

One of the most concerning aspects of special education is the overrepresentation of African American minority youth receiving special education services. Samuel Ortiz and colleagues considered the issue of the representation of the Latino, English Language Learner (ELL) population in special education services based on cognitive performance in relation to the mainstream population. To target this concern they determined an estimated level of expected cognitive performance of ELL’s and impact of language and cultural differences to help eligibility teams more appropriately interpret and place students with the aid of the Culture-Language Interpretive Matrix (C-LIM) model they developed. The current …

Use Of Student Created Video Podcasts To Promote Foreign Language Grammar Acquisition In Middle School, Sergio Parra

CCE Theses and Dissertations

The use of video podcasts in education has emerged as a phenomenon that has gained a considerable amount of attention over the last few years. Although video podcasting is becoming a well-established technology in higher education, new multimedia instructional strategies such as student-created video podcasts in grades K-12 are under-researched.

The study investigated the effects of video podcasts created by students to promote foreign language grammar acquisition at the middle school level and find how students described such experience. The current investigation was conducted by using the explanatory sequential design, which is a mixed methods research design that occurs in …

An Analysis Of Education Reform In Sub-Saharan Africa, Katharine Eger

CMC Senior Theses

Sub-Saharan Africa continues to fall behind other developing regions regarding educational attainment, despite recent progress in enrollment. This thesis examines a variety of external conditional factors that could contribute to a country’s relative success, in terms of years spent in school using a prediction model that compares years enrolled in secondary education as a foundation to determine over- and under-performing countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

By exploring various educational policies, historical patterns, and projects executed in Rwanda, South Africa, Ghana, and Botswana, this thesis sheds light on four main challenges that can impact educational attainment: ethnic and racial tensions, an acute …