Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Impact Of The First Language Transfer On English Language Syntax For Arab Esl Students At Private Language Center In Mid-Size University Town, Mohammed A. S. Abdalhadi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the Impact of the First Language Transfer on English Language Syntax for Arab ESL Students at Private Language Center in Mid-Size University Town. The research population was 12 participants from Spring International Language Center through Intensive English Program and 7 participants from Adult Education center. The writing samples and interview were the main two instruments to analyze the data. I used constructive Analysis (CA), Error Analysis (EA), and coding to analyze the writing samples and the interview. The study focused on the syntax transfer between Arabic L1 and English L2, so Adjective/noun order, Subject/verb order, Number/numbered order, …

Ideologies Of Race, Gender, And Religion In Pronunciation Perception At Evangelical Esl Programs, Ruthanne Joy Wenger Hughes

Theses and Dissertations

Nonnative English speakers are often judged based on their accent, but accent is perceived as well as produced. Race, gender, and religion interact to create complex and nuanced figures of personhood (Agha, 2005) impacting teachers' perceptions of students. Teachers' individual differences, including language proficiency, exposure to language, and previous training, also affect pronunciation ratings (e.g., Kang, 2008, 2012; Kang & Rubin, 2009). This dissertation investigated English as a second language teachers at evangelical English programs in South Carolina, addressing how teacher backgrounds interacted with institutionally circulating ideologies of race, gender, and religion, and these factors' impact on ratings of student …

What Is The ‘E’ In Esol? Three Papers On Linguistic Borders, Normativity, And Race In Adult English Education, Kelsey Swift

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this three-paper dissertation project, I explore how ‘English’ becomes a recognizable object within the context of adult ESOL education. Building on scholarship on named languages (García, 2019; Makoni & Pennycook, 2006), the historical construction of languages (Bonfiglio, 2010; Irvine & Gal, 2000), and raciolinguistic ideologies (Flores & Rosa, 2015; Rosa & Flores, 2017), I analyze how language, both as an abstract concept and as a collection of linguistic features, is treated within adult ESOL, looking at specific contemporary classrooms, as well as historical texts. This work culminated in the three studies I present here – focused, in turn, on …

Investigating Emerging Bilingual Learner Related Field Experiences In School Psychology Graduate Training, Austin Rogers

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

There is limited research regarding school psychology field and practicum experiences that are devoted to developing skills related to emergent bilingual learners (EBL). This study attempted to better understand what types of EBL-related field and practicum experiences are most influential in preparing school psychologists to feel confident in their ability to provide school psychological services to EBL students. One hundred thirty-five practicing school psychologists were surveyed using a questionnaire focused on the types of EBL-related field and practicum experiences commonly found in exemplary multiculturally-focused school psychology graduate programs and practitioners’ perceptions of their ability to provide a number of services …

Belonging And Banding Together: Perspectives And Insights Of Newly Recruited Ell Musicians, Edward Francis Luckey, Edward Luckey, Edward Luckey

Education Doctorate Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to bring forward the lived experiences of English Language Learner (ELL) musicians who were new to the band program as of the Spring of 2021. This study was born out of previous coursework and reflection where it became apparent that more must be done to provide access to our band program for students who are in our ELL program. Therefore, the research question that guides this study is “What are the lived experiences of ELL band students?” The methodology is primarily a pursuit of the stories and lived experiences of the ELLs via a …

Aprendizaje En Inglés En Línea: Efectos Sobre La Elaboración De Textos Escritos Y Relación Con La Percepción De Los Docentes Sobre La Integración De Tecnología, Yetzy Limarys Díaz Maldonado

Theses and Dissertations

Los estudiantes de una escuela secundaria del área sur de Puerto Rico presentan un bajo aprovechamiento académico en los cursos de ESL para realizar trabajos escritos en inglés. Por lo tanto, esta disertación aplicada fue diseñada con el propósito de examinar el efecto del uso del programa de aprendizaje de idiomas en línea Grammarly sobre la elaboración de textos escritos y la percepción del docente sobre la integración de tecnología.

