Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

The Effect Of Gamification On Elementary Students’ Spanish Language Achievement And Academic Self-Efficacy, Jason Rachels

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, non-equivalent control group design was used to examine the effect of gamification on third and fourth grade students’ Spanish language achievement and student academic self-efficacy. In this study, the primary means of incorporating gamification into the experimental group’s Spanish language instruction was through the use of Duolingo®, a computer and mobile app that uses gamification and adaptive learning technology to teach foreign languages. Students in the control group received their regularly scheduled English L1/Spanish L2 class learning activities. The study was 12 weeks in duration. Students were assessed with a 50 question, multiple-choice English to Spanish and …

An Examination Of The Relationships Between Safety Culture Perceptions And Safety Reporting Behavior Among Non-Flight Collegiate Aviation Majors, Daniel Kwasi Adjekum, Julius Keller, Micah Walala, Cody Christensen, Randal J. Demik, John P. Young, Gary J. Northam

Aviation Faculty Publications

Some collegiate aviation programs in the United States have adopted the voluntary Safety Management System (SMS) strongly advocated by the Federal Aviation Administration to build a proactive safety culture. While relevant safety culture research has primarily focused on flight personnel, there has been limited investigation on non-flight collegiate aviation majors (collegiate air traffic control, aviation management, and unmanned aerial systems students) perceptions on collegiate aviation safety. This study examined the relationship between safety culture perceptions and safety reporting behavior of non-flight major students at five collegiate aviation programs. One hundred and sixteen completed responses to a validated safety culture perception …

Teachers’ And Administrators' Perceptions Of The Characteristics Of Effective Leadership For K-12 International Schools, Travis S. Smith

All NMU Master's Theses

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to investigate teachers’ and administrators’ perceptions of the characteristics of effective leadership for K-12 international schools. The data produced three themes; these include emotional intelligence, the ability to establish school culture, and administrative mindset. The literature review focused on the survey data points of humor, cultural intelligence, and vision embedded within these themes. The research findings are intended to advance the knowledge of leadership for K-12 international schools.

The Challenge Of Teaching Chinese Philosophy: Some Thoughts On Method, Andrew Lambert

Publications and Research

In this essay I offer an alternative perspective on how to organize class material for courses in Chinese philosophy for predominately American students. Instead of selecting topics taken from common themes in Western discourses, I suggest a variety of organizational strategies based on themes from the Chinese texts themselves, such as tradition, ritual, family, and guanxi (關係), which are rooted in the Chinese tradition but flexible enough to organize a broad range of philosophical material.

Globalization And Possibilities For Intercultural Awareness: Multimodal Arabic Culture Portfolios At A Catholic University, Sawsan Abbadi

Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This case study explores the teaching and learning of Arabic at one Catholic university campus, with a focus upon the complex interactions between language and culture in a postmodern globalized context. Specifically, it examines the use of “multimodal culture portfolios” as a means to engage students both linguistically and culturally in classroom and community discourses. Through their interactions and co-construction of knowledge with other participants, these students are led to think about the multiple communicative contexts that are shaping and being shaped by them. Data collection was conducted through survey questionnaires and students' responses to the assigned culture portfolio. The …

The Effect Of Gamification On Elementary Students’ Spanish Language Achievement And Academic Self-Efficacy, Jason Rachels

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, non-equivalent control group design was used to examine the effect of gamification on third and fourth grade students’ Spanish language achievement and student academic self-efficacy. In this study, the primary means of incorporating gamification into the experimental group’s Spanish language instruction was through the use of Duolingo®, a computer and mobile app that uses gamification and adaptive learning technology to teach foreign languages. Students in the control group received their regularly scheduled English L1/Spanish L2 class learning activities. The study was 12 weeks in duration. Students were assessed with a 50 question, multiple-choice English to Spanish and …

Review Of T. Alexa Linhard's Jewish Spain: A Mediterranean Memory, Eva Núñez-Méndez

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Review of Linhard, Tabea Alexa. Jewish Spain: A Mediterranean Memory. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2014. Pp. 248. ISBN 978-0-80478-739-0.

Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy: Staking A Claim Against The Macrostructural Unconscious, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Critical pedagogy currently exists today as precariously as a shabby lean-to room added to a typical American hall-and-parlor house. I am referring to the type of house that formed the basic English prototype for the classic American building we see everywhere in New England and on the East Coast. If the hall-and-parlor house represents education in the main, then we critical educators are as rare as hen’s teeth, shunted to the rear of the house, squatters huddled under a slanted roof, wearing fingerless gloves, clutching our tin cups of broth, spearing biscuits and dreaming of the day when we will …

Understanding School And Interethnic Relations Of Mexican Immigrant Youth In A Post-Industrial Community, Roberto Martinez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a dearth of literature on how immigrant groups understand minority groups in the United States, in particular, African-Americans. Increased technology and more rapid global movement in the 21st Century challenges 20th explanations of assimilation (Chicago School) and necessitates more research focused on how immigrant groups and racialized minorities interact to negotiate new worlds. This ethnographic research was conducted over thirteen months during 2012 and 2013 in a post-industrial neighborhood in the northeast that had been the site of 11 purported anti-bias attacks against Mexican immigrants during the summer of 2010. Research questions focused on: 1) Mexican immigrant youth …

Fragmentation And Multiplicity In Cuban-American Identity: In Cuba I Was A German Shepherd By Ana Menéndez And Memory Mambo By Achy Obejas, Daimys E. Garcia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Maria Lugones offers a new way of perceiving the world, which makes visible that fragmentation is not a valuable and transgressive understanding of identity, as Western philosophy and some political theory suggests. What Lugones believes in, as a strategy of resistance to the dominant gaze, is multiplicity – mestizaje. Using Lugones’s framework, this thesis will look at the different aspects of Cuban-American characters in In Cuba I was a German Shepherd by Ana Menéndez and Memory Mambo by Achy Obejas. Each novel offers insight into how characters develop and understand themselves (and others) when they use language that shows that …

Bilingual Latino Middle Schoolers On Languaging And Racialization In The Us, Sarah Hesson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores bilingual Latino middle schoolers’ articulated understandings of their language practices as well as the links between language practices and processes of racialization and discrimination in the US. The research was conducted in the context of an after-school program whose explicit aim was to not only document students’ experiences, but to use those experiences as a basis for generating individual and collective critical understandings among participants. The findings of this case study center on the ways youth understand processes of racialization, translanguaging, and translation in the context of an English-dominant society, and how these understandings are connected to …

Ise Annual Report 2015-2016, Intercultural Student Engagement Office, Anthony Johnson

Intercultural Student Engagement (ISE) Annual Reports

The ISE Annual Report 2015-2016 is a year in review containing a message from the director, staff updates, community programs, statistics and general report of the work of this office. Our Mission: The office of Intercultural Student Engagement (ISE) fosters multicultural understanding and personalized support at RISD by engaging its community through programming, advocacy, and specialized services. ISE believes in the power of art and design to unleash our inherent curiosity, constantly broadening and reshaping our understanding of the human experience. ISE envisions an artistic community where the breadth of the human dignity is creatively realized, inspiring everyone to collectively …

Ideology, Access, And Status: Spanish-English Bilinguals In The Foreign-Language Classroom, Michael E. Rolland

Graduate Student Publications and Research

Spanish language teaching in US higher education is today generally divided between ‘foreign language’ courses for novice learners and ‘heritage language’ courses for Hispanic/Latinx students with some knowledge of the language. However, ‘heritage’ students are a linguistically diverse group, and are also often enrolled at institutions where heritage courses are not offered. Little research to date has studied ‘heritage’ speakers enrolled in ‘foreign’ language courses. For this study I conducted semi-structured interviews to explore the affective and ideological characteristics of bilingual students enrolled in elementary Spanish courses. As the literature suggests, I find that these students have a generally low …

A Quantitative Comparison Of The Reading Achievement Of English Learners In Dual Language And Transitional Bilingual Programs, Shajaira P. Lopez

Dissertations

One of the goals of bilingual education research is to identify programs that have shown to be effective in increasing the English proficiency of English learners (ELs). The purpose of this archival comparative study was to conduct a quantitative comparison of the English reading achievement of third grade ELs enrolled in dual language education (DLE) programs to those enrolled in transitional bilingual education (TBE) programs in order to determine which program is more effective in improving the reading proficiency of third grade ELs in the Chicago Public Schools. The data analyzed in this study were the 2010-2014 reading scores on …

Lecciones De IngléS Para Un Hispanohablante Encarcelado: Caso PráCtico, Mckenzie Brown

World Languages and Cultures

This project attempts to outline my experience teaching English in the San Luis Obispo County Jail as part of a seven-week internship. It will outline various teaching methods that I found useful in one-on-one settings. I will discuss the flexibility required to work within the limitations imposed by the jail, as well as linguistic and cultural obstacles associated with teaching a native Spanish speaker. Lastly, I intend to advocate for the implementation of more jail programs that can be accessed by non-native English speakers.

