Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Home-School Connection: Parental Influences On A Child's Esl Acquisition, Catharine Jauhiainen

Dissertations and Theses

Few would dispute the tremendous impact that parents have on the intellectual, emotional, and social development of their children. An important issue in child second language acquisition is whether, or to what extent, parental attitudes and behaviors are associated with the success of language minority children in elementary ESL and mainstream classroom settings. The effects of parental educational values and expectations, and parental perception of ability to assist in the educational journey of their offspring, have been the focus of much research regarding majority language children. However, research exploring the beliefs and behaviors of language minority parents and their relationship …

Opening Doors: Culture Learning And Conversational Narratives With First Generation Hmong Refugee Women, Lucy Vincent Kimbro

Dissertations and Theses

The life experiences of two first generation Hmong refugee women form the basis of this study. Through loosely structured but guided interviews, memories of their lives in Laos and in refugee camps in Thailand, as well as their perspectives, feelings, and opinions about current aspects of their lives, the effects of American culture on their family; and their engagement in the language and culture learning process are explored.

An examination of the involvement of Hmong women in research and ethnographic accounts concerning Hmong culture, history, and experience, show that Hmong women's perspectives have often been overlooked or disregarded. One purpose …

The Importance Of Time For Processing In Second Language Comprehension And Acquisition, Jennifer Lee Watson

Dissertations and Theses

Research findings on the positive impact of interaction on comprehension have led to questions regarding both the connection between comprehension and acquisition and the qualities of interaction which facilitate understanding (Ellis et al. 1994). Ellis et al. found that a high degree of comprehension on an activity which contained unknown words correlated with a high rate of vocabulary acquisition. The present study replicates the activity and testing procedures used by Ellis et al. The main focus of the Ellis et al. study was the connection between second language comprehension and acquisition. This study differs from Ellis et al. in that …