Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Developing Spanish-Language Campus Tours To Enhance Accessibility And Competitive Recruitment At The University Of Mississippi, Caitlyn E. Culpepper

Honors Theses

This thesis proposes and outlines an initiative that would bring Spanish-language campus tours and visit resources to the University of Mississippi, increasing accessibility to the campus visit experience while also providing institutional benefits within a competitive recruitment landscape. Through a review of current literature on Hispanic/Latino students in higher education, institutional enrollment and recruitment data, comparative research on peer institutions, and conversations with university professionals, this project explores the role that language accessibility, family engagement, and campus visits play in the college decision-making process.

Findings suggest that Hispanic/Latino students remain an underrepresented yet rapidly growing population in higher education and …

El Poder Del Bilingüismo Y La Ciencia, Isabella Winslow

World Languages and Cultures

This project is an explanation of the importance of bilingualism, science, and our responsibility as humans within this environment. As living beings on this planet, we have a responsibility to respect and protect it. Over the course of the last several hundred years, we humans have made countless advancements. We have created unimaginable technology and discovered incredible resources produced by the land. However, in the process of doing so, we have damaged and continue to damage our environment. Reefs in the ocean have been bleached by increases in acidity, thousand year old glaciers have melted, forests have been destroyed by …

Building Bilingual Education Programs In Japan: Insights From Administrators In Private And International Schools, Megan C. Roe

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

This qualitative study examined the lived experiences of school administrators who lead bilingual programs in private and international schools in Japan. Through in-depth interviews with 11 administrators, the study examined how leaders navigate program design, curriculum choice, and program oversight in response to their community’s needs and stakeholder expectations. This research aimed to contribute to the limited literature on bilingual education within Japan’s unique cultural and educational context. Data were collected through semistructured interviews and analyzed using a phenomenological approach to identify four emerging themes: Designing Responsive Bilingual Programs, Instructional Approaches that Support Bilingual Learners, Aligning Expectations and Operational Realities, …

#35 Understanding In Lao, Victoria Gill

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This piece is a celebration, an interpretation, and translation of Lao words and of the Lao language as poetry. This poem dissects and discuss the differences between how the word "understand" is conceptualized and embodied in the Lao language versus English. Further, it shows how in Lao, there are even deeper nuances between what it means "to know" versus "to understand" in Lao.

Los Beneficios De La Enseñanza De Lenguas Extranjeras Con Cuentos Bilingües En Escuelas Rurales, Morgan Gosdin

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

This action research explores and reflects on the use of bilingual storytelling as a model for foreign language education in third-grade classrooms. Previous research indicates that familiar stories foster an ideal environment for young learners, shifting the focus to language rather than content (Kirsch, 2008). Stories invoke curiosity in students and allow learners to view a foreign language as comparable to their own rather than simply a list of rules and vocabulary words. The action research, conducted in rural Middle Georgia third-grade classrooms, incorporates cultural and linguistic education. A class of undergraduate language students conducted biweekly lessons reading Spanish stories, …

The Experience Of Child Language Brokering In Latin/Hispanic Students: Understanding How Clb Shapes Attitudes Towards Higher Education, Noemi Maldonado

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Immigrants often pursuing a better life than that in their own places of birth migrate to the states. In order to make lives in the states they bring their families with them or begin to create their own already inside the host country. With little knowledge of the place, they arrive and with nothing more than the help of their children, they seek to find a place in the society they became a part of. Immigrant children or those who come from migrant families often must help their parents, caretakers, or extended family manage the English language and American culture …

Stakeholder Perspectives On A Strand Within A Traditional School Chinese Immersion Program: A Case Study, Erica M. Caine

Doctor of Education Dissertations

Dual language immersion programs have continued to grow in North Carolina, providing students with learning opportunities focused on bilingualism, biliteracy, and sociocultural competency. This qualitative case study explored the influence of ecological systems on internal stakeholders (teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators) within one dual language strand within a school’s Chinese immersion program in North Carolina. Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) Ecological Systems Theory was utilized as the framework for this study. Data were collected through focus groups, interviews, and document analysis to examine the perceptions and experiences of key stakeholders pertaining to the program’s integration into the larger school setting. The analyzed data …

Biliteracy Development Of Spanish-English Bilingual Children: A Closer Look Into The Role Of Morphological Awareness, Grace Morgan, Jamie Smith

Graduate Independent Studies - Communication Sciences and Disorders

No abstract provided.