Although this project's core is founded in seven weeks of ninety-minute instructional sessions, it will also …

The Influence Of Racial Socialization On The Academic Achievement Of Black College Students, Vanessa R. Laurent

Dissertations

Black college students continue to have difficulties reaching academic success in various domains; however, understanding the nature of how academic success is cultivated by Black college students is vital for counselors, educators, and university administrators. The objective of the study was to understand how racial socialization influenced academic success. Research suggests that racial socialization contributes to positive long-term outcomes among African Americans and may be connected to academic achievement (Bowman & Howard, 1985; Boykin & Tom, 1985; Davis & Stevenson, 2006; Neblett, Terzian, & Harriott, 2010; Stevenson, 1994, 1995). Participants were 349 Black college students from a predominately White institution …

Audience Response And From Film Adaptation To Reading Literature, Klaudia H.Y. Lee

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Audience Response and from Film Adaptation to Reading Literature" Klaudia H.Y. Lee analyses results from 3000-plus interview conducted across university campuses in Hong Kong in order to investigate the roles of screen adaptations and their intertextual relationship for developing students' critical textual practice. Lee combines reader-response theory (Iser and Rosenblatt) with empirical data to explore students' actual encounters and experience with texts. While the data suggests an influence of screen adaptations on students' choice and motivation of reading, this interest can potentially be developed into a critical awareness of the various intertextual possibilities that exist in different …

Design, Participation, And Social Change: What Design In Grassroots Spaces Can Teach Learning Scientists, Miguel Zavala

Education Faculty Articles and Research

hile a science of design (and theory of learning) is certainly useful in design-based research, a participatory design research framework presents an opening for learning scientists to rethink design and learning as processes. Grounded in the autoethnographic investigation of a grassroots organization's design of a local campaign, the author traces the successive transformations of design artifacts, delineating a narrative character to design within grassroots spaces. One major lesson is that centering the question of participation is not just about including historically marginalized peoples at the core of design; it has the potential to “desettle” projects at a fundamental level, challenging …

From Marginality To Mattering: Linguistic Practices, Pedagogies And Diversities At A Community-Serving Senior College, Andrea Springirth, Hannah Göppert

Publications and Research

The cultural diversification of colleges and universities which initially targeted the needs of a specific minoritized group raises questions concerning the inclusion of every individual and the maintenance of the advances which have been made for the original population. This paper provides insight into the challenges and merits at the intersection of linguistic and racial/ethnic diversification within CUNY’s Medgar Evers College. Historically tied to the Black Campus Movement, the college is committed to being an agent of social transformation for the surrounding community. Aiming to understand the perspectives on language and diversity of the key stakeholders at the college, a …

"That's The Test?" Washback Effects Of An Alternative Assessment In A Culturally Heterogeneous Eap University Class, Abigail Bennett Carrigan

Dissertations and Theses

To determine learner attitudes toward an alternative assessment, additional washback effects, and possible relationships between cultures of learning and learner attitudes, a mixed methods study was conducted in an advanced multicultural EAP (English for Academic Purposes) class in the USA, where a poster project was implemented as a summative assessment. Qualitative and quantitative data from a pre- and post-test questionnaire as well as classroom observations and an interview with the instructor were used to investigate learners' attitudes towards the assessment. The twenty-four participants representing five cultures of learning from the Middle East, South America and Southeast Asia expressed largely positive …

Intercultural Interactions Among Burmese Refugees In Multicultural Middle School Classrooms, Matthew Carl Mcparker

Dissertations and Theses

The largest refugee group entering the United States in recent years is from Burma. Refugee students face a daunting set of challenges, from language and cultural differences to living in poverty, in becoming successful in their new homes. To be successful in schools and gain cultural and social capital, refugee students must learn and internalize the specific norms of their classrooms. In middle school, students are particularly reliant upon their peers for support, making peer interactions especially important. In multicultural settings, students have ample opportunities for intercultural interactions, which can help refugee students navigate their new settings and become more …

