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First and Second Language Acquisition Commons™
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Articles 61 - 90 of 280
Full-Text Articles in First and Second Language Acquisition
Foundations Of Linguistics And Identity In L2 Teaching And Learning: Agency Through Linguistic Enrichment, Differentiated Instruction And Teacher Identity, Marnie Jo Petray, Rebecca Shapiro, Gladys M. Vega
Foundations Of Linguistics And Identity In L2 Teaching And Learning: Agency Through Linguistic Enrichment, Differentiated Instruction And Teacher Identity, Marnie Jo Petray, Rebecca Shapiro, Gladys M. Vega
Publications and Research
Language, procedure, and identity are L2 teaching/learning essentials that may promote agency and stimulate synergies among knowledge, practice, and reflection (Diaz Maggioli, 2014; Duff, 2012). This meta-report presents three studies that collectively advance agency and endorse linguistic foundations as enrichment, differentiated instruction as engagement, and teacher identity as empowerment. All of these theoretical constructs are key to successful L2 teaching and acquisition. Study 1 quantitatively reports on introductory linguistics’ presence or absence in 114 master’s programs at 54 US institutions. Findings suggest that linguistics’ curricular presence is inconsistent and training for optimal impact in the L2 classroom is lacking. Given …
Basic Tools For College Composition Success For Beginner Esl Learners, Gina M. Vellani
Basic Tools For College Composition Success For Beginner Esl Learners, Gina M. Vellani
English OER Repository
Basic Tools for College Composition Success is a practical classroom resource for instructors of beginner level ESL students. This resource teaches paragraph writing skills and syntax. Paragraph genres included in this resource are descriptive and narrative. Most paragraph examples are authentic writings from beginner ESL college students.
Tools For College Composition Success Ii For Low Intermediate Students, Gina M. Vellani
Tools For College Composition Success Ii For Low Intermediate Students, Gina M. Vellani
English OER Repository
Tools for College Composition Success II is a practical resource for use in the college ESL classroom. This book teaches 5 paragraph essay writing and covers the following genres: Illustration/example, narrative, informational process and classification/division. This resource also contains chapters that focus on improving introduction, body and concluding paragraphs. There are also 3 chapters dedicated to syntax: Simple sentences, compound sentences and complex sentences. All essays in this resource are authentic essays written by students at this level of ESL composition instruction.
Tools For College Composition Success I For High Beginning Esl Learners, Gina M. Vellani
Tools For College Composition Success I For High Beginning Esl Learners, Gina M. Vellani
English OER Repository
Tools for College Composition Success I is a practical classroom resource for high beginning ESL learners. This book covers composition skills and syntax using the descriptive, narrative and process writing genres. In addition, this resource helps students at this level of language acquisition transition from writing paragraphs to writing short essays.
Acquiring English Then Reacquiring Indonesian: A Study Of Family Language Policy, Aris Bahari Rizki, Muchamad Sholakhuddin Al Fajri
Acquiring English Then Reacquiring Indonesian: A Study Of Family Language Policy, Aris Bahari Rizki, Muchamad Sholakhuddin Al Fajri
The Qualitative Report
This study investigates how family language policies are shaped and developed in five Indonesian scholars’ families who live in England. More specifically, it analyses parents’ attitudes towards children’s bilingualism and second language development focusing on the investigation of factors that can influence parental language ideologies and the patterns of language practices within the families. Data were obtained from participant observations, fieldnotes, and semi-structured interviews. All the data were then analysed using inductive analysis approaches proposed by Cohen et al. (2011) and Thomas (2006) which include reading the transcripts several times, identifying the texts related to the purpose of the study, …
Using Film As A Multimodal Text In The Language Classroom, Kate Marie Steckmest
Using Film As A Multimodal Text In The Language Classroom, Kate Marie Steckmest
MA TESOL Collection
Film is a powerful medium for language acquisition; Not only does viewing films allow learners to experience language used in various real-life contexts, but the medium of film itself is a form of communication. Through the active viewing of films, students can explore how people with diverse backgrounds, accents, and cultures communicate using multiple modes such as gestures, images, and sounds. When learners are familiar with the techniques used by filmmakers to convey meaning, they can use the medium of film themselves to tell their stories and share their perspectives through filmmaking projects. Such projects can be collaborative and engaging …