Integrating Research-Based Indicators Of Emergent Biliteracy Teaching Practices For Emerging Bilingual Learners, Julia Guadalupe Cuevas Guerra

Human Development and School Services Faculty Publications

This research explored how bilingual teachers of young Dual Language Leaners ages 0-3 integrated Reyes and Azuara’s (2008) Ecological Model of Emergent Biliteracy in their classrooms to foster bilingualism, biliteracy, and academic success. Dual Language Learners are the fastest-growing population of young children in the country that speak a language other than English. As so, the early childhood workforce must integrate the Ecological Model of Emergent Biliteracy for emergent biliteracy development and equitable emergent biliteracy teaching practices to support the natural biliteracy development of young Spanish-English Dual Language Learners. Qualitative data was collected through interviews and observations and were analyzed …

Influence Of The Linguistic Context On The Comprehension Of Complex Sentences, Angeline Miersma, Ligia Gomez Franco

Perspectives on Early Childhood Psychology and Education

Abstract

This study examined English learners' comprehension of complex sentences and compared scores between a school in Boston and an American school in Bolivia. Studies have covered topics such as home language input, societal interactions, classroom influences, and language of instruction. Other research has centered on the comprehension of specific linguistic structures and the requisite skills. A considerable amount of the data is acquired from sample populations of bilingual students living in the United States, attending an English immersive school. The current study compared language comprehension scores between kindergarteners attending school in the greater Boston area in the United States …

Encendiendo La Intuición/Igniting Intuition: A Bilingual Reading Specialist's Lived Experiences And Reclaiming Of Literacies, Dora M. Guzmån

Dissertations

This autoethnography explores the researcher’s lived experiences as a first-generation Latina, bilingual reading specialist who developed biliteracy in English/Spanish from childhood through adulthood and how this ignited her cultural intuition. Framed by a critical, Chicana feminist lens, she analyzed her personal and professional biliteracy practices and cultural intuition to understand how she supported young bilingual readers. Qualitative data were collected retroactively and in-the-moment (e.g., voice/written reflective memos, journals). The study research focused on how her cultural intuition guided: a) her role and practice as a bilingual reading specialist; b) her role and practice as a bilingual literacy practitioner of bilingual …

Ebs 701: Issues In Bilingualism, Lingyu Li

Open Educational Resources

This introductory course addresses the nature of bilingualism as a societal and individual phenomenon. It will explore the history and background of bilingual education, policies, approaches, and theories of education for immigrant, bilingual, and language minority students. It will also consider the social, cultural, and economic context surrounding the education of bilingual students with disabilities and issues surrounding the aforementioned topics. (15 fieldwork hours required.)

Examining Differences In Self-Concept And Language Between Monolingual And Bilingual Undergraduate Students, Marilyn Vega-Wagner

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The literature is lacking in studies that examine self-concept and language status among individuals older than adolescence. The purpose of this study is to conduct a quantitative nonexperimental comparative design to examine differences in self-concept and language status (monolingual or bilingual) between male and female undergraduate students in California. A total of 97 participants were examined in the study. The researcher conducted descriptive statistics on the demographics as well as a MANOVA and an ANOVA to answer the proposed research question. Based on the findings presented, the researcher failed to reject the null hypothesis of research question 1: There is …

Decolonization Of The Writing Classroom: Creating Space For Decolonial Theory, Tools, Anti-Racist Pedagogy, And Methods To Improve The Emerging Bilingual Student Experience, Desiree L. Brown

Masters Theses (Archived)

In this thesis, the author addresses the colonial roots of the secondary writing classroom and the origin of standard academic English which enables strict standardized testing and writing assessment requirements that in-turn incite linguistic violence towards emerging bilingual students. The author frames her study within the framework of April Baker-Bell and Asao B. Inoue through a reflective/reflexive study of her teaching in a ninth grade writing classroom in a primarily Hispanic school district in South Texas, which is assessed by the state of Texas through STAAR. This study seeks to identify instances of linguistic violence being perpetuated in the writing …

Improving Second Language Learning Through Performance-Based Assessment Practices, Maria Granados

Dissertations

From the time of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001) to the present day, standardized testing has become the benchmark measure for student assessment and school accountability in the United States. Multilingual learners are a vulnerable population with more testing and accountability requirements than mainstream students. Not only are they required to learn a second language, but they are also assessed within the same standardized testing paradigms as their peers - native speakers of the English language. This study aimed to examine and evaluate the benefits of instructional practices and assessments that provide multilingual students and teachers prompt and …

Multilingualism And Augmentative Alternative Communication: A Review Of The Literature, Hannah N. Lamarca, Natalie R. Andzik

Honors Capstones

Purpose: Individuals from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who use Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) are often offered English-only AAC systems that do not meet their language needs. Devices that host multiple languages often only offer one at a time.