Identity And Language Learning In Multilingualism, Seullee Talia Lee

Sandanona

Why does a language learner learn a new language? How is one’s identity negotiated in certain language learning contexts? One’s identity has a tremendous impact on his/her language learning trajectory. This presentation describes key concepts of identity research in the Second Language Acquisition field. Also, the presenter suggests an imagined identity option for an English language learner as a legitimate multilingual citizen, not as a deficient non-native speaking second-class citizen.

Gamifying Social Justice In The English Classroom, Yoshimi Ochiai

Sandanona

English has a power to build a peaceful world. In this workshop, participant will experience the dynamics of trade between developed and developing countries through a game. The presenter will provide examples of pre- and post-stage activities to introduce the game in English classroom, too.

I’M No Therapist: Tesol And Mental Health, Stacy Walsh

Sandanona

TESOL and mental health are inextricably linked. The presenter will use her experience in both fields to explore the who, what, why and how of creating a safe and healthy classroom community. She’s no therapist, but she will also consider approaches that have the potential to empower students and teachers.

‘Maximizing Learning Opportunities’ In Practice: A Retrospective, Xavier Muñoz

Sandanona

What can ‘maximizing learning opportunities’ look like in the classroom? The presenter will share their journey of coming to recognize and intentionally plan for this strategy in practice. Along the way, attendees will stop for photo ops (i.e., specific instances of the strategy in action) using multiple lenses (i.e., frameworks).

Language As A Marker Of Cultural Identity For Tcks, Nick Cooper

Sandanona

The presenter will make conference participants aware of the linguistic and cultural conflicts that Adult Third Culture Kids experience in educational systems. Together we will come to understand the self-identity conflicts experienced by ATCKs, the hybrid identification process of blended accent, and mode of pronunciation as an adaptive strategy.

Elementary Teaching Strategies For Lgbtq Inclusion, Nicole E. Cox

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

It is the responsibility of teachers to create a classroom environment that is both inclusive and validating to the identities of students and their families. This capstone project explores how teachers can create this environment for students and families that are a part of the LGBTQ community. Because of the discrimination that presents itself through bullying based on LGBTQ identities, and the lack of LGBTQ representation within classroom lessons, there is a need for a higher quantity and quality of resources for teachers to create these inclusive environments, specifically in elementary schools. To assess our local community, teacher interviews were …

Guidebook For Esl Teachers Of Chinese Students, John M. Tubbs

Master's Projects and Capstones

There are currently many Chinese speakers studying and working in the United States. Some of them find English pronunciation to be very challenging. The Guidebook is meant to be a tool for the teachers of Chinese speaking ESL students. English language instruction in China is often teacher centered, with the instructor lecturing and students taking notes. Most classes do not focus on communicative skills. Different language groups often vary in terms of which English sounds they find difficult to pronounce. Vowel sounds have been identified as a particular challenge for Chinese speaking students. The front-vowels in English are the focus …

Writing Research Papers: A Guide For International Students, Veronica Andrew

Master's Projects and Capstones

The recent dramatic influx of international students to universities in the United States has presented many difficulties, both to those students and to those who work in American higher education. One of the most significant of those challenges is helping international students learn, understand, and practice the conventions of research that are a part of academic writing curricula. Grounded in the pedagogical theories of critical literacy, community of practice, and process-based learning, this project presents international students with concepts and skills used in source-based writing. The project, in the form of a workbook, introduces students to the research-related ideas of …

From Culture Shock To Cultural Adaptation: A Workbook For International Students, Gregory R. Sugajski

Master's Projects and Capstones

San Francisco’s complex communal tapestry can lead to cultural disorientation, dislocation, and unfamiliarity for recently arrived F-1 and M-1 international students, a series of events that when related to problematic adaptation issues and negative adjustment implementations is known as culture shock. Easing the adaptation process for this population is considered to be of academic importance from a progressive, economic, sociocultural, and intercultural perspective. Thus, the organizing purpose and principle of the project is to enable cultural adaptation for students who reside in San Francisco by instilling in them proximal, behavioral, and situational safety awareness. The project takes the form of …