Strategies Utilized By Speech-Language Pathologists When Treating Speech-Language Disorders In Children Who Are Bilingual, Julianne L. Monceaux-Visser
Strategies Utilized By Speech-Language Pathologists When Treating Speech-Language Disorders In Children Who Are Bilingual, Julianne L. Monceaux-Visser
Dissertations, Theses, and Projects
In the state of Minnesota, more children who use a language other than English were reported to speak English less than “very well” (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020). There was neither a “gold standard” (Verdon, McLeod, & Wong, 2013), nor Preferred Practices (ASHA, 2020) for the treatment of speech-language disorders for children who were bilingual. The current study investigated the practices for treating speech-language disorders in this population by SLPs employed in schools in a region of west-central MN and eastern ND. Using an interpreter, and explicit instruction on targeted language skills were the most common clinical approaches utilized. The child’s …
Approaches To Narrative Instruction For Second Language Learners, Mathew Peters
Approaches To Narrative Instruction For Second Language Learners, Mathew Peters
MA TESOL Collection
Narratives have reemerged as a dominant form of rhetoric over the last fifty years. This dominant use of narrative discourse has only increased with the rise of social media. Walther Fisher (1987) proposed the narrative paradigm as a unifying theory of human communication. His major claim is that people are inherently storytellers and that people use a narrative rationality and a logic of good reasons to inform their beliefs, values, and actions. This paper utilizes his theories, along with recent findings in neuroscience, to establish an argument for greater inclusion of narratives into second language teaching. Narratives can have a …
Brown's Stages Of Morphosyntactic Development Applied To The Typical Development Of Italian, Marie Laiche
Brown's Stages Of Morphosyntactic Development Applied To The Typical Development Of Italian, Marie Laiche
LSU Master's Theses
Background: In A First Language (1973), Roger Brown called for an increase in crosslinguistic data and analysis of morphosyntax across languages as more research in this field is crucial for working out the overarching determinants of language acquisition order and for the ability to accurately compare child language acquisition across different languages. An increase in this research would benefit linguistic researchers and speech-language-pathologists offering services to or evaluating children speaking a different language or more than one language. The current study seeks to add to the field of crosslinguistic research by adapting Brown’s guidelines of English language acquisition to the …
Educator Perspectives On English Learner Identification: An Explanatory Mixed Methods Study, Rachel E. Hoffman
Educator Perspectives On English Learner Identification: An Explanatory Mixed Methods Study, Rachel E. Hoffman
Graduate Doctoral Dissertations
The purpose of this study was to explore English learner identification and placement through the lens of teacher knowledge and attitude, with the goal of identifying ways to ensure that the intended outcome (correct identification and placement) occurs. Employing explanatory mixed methods research, data was collected from teachers and other educators in the Jackson Public School district through both a web administered survey and one to one phone interviews. The survey data showed that the number of ELs that an educator has had in the past few years had a statistically significant effect on educator knowledge, but none of the …
The Effect Of Semantic Neighborhood Density On Vocabulary Learning In Spanish As A Second Language And Spanish As A Heritage Language, Marián Giráldez Elizo
The Effect Of Semantic Neighborhood Density On Vocabulary Learning In Spanish As A Second Language And Spanish As A Heritage Language, Marián Giráldez Elizo
Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs
This dissertation reviews the results from an online survey created to identify and compare how second language (L2) learners and heritage language (HL) learners of Spanish, enrolled in beginning-level coursework at the college level, acquired and built vocabulary. A total of 451 participants completed the survey. The purpose of the online survey was to serve as a baseline for pedagogical purposes, since it provided information about participants’ language profiles and the way they build vocabulary based on sematic relatedness. Overall, the findings from the survey showed that HL and L2 learners differ in the way they build semantic neighborhoods and, …
Critical Period Controversies For Second Language Acquisition: Implications For Language Teaching, Randy Lucio
Critical Period Controversies For Second Language Acquisition: Implications For Language Teaching, Randy Lucio
Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations
It was proposed by Eric Lenneberg (1967) in Biological Foundations of Language that implicit first language (L1) acquisition was only possible during a critical period (CP) spanning from infancy to puberty. The critical period hypothesis (CPH) has since been a topic of controversy among L1 and second language (L2) scholars, whose studies have produced varying results that argue for and against a CP. It is suggested in this paper, however, that these often-varying results offer important insight that can serve to inform current and future L2 educational policy and instruction within K-12 education in the U.S. Thus, it is imperative …
Impacts Of An International Professional Development Program: A Qualitative Study, Marijn W. T. De Waal
Impacts Of An International Professional Development Program: A Qualitative Study, Marijn W. T. De Waal
Masters Theses, 2020-current
This qualitative study with phenomenological components examined the impacts of a U.S. State Department-funded teacher professional development program, hosted at a liberal-arts university on the east coast of the United States in the spring semester of 2018. An initial review of the public literature revealed that it was challenging to find evaluation data pertaining to this particular program or ones of a similar nature. Through semi-structured synchronous online interviews with five program alumni, the researcher probed if—and if so, how—the professional development (PD) program had made the intended impacts on participants’ (1) teaching methods/curriculum, (2) content knowledge in their personal …
Educators Bailan With Policy Et Le Pouvoir In The Educação Of Multicultural And Multilingual Learners (Wida Eld Standards And The Education Of English Learners), Fernanda Marinho Kray
Educators Bailan With Policy Et Le Pouvoir In The Educação Of Multicultural And Multilingual Learners (Wida Eld Standards And The Education Of English Learners), Fernanda Marinho Kray
Graduate Doctoral Dissertations
The larger frame of this study contributes to the literature that examines how educators negotiate, contest, appropriate, and reconstruct federal and state-level policy in their classrooms. More specifically, the study contributes to the field of language education policy, and in particular to how educators make sense of, and implement, English Language Development (ELD) Standards. I focus on WIDA ELD Standards, as they are currently in use in 42 U.S. states, territories, and federal agencies as well as more than 500 international schools throughout the world. The literature review identifies a problem for standards-based education systems using the 2012 WIDA Standards …
Khmer Phonetics & Phonology: Theoretical Implications For Esl Instruction, Alex Donley
Khmer Phonetics & Phonology: Theoretical Implications For Esl Instruction, Alex Donley
Senior Honors Theses
This thesis develops an approach to English teaching for Khmer-speaking students that centers on Khmer phonetics and phonology. Cambodia has a strong demand for English instruction, but consistently underperforms next to other nations in terms of proficiency. A significant reason for Cambodia’s skill gap is the lack of research into linguistic hurdles Khmer speakers face when learning English. This paper aims to bridge Khmer and English with an understanding of the speech systems that both languages use before turning to the unique challenges Khmer speakers must overcome based on the tenets of L1 Transfer Theory. It closes by outlining strategies …
Student Perceptions Regarding The Use Of Purposive English In A Spanish As A Foreign Language Classroom, Kacey Booth
Student Perceptions Regarding The Use Of Purposive English In A Spanish As A Foreign Language Classroom, Kacey Booth
Dissertations
In modern American society, diversity is both challenged and celebrated, and inclusion is imperative. This ideology begins in the classroom. Oftentimes, this celebration of diversity, more specifically linguistic diversity, is most visible in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) classes and similar bilingual educational programs. In TESOL programs, students’ international identities are highlighted and students are often instructed using multilingual educational resources to scaffold their acquisition of English. Historically, foreign language teaching also utilized dual-language instructional methodologies. Such archaic teaching methodologies have since been replaced by more modern and immersive sociopsycholinguistic approaches such as Communicative Language Teaching. Such …
Mindfulness And Well-Being: A Mixed Methods Study Of Bilingual Guided Meditation In Higher Education, Chieh Li, Qinghong Ann Cai, Simone Elias, Linda Wilson-Jones
Mindfulness And Well-Being: A Mixed Methods Study Of Bilingual Guided Meditation In Higher Education, Chieh Li, Qinghong Ann Cai, Simone Elias, Linda Wilson-Jones
Journal of Research Initiatives
This mixed-methods study investigated the acceptability and outcomes of a mindful approach to teaching a foreign language in higher education institutions. The approach included Bilingual Guided Meditation (BGM®) in the classroom to reduce students’ anxiety and foster a positive mindset. The BGM program combines bilingual positive suggestions with guided meditation and relaxing background music. Results indicated that the BGM may reduce anxiety and can improve academic performance.
Using The Linguistic Experiences Of Youth And Their Families As Curriculum: The Language Box Project, Molly A. Perara-Lunde Ms.