Method: The authors reviewed the literature by searching relevant databases using a variety of search strings. Following our inclusionary and exclusionary criteria, 15 articles were yielded for analysis.

Results: Authors found that more than half of the included articles were discussion-based papers on AAC delivery, barriers to AAC and multilingualism, and codeswitching using AAC. The included interview studies aimed to …

Considering The Social-Emotional Well-Being Of Multilingual Learners: A Comparative Case Study Across Program Models, Amy J. Heineke, Elizabeth M. Vera, Wenjin Guo, Joseph Kaye, Joseph Elliott

Education: School of Education Faculty Publications and Other Works

This multiple-case study probes the social-emotional well-being of elementary and middle-grade students labeled as English learners who were enrolled in different bilingual program models in the midwestern United States. Using ecological systems theory, this qualitative study probes students’ social-emotional well-being across schools and within different bilingual program models, seeking to determine the structures and practices that nurture positive facets or perpetuate negative facets of student well-being. Findings indicate that interactions with peers and adults in schools influence students’ social-emotional well-being, with program-model variations, community demographics, and societal discourse shaping these in-school experiences, relationships, and sentiments. Implications center on critical consideration …

Why Not Sign? Classrooms As Sites Of D/Deaf And Multilingual Literacy Development, Dawnavyn James, Brianne R. Pitts

Michigan Reading Journal

While often, “bilingual” literacy instruction has overlooked the potential of incorporating ASL in classrooms (U.S.DPE, 2021), this article engages discussions of practice from a Missouri Kindergarten classroom to argue that teachers can improve student literacy outcomes by leveraging d/Deaf and hard of hearing multilingual learning (DML) strategies as a way of (re)imagining students’ multimodal literacy development. By engaging with a variety of strategies learned from DML students, readers may conceptualize DML inclusive classroom practices. Following a review of the literature and discussion, games, instructional strategies, and text recommendations for educators seeking DML inclusive literacy environments are provided.

Syntactic Complexity In Reading Comprehension: An Eye-Tracking Study Of Text Processing Among Bilinguals And Monolinguals, Guoqin Ding

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

For Chinese students, studying in a country with different cultural components and language structures is challenging. Compared to English, the Chinese prefers shorter and simple sentence structure and allows for two sentences to be stated side by side. Different sentence structures in Chinese may influence native-Chinese readers’ understanding of English sentences and even a whole text. This exploratory study examined whether there were any differences between English monolingual and Chinese-English children while reading varied English texts with simple or complex structures at different reading difficulty levels. This study explored the differences across texts and readers, as well as the possible …

Adjusting To Change: Learning American Sign Language Online During A Global Pandemic, Kara Gournaris

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

Second language acquisition of American Sign Language (ASL) requires opportunities for engagement with native language models (Krashen, 1988). The shift to online instruction due to the impact of COVID-19 presented unique challenges for ASL programs across the United States. With little time to redesign courses, instructors and students had to navigate the experience of online learning together. The students who participated in this 2020 study at Western Oregon University (WOU) shared their raw experiences related to this transition, and unfortunately, one year later, many of the same barriers reported by students persist. The purpose of this article is to share …

An Application Of Egan's Theory: Teaching As Storytelling, Changaa Mweti

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Every teacher is a storyteller! Learn storytelling tips and techniques for motivating underachieving students. Motivating teaching stories enkindle longing hearts and thaw out frozen brains. Employ storytelling to appeal to students’ emotions and build bridges across cultures. Learn teaching tips and techniques on storytelling in the classroom including how to sneak it through the back door to make learning fun!

Fifth Graders’ Use Of Gesture And Models When Translanguaging During A Content And Language Integrated Science Class In Hong Kong, Melanie Williams

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Translanguaging in science includes the use of semiotic repertoires complete with non-linguistic modes of meaning (e.g. gesture, tactile) that until recently have gone unnoticed in research into content language integrated learning (CLIL). Currently, there are calls for classroom research in CLIL settings that examines the semiotic processes in the spontaneous translanguaging of emergent bilinguals. In response, this study aims to expand bilingualism research by investigating the ways in which fifth-grade emergent bilinguals’ draw from their semiotic repertoires when translanguaging in content-based science lessons. Multimodal transcriptions made from video recordings of the lessons allow a cross-case analysis of the emergent bilinguals’ …

Fyc’S Unrealized Nnest Egg: Why Non-Native English Speaking Teachers Belong In The First-Year Composition Classroom, Asmita Ghimire, Elizabethada Wright

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry (2017-2022 archives)

Overviewing rhetoric and composition's evolution from “English” to “Englishes,” this article shows how the denigration of non-native English-Speaking Teachers (NNEST) of writing on the basis of English difference disregards linguistics’ understandings of the evolutions of language. Additionally, this essay demonstrates that when we consider writing via the lens of the threshold concepts and see writing as an exercise of mind, ideas and thinking, NNEST of writing can be a strength in twenty-first century First Year Composition (FYC) course.

