Language and Literacy Education Commons^™

Critical Intersections Through Poetry In A Tesol & World Language Graduate Education Program, Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor, Sharon M. Nuruddin, Kuo Zhang, Yixuan Wang, Amanda Brady Deaton, Xinyi Meng, Ashley Brown-Lemley, Ming Sun

Intersections: Critical Issues in Education

In this studio submission, Language Education students who took one or more poetry writing courses along with their instructor share one poem draft and critical reflection, noting the political climate of the work co-produced and inquiry regarding the impact of producing creative work as reflexive, critical teacher education scholarship. Together they draw a context and implications for creative and critical teacher education through shared poetry writing.

Utilizing A Critical Literacy Framework To Discuss Issues Of Power And Privilege With Elementary Students, Barbara A. Pollard

Intersections: Critical Issues in Education

This action research study utilizes a critical literacy framework to bring issues of privilege and power into critical dialogue with elementary students. The study is based on the idea that disadvantaged groups can eventually agitate for societal change if they are prompted to begin to critically question systemic inequalities from a young age. Thus, instead of allowing dominant culture to dictate unfair norms and practices by simply abiding to the status quo, this study suggests that elementary teachers should aim to be the vehicle for transformational change by implementing pedagogy that encourages students to think deeply and critically. Over time, …

A Dialectical Relational Analysis Of Tesol Quarterly 2006 Special Issue On Race: Discourse, Race, And White Supremacist Ideology, Ginger A. Looney

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Although the field of TESOL is not racially neutral this dialectical relational analysis examined (1) what discourses did the authors use to deploy race in the articles in the 2006 TESOL Quarterly Special Issue on Race (TQSIR)? and (2) how do these discourses work to either conform to, or resist white supremacist ideology? Analysis of the texts identified four key discourse: racialization, whiteness, emotional labor of racism, and sonic and optic negation of racism. These discourses were examined in the domains of scholarship, curriculum, teachers, and students. In 21 instances, these four discourses work to resist white supremacist ideology. …

What Can We Learn From Adult Esl Students’ Responses To Children’S Literature?, Monique C. Stone

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Some teachers face frequently changing populations of students, making it difficult to gain cultural knowledge that is important to support student learning. The aim of this study was to explore how adult language-learner students in intensive English programs (IEPs) respond to children’s picture books portraying their home countries or cultures. Reader response theory (Rosenblatt, 1995) and cultural scaffolding (Gay, 2002; i.e., the use of student culture to support student learning) are the initial frameworks upon which the study was developed. The study was qualitative in nature and driven by a desire for the researcher to gain more cultural knowledge about …

Nidus Idearum. Scilogs, V: Joining The Dots, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

My lab[oratory] is a virtual facility with noncontrolled conditions in which I mostly perform scientific meditation and chats: a nest of ideas (nidus idearum, in Latin). I called the jottings herein scilogs (truncations of the words scientific, and gr. Λόγος – appealing rather to its original meanings "ground", "opinion", "expectation"), combining the welly of both science and informal (via internet) talks (in English, French, and Romanian). * In this fifth book of scilogs collected from my nest of ideas, one may find new and old questions and solutions, mostly referring to topics on NEUTROSOPHY – email messages to research colleagues, …

Pakistani English Language Teachers’ Preparedness: An Investigation Of Ideological Meaning-Making In Higher Education Institutions In Pakistan, Yasir Hussain

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

This research study is an attempt to understand the ideological preparedness of English language teachers at the higher education institutions (HEIs) in Pakistan. The construct of preparedness is unique in this study because the phenomenon of preparedness is simplified for pedagogical methodologies and teaching practices. This study is a journey of understanding ideology, its representations through discourse, and its enactment through discursive practices of the participant-teachers. In this hermeneutical phenomenological study, I used interview texts as the data source and critical discourse analysis (CDA) as the analytical framework. The participants included 15 English language teachers at nine different HEIs in …

Indigenous Inquiry: Understanding Language Ideologies Through Story From Individuals Who Attended Santo Domingo Pueblo’S Bia Day School, Estefanita L. Calabaza