Using The Linguistic Experiences Of Youth And Their Families As Curriculum: The Language Box Project, Molly A. Perara-Lunde Ms.
Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs
This qualitative curricular case study investigated the implementation of a project called the Language Box in a seventh grade Humanities classroom in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I worked with the classroom teacher to design the Language Box project, which focused on the language use practices of the students and their families. We designed the project with the goal of addressing issues of home language loss, bilingualism, and English language acquisition. The students in the classroom were almost exclusively Hispanic, many came from low income families and some were undocumented. Each student acted as a researcher, investigating the language use practices in …
Silently Struggling In A New World: Exploring English Language Learners With Language Disabilities
Silently Struggling In A New World: Exploring English Language Learners With Language Disabilities
Symposium of Student Scholars
With the awareness that Spanish speaking households compose a significant number of students in English language learning (ELL) programs, this researcher will be illuminating areas of academic ambiguity where language learning overshadows learning disabilities in the United States— a country with no official language. This phenomenon will be thoroughly examined using textual methodologies such as secondary analysis, theoretical study, and an extended literature review to describe how these correlations negatively impact students with English as a secondary way of expression. By emphasizing this gap within academia, it is the hope of the author that additional teacher-created resources will be readily …
All About The American Flap, Kristin Lems
All About The American Flap, Kristin Lems
Faculty Publications
In this column, I am going to talk about the American flap, a phonological feature of the American English dialect. Those of us with backgrounds in ESL/EFL learn about this in our master’s programs, but I have found that even teachers who have taken a course in linguistics may not be aware of the flap and its important implications for listening, reading, and spelling in English (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2017)
Relationship Between Empathy And Language Proficiency In Adult Language Learners, Mika Sakai
Relationship Between Empathy And Language Proficiency In Adult Language Learners, Mika Sakai
Dissertations and Theses
This study reviews concepts and the mechanism of empathy, and the relationship between empathy and language proficiency, focusing on the aspect of cognitive empathy. It also discusses whether empathy levels could be developed by learning language to a highly proficient level. I compared the empathy levels between high and low proficiency second-language learners to determine if there was correlation between empathy and other factors such as gender, studying abroad, education background, and usage of a second language. I found that there was no relationship between empathy level and language proficiency level; however, there was one between empathy and gender. For …
Cruzar Fronteras Em Espaços Acadêmicos: Transgressing “The Limits Of Translanguaging”, Brendan H. O’Connor, Katherine S. Mortimer, Lesley Bartlett, María Teresa De La Piedra, Ana Maria Rabelo Gomes, Ariana Mangual Figueroa, Gabriela Novaro, Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, Char Ullman
Cruzar Fronteras Em Espaços Acadêmicos: Transgressing “The Limits Of Translanguaging”, Brendan H. O’Connor, Katherine S. Mortimer, Lesley Bartlett, María Teresa De La Piedra, Ana Maria Rabelo Gomes, Ariana Mangual Figueroa, Gabriela Novaro, Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, Char Ullman
Publications and Research
Scholarship on translanguaging and related concepts has challenged traditional assumptions about how people use their multiple languages, urging us to move beyond the boundaries of named linguistic codes and toward conceptualizations of multilingual language use as flexible use of a speaker’s whole linguistic repertoire. Critiques of this theoretical shift have included assertions of translanguaging’s conceptual and practical limits—limits to its transformative potential as well as limits to its practical use. This paper takes up, in particular, the question of why we academics may assert the value of translanguaging in schools and communities while still largely failing to move beyond monoglossic …
Understanding High School English Learners’ Chronic Absenteeism, Patricia A. George
Understanding High School English Learners’ Chronic Absenteeism, Patricia A. George
Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)
Chronic absenteeism has significant implications for both the individual student and society at large and has been receiving attention for over a century. Every school day counts. Regular attendance provides students with opportunities to learn and has a strong link to achievement. Conversely, poor attendance has serious implications for high school students. For each subgroup of students there is a similar pattern: the likelihood of chronic absenteeism increases as students progress through high school. Notably, the U.S. Department of Education found English learners experience higher chronic absenteeism than their non-English learner peers when they reach high school. Furthermore, compared to …
More Than Just A Myth: How Shapeshifter Rhetoric Relates To Esl Students 2019, Amber Kent
More Than Just A Myth: How Shapeshifter Rhetoric Relates To Esl Students 2019, Amber Kent