Observación Participante De Clases Virtuales Bilingües En K-2 Durante Covid-19, Jennifer Quint

World Languages and Cultures

The Covid-19 pandemic is shifting education from the classroom to a virtual setting, forcing educational institutions to collaboratively innovate a new structure for virtual learning. The world’s current state of reliance on technology came so suddenly that teachers, students, and families have no choice but to learn as they go. This research analyzes how an elementary dual- immersion bilingual program adapts to new-found challenges such as technical difficulties, variances in at home support, and student independence. Furthermore, students enrolled in a dual-immersion bilingual program face additional challenges to provide students a language immersive environment. From August 2020 to March 2021, …

The Efficacy Of Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (Pals) With Hispanic English Language Learners In The 2nd Grade, Sonia Duran

Masters Theses

The present study examined the efficacy of a reading instruction, Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS), for Hispanic English Language Learners (ELL). Currently, the literature indicates that there is a surge in ELL students, most commonly Spanish-speaking ELL students, in the United States. This increase in ELL population created a need for academic support as many of these students are historically academically behind their non-ELL peers due to the negative impact of lack of exposure to the English language and cultural differences. The PALS program is a class-wide reading intervention where students engage in reading activities to promote reading skills; and …

Autoethnography: A Self Reflection Of The Benefits In Attending A T-Stem High School, Adriana Garza

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this autoethnography is to analyze the benefits I obtained as a bilingual, first-generation, Hispanic student by attending a STEM high school. PSJA Thomas Jefferson T-STEM Early College High School provides an Early College experience as well as a Bilingual STEM environment in a district located at La Frontera. This autoethnography uses two techniques to collect data: artifacts and reflective journals. As the researcher, I self-reflected and analyzed my own success story which will be viewed through a Narrative Inquiry lens to answer two questions 1) to what extent has the STEM model/ curriculum influenced my academic …

Insights Into The Lived Experiences Of English Language Learners, Rina Kassem

Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to examine how schools can provide special language instruction to meet the increase in the numbers of English language learners (ELLs) and its effect on educators as well as students. This is a descriptive single case study that is focused on a public school, prekindergarten through fifth-grade located in a middle class suburb in a big metropolitan area in the Midwest. This study addresses the commonality problems that face a school system include academic performance, different cultural backgrounds, communication issues, professional development, and funding. To address these issues it is necessary to understand how …

Investigando Los Éxitos Y Las Dificultades De Implementar Un Programa De Inmersión Dual A Través De Las Perspectivas De Tres Administradores, Victoria E. Slaybaugh

World Languages and Cultures

This Modern Languages and Literatures senior project investigates and analyses the successes and struggles of implementing a dual immersion program through interviews with three dual immersion principles. In interviewing three highly experienced administrators, ample information was collected on why some programs are prosperous while others see little success. Each individual principal had unique and valuable input, especially with regard to why their respective schools changed programs from 50/50 to 90/10, why they implemented K-12, and even why they chose to eliminate the program entirely. Using supplemental studies to more thoroughly examine the historical and social context of dual immersion, this …

Phil The Phytoplankton, Kylie Kihm, Lexi Frankiewich

World Languages and Cultures

This project, a bilingual children's book, “Phil the Phytoplankton” and “Felipe el fitoplancton” educates young readers on the importance of phytoplankton in our world. The book emphasizes the fact that such small organisms, invisible to the naked eye unless gathered in immense quantities, are responsible for providing the earth with approximately 50% of the oxygen essential for human life. As defined by Cal Poly, sustainability is “the ability of the natural and social systems to survive and thrive together to meet current and future needs.” This book encourages a symbiotic relationship as a young girl, initially afraid of the unknown, …

Retaining The Power To Teach And Advocate In The Era Of "Reform", David Aram Wilson, David Aram Wilson

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

This qualitative, multi-case study investigates veteran, dual-language teachers in urban elementary schools in the Southwest United States and how these teachers manage to continue teaching despite education “reforms” that have contributed to increased attrition among their peers. Each participant contributed qualitative data through a narrative questionnaire, two interviews, two focus groups., and physical artifacts. Coding and analysis of each case was inductive and involved the identification of patterns and themes that emerged from the data. A cross-case analysis was conducted. Modern Critical Theory served as the theoretical lens.

Teachers as advocates for their students’ cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic well-being emerged …