El diseño de este estudio fue uno cuasi-experimental. El marco teórico que sustenta el estudio se basa en la teoría del procesamiento de información cognitiva de Atkinson y Shiffrin (1968). …

Financial Literacy For Latino Immigrants: A Guidebook For Esl Teachers, Anna Braden

Master's Projects and Capstones

Latino immigrants face many financial challenges in the United States. Language barriers exclude them from jobs as well as financial and consumer markets. Lack of familiarity with the U.S. financial system or bad experiences with financial systems in their home countries can create mistrust and lead to Latino immigrants being unbanked or underbanked. Consumer vulnerabilities may also be exploited as immigrants turn to nonbank financial services such as predatory lenders (check cashers, payday lenders, etc.). Lack of access to jobs and marketplaces results in lower income and less wealth accumulation. Over time this results in wealth inequality between Latino immigrants …

Student-Centered, Interaction-Based, Community-Driven Language Teaching, Sharon Lyman

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is a compilation that highlights some of the author’s accomplished work while in the Master of Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program at Utah State University (USU). Organized into sections that reflect the author’s teaching and research perspectives as a MSLT graduate student and instructor, who taught intensive English reading, writing, and conversation courses for the Intensive English Language Institute (IELI).

In the first section, teaching perspectives, the author describes her desired professional environment, shares her personal teaching philosophy statement, and accounts for her professional development through classroom observations. In the second section, research perspectives, two research papers and …

English As A Second Language Teachers' Perspectives Of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy For Saudi University Students, Maysa Safi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractFor many years, the integration of English language into Saudi Arabia's culture, education, and curriculum were not of importance. A gap in literature exists regarding this phenomenon of localizing regional teaching practices, or pedagogy, to better meet Saudi students' learning needs while adhering to the social, political, and cultural constraints of Saudi society. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the perspectives of university-level English as a second language (ESL) teachers who have taught in Saudi Arabia concerning the use of culturally relevant pedagogy to provide students with effective and engaging instruction. The conceptual framework was based …

The Impact Of Gamification On Second-Language Learning, Maram Almufareh

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Background: The Technology-Enhanced Training Effectiveness Model (TETEM) has been used to assess the effectiveness of various technology driven solutions in improving students’ learning outcomes in multiple academic fields. However, limited research is available on the use of TETEM in the context of second language learning. Using a modified TETEM, this study seeks first, to assess the direct effects of student’s attitude, and experience with video-gaming on student’s achievement and second, to evaluate the effects of student’s attitude and experience that are mediated by student’s motivation. Methods: This study was conducted among preparatory year students at Al-Jouf University, Saudi Arabia. In …

Acquisition Of The English Copula By Arabic Speaking Esl Learners: Evidence For Feature Reassembly, Jenna Steiner

Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to identify whether the acquisition of the English copula by Arabic- speaking learners of English provides evidence for a performance or representational- based account of errors. The representational theory tested in this study is the Interpretability Hypothesis (Tsimpli & Mastropavlou, 2007) which proposes that language learners have only partial access to Universal Grammar (UG), making some language structures unacquirable for second language learners. The performance theory tested in this study is Feature Reassembly (Lardiere, 2008), which proposes that the source of errors lies with the mapping of features onto morphology rather inside the core computational component of …

Sociocultural Identification With The United States And English Pronunciation Comprehensibility And Accent Among International Esl Students, Christinah Paige Mulder

Theses and Dissertations

Sociocultural identity is defined for this study as the element of identity affixed to a social or cultural group. Previous research on sociocultural identity has recognized the need for further study of its effect on second language performance, particularly pronunciation. Previous studies have found contradictory results when studying the relationships between sociocultural identity and various measures of second language pronunciation. This thesis takes a quantitative correlational approach to the study of sociocultural identification with the United States and English pronunciation comprehensibility and accent in a group of 68 international students learning English in the United States. Participants completed a survey …

Principals' Perceptions Of Professional Development And Caring Communities For English Learners, Sunny Sue Chang Jonas

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

A growing population of English Learners (ELs) have unique challenges when navigating the American educational system. In fact, there is an achievement gap such that EL students lag behind their native English peers in school outcomes. Accordingly, there is increased demand for professional development (PD) lead by principals to address the needs of the changing population of ELs. To support effective PD aimed at improved achievement for ELs, principals need embrace transformative thinking in their work. Although PD has the potential to be the driving force of change, traditional approaches to PD have limited impact on academic success of ELs. …

Second Language Acquisition And Acculturation Differences Between Immigrants And Refugees, Ali Jasemi

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The main difference between refugees and immigrants lies in the reason for their migration. Economic immigrants migrate to other countries voluntarily, while refugees are forced to leave their countries due to fear of death or persecution (UNHCR, 2018). Such fears may lead to psychological trauma among refugees. Research has shown that the presence of trauma can negatively impact language learning (Iversen, Sveaass, & Morken, 2014), which may have important implications for both second language (L2) acquisition and acculturation, particularly in refugees. In addition, strong linguistic abilities in a first language (L1) may be beneficial to acquire other languages (Cook, 2003). …