Shared Knowledge Conference

This study focuses on Indigenous inquiry using the method of story as a holistic approach to gather information through the spoken word and movement. The project is to understand the dynamics of ancestral language ideologies through the ‘voice’ print of the elders through their BIA day school experiences of western schooling. Four participants, two males and two females, former students who attended the Santo Domingo Day School as children in the early 1900s will be interviewed, using two techniques based on Santo Domingo Pueblo Epistemology to convey information; semi-structured questions incorporating movement to express themselves using story to contextualize Santo …

The Critical Need For Mental Health Education To Be Mandated In New Mexico's Public Schools, Bonnie L. Murphy

Shared Knowledge Conference

Based on a review of research and best practices in mental health awareness and skills, this inquiry project argues for state legislative policies that would require mental health awareness and skills in the K-12 curriculum. Mental health affects individual accomplishments in every stage of people’s lives beginning in early childhood and throughout the life cycle. Prevention and treatment of mental illness plays a key role in the ability of an individual to cope with loss and develop resiliency and perseverance in challenging times and to make better decisions that improve the individual’s life and the lives of those around them. …

Decolonial Gestures Of Andean Bilingual College Students Promoting Quechua: Community-Based Participatory Research With Photovoice, Yuliana H. Kenfield

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Andean college students in Cusco, Peru, struggle to overcome discrimination against bilingualism during their pursuit of higher education. To examine this situation and possibilities for change, I employed a participatory method, photovoice (Wang & Burris, 1994) within a community-based participatory research framework, to facilitate Quechua-Spanish bilingual college students’ exploration of Quechuan practices in their university. Participatory research methodology promoted critical dialogues to challenge ideologies that have obstructed the revitalization, maintenance, development of the Quechua language in higher education. Although university policies in Cusco formally promote inclusion of indigenous knowledge and practices, bilingual Spanish-Quechua practices on campus have remained largely symbolic. …

Diné Epistemology: Sa’Ah Naaghái Bik’Eh Hózhóón Teachings, Vangee Nez

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Sa’ah Naaghái Bik’eh Hózhóón (SNBH) is Diné epistemology, a complex system of knowledge encompassing two paradigms: Beauty Way (Hózhóójii-female) and Protection Way (Naayée’ k’egho-male), with hózhó at its core. The study examines personal narratives of SNBH through lived experiences toward hózhó. The literature review looks at Diné worldview from the perspective of published Diné scholars on SNBH for Diné youth. This qualitative case study approach, using Indigenous epistemology and Indigenous research methodology framework, allowed for intensive descriptions and analysis of SNBH. The interviews explored participants’ lived experiences using narrative inquiry to understand SNBH. The findings …

Video Games And Virtual Reality As Classroom Literature: Thoughts, Experiences, And Learning With 8th Grade Middle School Students, Miles M. Harvey

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

This qualitative study utilized video games and virtual reality in an eighth-grade public middle school media literacy elective classroom in which the head researcher was also the official teacher for the students in the study. The nineteen students and their teacher used video games in small groups for five consecutive weeks. The teacher and nineteen students recorded data about their thoughts, experiences, and learning as they played in the classroom. Students responded to open-ended reader-response questions about their experiences after playing video games each day for forty-five minutes. Students reflected about their experiences in a thought journal. The teacher responded …

Teachers’ Professional Identity Construction: A Narrative Inquiry Of Non-Native English Speaking Teachers In Saudi Arabia, Mustafa Abdo Hersi

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

This qualitative study examineshow five in-service male non-native English speaking teachers (NNESTs) constructed and negotiated their professional identity as teachers to make meaning of their lived experiences in an EFL milieu, a Saudi Arabian university. The study also explores the challenges related to NNESTs’ teaching lives and how they negotiated them as they constructed their professional identities. I approached the studied phenomena by employing a narrative inquiry method. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and an autobiography. The study draws on Clandinin and Connelly’s framework of three-dimensional space (temporality, sociality, and place), Bourdieu’s theory of forms of capital,and Gee’s …

Historical Traditions And Critical Perspectives: An Exploration Of The Textual And Pedagogical Choices Of Four Language Arts Teachers In An Urban, Diverse Secondary School, Annmarie L. Sheahan

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Even as current critical research in the teaching of English calls for a widening of traditional secondary texts and curricula choices, the presence of certain district, local, and state policies continue to permeate classrooms in extensive and oppressive ways that have limited the literature, the instructional strategies, and the autonomy that teachers bring into educational spaces. This qualitative study examines the pedagogical choices of four secondary language arts teachers within the framework of both historical and critical perspectives on the teaching of literature and within the realities of a high-stakes, evaluative teaching environment. Utilizing participatory action research (PAR) and collaborative …