Master's Theses
The academic analysis surrounding the shapeshifter, or shapeshifter mythologies has, so far, been related to modern issues of violence, militarization, feminism, gender studies, or studies simply focusing on the compilation of shapeshifter myths themselves. This essay will map out the current discussion surrounding shapeshifter mythology to illustrate that it has often fallen into two forms of analysis: that of an anthropological or sociological analysis, where shapeshifter myths were analyzed as a method for understanding different cultures and their development, and that of a poststructural analysis, where shapeshifter myths are analyzed as a means of deconstructing binaries such as good/bad and …
Positioning Of English Language Learners And Its Power On Classroom Learning Opportunities And Interactions, Hawraa Nafea Hameed Alzouwain
Positioning Of English Language Learners And Its Power On Classroom Learning Opportunities And Interactions, Hawraa Nafea Hameed Alzouwain
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
In this qualitative study, the researcher investigated four aspects of positioning used by teacher and ESL students in a mid-south state of the United States. This study was based on the Positioning Theory of Davies and Harré (1990). The study aimed to explore various types of positioning used by the participants and how they impacted social interactions among the students and between them and their teacher. The researcher used four questions to outline the scope of the research, focused on: 1) how ELLs’ different positioning in the ESL classroom promoted or limited their learning opportunities; 2) how the ELL teacher …
How To Attract African American College Students To Study Spanish: A Model For Virginia State University, Erika M. Neal
How To Attract African American College Students To Study Spanish: A Model For Virginia State University, Erika M. Neal
Virginias Collegiate Honors Council Conference
Being culturally aware and able to communicate with people from different regions of the world is one of the most critical skills a student of color can obtain during their educational career. Not only will a student’s perspective of the world be altered, but their market value will skyrocket by 5-10% on average according to Forbes. Being bilingual or multilingual is a skill that can be applied to any career field in today’s society. Unfortunately, many African American students have had little to no exposure to foreign languages and cultures specifically Spanish. Even for those who have had some exposure …
Teaching English To Refugees Through Storytelling, Emily Camplejohn
Teaching English To Refugees Through Storytelling, Emily Camplejohn
Senior Honors Theses
Many refugees are trying to learn English while assimilating to a new culture. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has identified several needs and goals of refugees including competence in the language of the receiving culture and participation in a new, welcoming community. Storytelling, expressing or receiving a narrative through oral or written communication, can be implemented for teaching English to refugees with these goals and can link academic learning with real life experiences. In addition to using storytelling as a meaningful way to interact with language, storytelling also fosters a community within the classroom. The teacher is …
Project On Designing Activities For Teaching Grammar, Sunny Hyon
Project On Designing Activities For Teaching Grammar, Sunny Hyon
Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy
This document outlines a project for a course in second language acquisition taken by undergraduates who intend to be high school or university teachers/professors. The project asks the undergraduates to design a sequence of activities for teaching English language learners (ELLs) a particular English grammatical construction, and to connect those activities to reading or writing assignments in their future classrooms. The students also must explain how their activities will facilitate ELLs' grammatical learning, drawing on research on language acquisition presented in the course.
How Much Do Emotional, Behavioral, And Cognitive Factors Actually Impact College Student Attitudes Towards English Language Learning? A Quantitative And Qualitative Study, Xin Zuo, Regina D. Weaver, Julia Macrae, Limin Wang
How Much Do Emotional, Behavioral, And Cognitive Factors Actually Impact College Student Attitudes Towards English Language Learning? A Quantitative And Qualitative Study, Xin Zuo, Regina D. Weaver, Julia Macrae, Limin Wang
Intensive English Language Program Faculty Publications and Presentations
Researchers have proposed many multidimensional frameworks to identify significant and potential factors, e.g., educational background, positive feelings and career aspirations, that impact English learning attitude in second language acquisition. Yet, there is still very little research to graphically describe the interactions between these factors and how these factors directly or indirectly impact learning attitude. To this end, a questionnaire survey was conducted in Changchun University of Technology. Statistical measures and Bayesian network analysis were introduced to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze the collected data. Furthermore, the significant attitudinal differences between students majoring in the Liberal Arts or Sciences were investigated for …
In Translation: An Examination Of Esl Policy On Paper As It Relates To The Realities Of Implementation, Grace M. Cuevas
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 …