Bullying Of Linguistically Diverse Learners: Results From The Youth Risk Behavior Survey, Jenna Woodarek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Bullying is a serious phenomenon yielding significant consequences for youth who are victimized, often targeted due to their perceived level of difference from their peers. This “otherness” can often be amplified in minoritized populations, especially those which have multiple, cooccurring vulnerabilities to be targets of bullying. After a period of bullying rates decreasing in the US, special interest group inquiries found bullying rates to be on the rise again and reportedly motivated by ethnicity or race, immigrant status, and proficiency in the English language. The present research study aims to expand upon the existing pertinent literature base specific to the …

In Translation: An Examination Of Esl Policy On Paper As It Relates To The Realities Of Implementation, Grace M. Cuevas

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This honors research project explores the features of Title III requirements as they relate to the actual experience of students and their families. This paper synthesizes my experience researching English as a Second Language (ESL) specific supports and policy to inform my time spent accompanying an upper-level administrator for the Harrisonburg City Public School (HCPS) system, and interviewing professionals at an area school. In this paper I outline the results of interviews with 13 service providers. Interviews examined the “letter of the law” and the subsequent “spirit of the law” through application of a social work lens to the different …

Conversational Movement Dynamics And Nonverbal Indicators Of Second Language Development: A Microgenetic Approach, Kristine Marie Bragg

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation study extends on current understandings of gesture and embodied interaction with the eco-social environment in second language development (SLD) while introducing new aspects of movement analysis through dynamical modeling. To understand the role of embodiment during learning activities, a second language learning task has been selected. Dyads consisting of a non-native English-speaking student and a native English-speaking tutor were video recorded during writing consultations centered on class assignments provided by the student. Cross-recurrence quantification analysis was used to measure interactional movement synchrony between the members of each dyad. Results indicate that students with varied English proficiency levels synchronize …

Effectiveness Of A University Bilingual Degree Program Among Overseas Chinese, Sherry Liu

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The language and communication skills of foreign students have long been a concern in

U.S. universities. The majority of U.S. universities require foreign students for whom English is not their native language to take English language proficiency tests such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) as part of admission requirements. Some universities have included interventions to increase the success of Chinese students against their struggle to understand English course content. One such program is the Gateway to Successful Tomorrow Bilingual Degree Program (GST). The gap to be addressed on this study was that the effectiveness of …

Effective Characteristics Of Rural English Learner Programs, Sarah Huseby

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine specific characteristics of English learner programs in a rural areas in order to determine possible factors that promoted higher English language proficiency growth for English learners. The subjects in this study were English learner teachers and administrators from five micropolitan school districts in a rural Midwestern state. The school districts in this study were identified and recruited based on two specific criteria: a mircopolitan community and a student population of English language learners. The study utilized both survey and archival data. The survey was administered to all EL teachers and administrators …

Code-Switching And Its Challenges: Perspectives On Translanguaging In The Efl/Esl Classroom, Michael Spooner

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Structured in sections that represent the author’s teaching perspectives and research perspectives, the portfolio comprises reflective pieces written at the end of the Master of Second Language Teaching program and other pieces written as coursework during the author’s study in that program. In the first section, the author describes the principles that guide his own teaching and, in light of those principles, he reviews his experience as a learner, reports on observations of other teachers, and assesses his own performance based on observations done by others. The second section offers a set of four research papers that progressively develop and …

Program Models, Pre-Service Teachers, And Emergent Bilingual Instruction, Hannah R. Meineke

Theses and Dissertations

It is estimated by the year 2030, over 40% of the K-12 population in U.S. schools will be children whose first language is not English (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007; Shin & Ortman, 2011). This situation has potential academic consequences for emergent bilingual students (EBS) attending schools without adequate accommodations. The issue of teachers who are underprepared to meet the needs of EBS contributes to the academic consequences absorbed by this K-12 population, and to the social and cultural cycle of oppression for this marginalized group. Thus, integrating knowledge, skills, and dispositions (KSDs) beneficial for meeting the needs of EBS becomes …

Taking The "Foreign" Out Of The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, Jared Benjamin Sell

Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety in the language classroom is an important issue because it affects student performance (Woodrow, 2006). The majority of research conducted has focused on anxiety or apprehension that language learners experience in a foreign language classroom, including students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) context. Only a few studies have been done, however, that address the needs of learners experiencing anxiety in an ESL setting. Data were gathered from 179 students attending a university sponsored intensive English program using a modified version of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986) and focus groups. Initial …

The Importance Of Using Information Communication Technology For Learning And Teaching The English Language In Kurdistan Of Iraq, Nabaz Noori Kareem