A Case Study Of Two Taiwanese Students With Hearing Loss Navigating The English As A Foreign Language Requirement At Their University, Yu Chen

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Many institutions of higher education (IHE) students in Taiwan now need to meet the English proficiency requirement to earn their higher education degrees. In this case study, I intended to a) provide the opportunity for IHE students with hearing loss in Taiwan to share their opinions, thoughts, and experiences of learning English as a foreign language in higher education institutes; and b) understand how English as a foreign language policies and educational practices contribute to create opportunities and barriers for IHE students with hearing loss. The research question I intended to examine was “what are the perceptions of the lived …

Critical Social Justice Theory In Action: A Practitioner Inquiry Into The Service-Learning Capstone Experience, Julie A. Jaynes

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Service-learning pedagogy can be found in K-12 schools and higher education classrooms across the country. Those programs and courses exist on a complex spectrum from charity to social justice; research presented here documents my efforts as a service-learning teacher to better align the program’s senior capstone class to the teachings from critical social justice theory. I used a practitioner inquiry approach to address the problem of an epistemology in the research process that recreated systems of oppression by excluding the knowledge and voices of the minoritized groups who are impacted by the issues being researched. My inquiry centers my students’ …

Indonesian Students' Perceptions Of Written Feedback In Second Language Writing, Rahmah Fithriani

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Grounded in sociocultural theory, written feedback activities in second language (L2) writing provide the social interactions that help learners develop their psychical functions within the zone of proximal development (ZPD) as they co-construct knowledge with teachers and peers through guided learning (De Guerrero & Villamil, 2000). Written feedback can also help student writers improve their writing proficiency, including organization of their texts and awareness of the mechanics of the language necessary for successful communication of the intended message (Chandler, 2003; Ferris, 2006; Jahin, 2012; Kamimura, 2006).

Regarding the eminence of feedback in L2 writing, a large body of research has …

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Intersections: Critical Issues in Education

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Intersections: Critical Issues in Education

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Intersections: Critical Issues in Education

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Seeds Of Freedom: Liberating Education In Guatemala By Clark Taylor, Magdalena Vázquez Dathe

Intersections: Critical Issues in Education

With a central theme of emancipatory education, Seeds of Freedom: Liberating Education in Guatemala by Clark Taylor (2014) delivers a powerful historical narrative that reaffirms the value of an education for liberation. The remarkable story of Santa Maria Tzejá, a remote village in northern Guatemala, demonstrates how social activism and a liberating education contributed to the socio-economic development and empowerment of this indigenous community. Through extensive interviews with students, families, community leaders, and teachers, Taylor describes a story that has been unfolding for over twenty-five years.

Agency, The Uncanny, And Strangeways: An Autoethnographic Journey Through An International Wunderland., Roberto T. Ollivier

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

The African diaspora and postcolonial studies author George Lamming writes in his book “The Pleasures of Exile” that the Caliban character from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” “cannot be revealed in any relation to himself-for he has no self which is not a reaction to circumstances imposed upon his life” (Lamming, 1992, p. 107). One could argue that the only hope this half-human half-monstrous creature, or for that matter, any of us have to find peace, lies in the attempt to find resolution through the metaphorical slaying of our respective pasts. Like Caliban, many of us are never …

Digital Technology, Literacies, And Identity: Experiences Of Historically Marginalized Adolescents, Daniel Olufemi Dr.

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

New media and digital technologies shape the literacy practices and identity development of adolescents (Ellison, 2014, Barton & Hamilton, 2000; Perry, 2012; Lotherington & Jenson, 2011). Research into this phenomenon has largely focused on the general adolescent population. However, this narrative inquiry focuses on the experiences of four adolescents of color in New York City who live in poverty. Participants in this study visit a neighborhood library to access computers and the Internet. The researcher conducted semi-structure interviews in the library to evoke narratives about participants’ use of digital media and observed participants as they used the library computers. Analysis …

Endangered Language Pedagogy & Teaching Methodology, Brandon J. Martínez

Linguistics Student Publications

This manuscript was an undergraduate thesis submitted to the UNM Department of Linguistics in Spring 2017, and accepted with honors for graduation. The paper presents a synthesis of classic and contemporary approaches to teaching and revitalizing indigenous languages, drawing from a wide range of materials and research in the literature. Furthermore, it presents the results of interviews conducted with indigenous language educators at the University of New Mexico, providing insight on the future of indigenous language education through the eyes of indigenous educators themselves.

Experiences Of Adolescents And Drama: "This Is Bullsh*T. I Can't Do It", Erin K. Hulse Phd

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

The purpose of this practitioner action research (PAR) study was to explore experiences of middle school students enrolled in a basic drama class, creating a performance piece that allowed for the representation of voices and opinions of participants. Seventh and eighth grade students developed work relating their perspectives on issues important to them--friendship, respect, equality, secrets, and moving on. Questions were 1) how are trust, ensemble, and community developed with the participants? 2) how do students respond to drama games, and 3) how do participants express their perspectives regarding issues using the creative drama strategies? Students created a performance of …

From Project To Teacher To Student: A Qualitative Case Study Exploring The Complexities Of Student Writing At A Project-Based Learning High School, Jamie Mae Collins

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

In this qualitative case, I explore the complexities of adolescent student writing within one project over the course of one trimester at a project-based learning (PBL) high school. With this study, I seek to both understand how students write within project work and open-up a conversation between the fields of adolescent literacy development and PBL. From my extensive collection of data—field notes; student writing samples; photographs; teacher artifacts; and audio records of teacher interviews, planning sessions, and implementation of writing activities—I sought to answer my overarching research question: What happens with student writing during one project in a PBL high …

Using The Aesthetic Stance To Achieve Historical Thinking, Heather J. Bassett Dahl

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

This research study focuses on how an aesthetic reading stance with dystopian literature can aid teens in the development of historical thinking skills. My research is based on ideas from Louise Rosenblatt’s transactional theory and Sam Wineburg’s concept and definition for historical thinking along with the UCLA Standards for Historical Thinking. Historical thinking requires students to gain factual information but also experiences. As a social studies teacher, this practitioner inquiry study created an opportunity to explore how I might position students into the intellectual mindsets of historical thinking through fictional reading in the aesthetic stance. This study provided students the …

Efl Teachers’ Perceptions And Practices About Assessment At The Universidad Central Del Ecuador, Evelyn Veronica Almeida Garcia

Research and Development Supported by El Centro

Despite rising interest in understanding how language mastery is assessed, our knowledge of language assessment, alternatives in assessment, feedback, peer and self-assessment, as well as our understanding of teachers’ perceptions of assessment and their subsequent assessment practices is still quite limited. In my experience, language assessment is not always aligned with what and how students learn in their EFL classes. My aim is to conduct a case study of three EFL teachers from the Centro de Idiomas (Language Center) in the UCE and examining how their knowledge and beliefs about assessment influence their practices in class. I will collect data …

The Impact Of Spanish Heritage Language Programs On Spanish Language Learners’ Self-Efficacy., Dietger De Maessener

Research and Development Supported by El Centro

This research study explores the experiences of Spanish heritage learners (SHL) in Spanish language classes. SHL are sometimes referred to as native speakers, quasi-native speakers, or home-background speakers and have a family-based connection to the Spanish language (Hancock, 2002). Given this broad definition of SHL, their experiences with the heritage language are wide-ranging. While levels of fluency and skill vary substantially, language ideologies, attitudes, stigma, and sociolinguistic factors can equally determine the linguistic market value of one’s Spanish skills (Bourdieu, 1977). Given the high level of complexity and the wide range of influential and continuously dynamic factors, especially situated within …

Towards Becoming Bilingual -- Cognitive And Semantic Considerations On Language Acquisition, Gnaneswaran Thiruraj Perinpanayagam

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Language learning is both culture-bound and individual-skill-bound, structured on an innate, biological capacity to acquire language. While it is a remarkable phenomenon when it occurs in the acquisition of a first language, it is even more remarkable in the acquisition of a second language where the main objective concerning competence is to bring the two languages into equilibrium. This equilibrium does not result in a final co-ordinate bilingual, which is only an abstract ideal. It is, rather, the complex bilingualism - the only bilingualism it is possible to demonstrate - and the equilibrium is judged on the needs and purposes …