English (TESOL) Master Theses

Kurdistan as a region in north of Iraq has undergone significant changes regarding its educational system, and using ICTs (information communication technologies) for teaching and learning English has been given a great role in the system. There are many researchers who wrote about the benefits and the challenges of using ICTs. As the term ICT includes many kinds of devices and applications, students and teachers in Kurdistan are using various types of ICTs inside or outside of the schools. Students and teachers use ICTs for teaching and learning the skills of the English language such as reading, writing, speaking, and …

The Relationship Between Trait Emotional Intelligence And L2 Motivation, Jelena Vuksanovic

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Motivation is considered an important factor in initiating and sustaining the second language (L2) process. Since learning an L2 can be seen as a lengthy process, one that needs sustained motivation over a long period of time, learners need to be able to successfully deal with their and others’ emotions in order to generate and sustain their motivation for learning. The role of learners’ emotions and trait emotional self-efficacy, or trait emotional intelligence (EI), in L2 motivation and language learning has been a relatively unexplored area. To fill this gap, the current study posed three research questions that addressed the …

Differences In The Motivations Of Chinese Learners Of English In Different (Foreign Or Second Language) Contexts, Rui Li

Theses and Dissertations

This study employed the L2 Motivational Self-System (Dörnyei, 2005) as a framework to compare differences in the types of motivation reported by Chinese learners of English in a foreign language context (China) and a second language context (USA). It followed up on studies by Taguchi, Magid, and Papi (2009) and You and Dörnyei (2016). The participants consisted of 61 current students at an American university who come from Mainland China. This study adopted a mixed-method approach, using an internet-based questionnaire followed by an individual interview. The investigation aimed to explore what types of English learning motivation Chinese students have in …

Faculty And Eal Student Perceptions Of Writing Purposes And Challenges In The Business Major, Amy Mae Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Over the last 50 years, research has explored the writing assignment types and purposes found in undergraduate courses, including discipline-specific writing for the business major, which is one of the most popular fields of study for international students in the U.S. Many studies have explored faculty perceptions of writing challenges students exhibit when writing for business; however, few studies have compared both faculty and student perceptions of student writing challenges. The purpose of this study was to investigate business faculty perceptions of the writing challenges exhibited by students for whom English is a second or additional language (EAL) compared to …

English Proficiency Associated With The High School Grades Of Lep Students In Abilene Isd, Donald A. Dolton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, immigration into the U.S. has increased because of growing economic problems around the world. Economic globalization and technological developments (internet access and the ability to move massive amounts of information and people in a short amount of time) have influenced the number of those seeking asylum. Accordingly, the U.S. school system continues to see an increase in students who are culturally diverse with greater educational deficiencies and limited English proficiency (LEP). In Texas there has been a 90% increase in the number of immigrants from 1990 to 2010 (National CE). This means that currently immigrants make up …

Formal And Functional Linguistic Properties Of Esl Textbooks, Jessica Shea Lewis

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Based on the formal and functional perspectives espoused in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), the main purpose of this thesis was to investigate the extent to which such lexico-grammatical features as lexical density, choice of nominal groups, and grammatical metaphor are used in ESL texts to scaffold target language proficiency levels. Of the number of lexico-grammatical metafunctions and their functional constituents, interpersonal metafunctional categories were analyzed from these three functional features in this thesis in order to reveal the ways in which interpersonal categories and the lexico-grammatical features are correlated as the level of difficulty of each text increases.

The analysis …

A Longitudinal Analysis Of Adult Esl Speakers' Oral Fluency Gains, Kostiantyn Fesenko

Theses and Dissertations

While a number of studies have sought to investigate ESL speakers' fluency gains over the course of one 15-week semester, few if any studies have investigated these changes over a longer developmental period. A critical factor in researching longitudinal change is that students do not often remain in an intensive English program (IEP) for more than two semesters before moving to a new school, applying to an American university, or returning to their home country. Longitudinal research, therefore, is necessary as program administrators, teachers, and learners all seek to understand points where change in oral fluency actually occurs. For this …

The Influence Of Online English Language Instruction On Esl Learners' Fluency Development, Rebecca Aaron

Theses and Dissertations

The number of students participating in online-based instruction has grown steadily over the past decade as improvements in Internet availability, speed, and bandwidth have enabled students from around the world to enroll in online courses rather than participate in onsite traditional college courses. Online courses have also provided educational opportunities for language learners that are more convenient and cost effective. With the growth occurring in online instruction, it is critical to ask about the effectiveness of online English language learning. Even though this type of instructional medium has been available for more than a decade, there has been little empirical …