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Full-Text Articles in First and Second Language Acquisition

Malaysian Esl Teachers’ Beliefs And Practices Regarding The Use Of Music And Songs In Second Language Teaching, Daler Bokiev, Lilliati Ismail May 2021

Malaysian Esl Teachers’ Beliefs And Practices Regarding The Use Of Music And Songs In Second Language Teaching, Daler Bokiev, Lilliati Ismail

The Qualitative Report

Regardless of numerous studies supporting the effectiveness of utilizing music and songs in second language teaching, there is a remarkably limited amount of research investigating how music and songs are actually used by language teachers and the beliefs underpinning their practices, particularly in the Malaysian educational context. This qualitative study explored Malaysian ESL teachers’ beliefs and practices with regard to the use of music and songs in language instruction at different levels of education as well as factors influencing their instructional practices. The research participants consisted of five primary-level, five secondary-level and five tertiary-level ESL teachers working at public and …


Methods And Effects Of Shadowing Using Online Authentic Videos On L2 Acquisition Of Mandarin Chinese Tones, Ai-Ling Lu May 2021

Methods And Effects Of Shadowing Using Online Authentic Videos On L2 Acquisition Of Mandarin Chinese Tones, Ai-Ling Lu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mandarin Chinese tones are notoriously difficult for second language (L2) learners. Previous research focuses on tone training methods that can help learners produce monosyllabic lexical tones, and studies about the production of multisyllabic lexical tones at the sentence level in spontaneous speech are limited. This study applies shadowing—a method where the learners repeat what they heard with as little delay as possible—to tone training and compares the effects of using authentic videos and textbook audios as shadowing materials for beginner L2 Mandarin learners’ tone improvement at the sentence level. Fourteen students in elementary Chinese classes at an American university participated …


“Life Is Splendid Here In The U.S.”: Intercultural Learning In Contemporary Chinese Students’ Academic Adjustment, Karolina Achirri Apr 2021

“Life Is Splendid Here In The U.S.”: Intercultural Learning In Contemporary Chinese Students’ Academic Adjustment, Karolina Achirri

The Qualitative Report

The increasing numbers of Chinese learners studying at American universities and the high mobility across borders have recently challenged prevailing stereotypes of Asians in education. While studies of Chinese students are abundant, there has been scant research on how intercultural learning unfolds in these students’ adjustment to both academic and social settings. To address this research gap, I center my case study around six of my former students from China and examine their progress at different U.S. institutions. Data from their journals were coded and analyzed qualitatively. In tracing my participants’ first semester trajectory and their strategies to adapt to …


Brown's Stages Of Morphosyntactic Development Applied To The Typical Development Of Italian, Marie Laiche Mar 2021

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 …


Washback Of An English Language Assessment System In A Malaysian University Foundation Programme, Umed Bokiev, Arshad Abd. Samad Feb 2021

Washback Of An English Language Assessment System In A Malaysian University Foundation Programme, Umed Bokiev, Arshad Abd. Samad

The Qualitative Report

Washback refers to the influence of language assessment on teaching and learning. In contrast to the wealth of studies involving external large-scale language examinations, scant research has been conducted to explore the influence of internal language assessment on instruction, particularly in the context of a university foundation programme. This qualitative study investigated the washback effects of an English language assessment system (ELAS) on the teaching and learning of English in a Malaysian university foundation programme. Apart from an in-depth analysis of official documents on the ELAS, we conducted individual semi-structured interviews with three curriculum and assessment developers, three English language …


Music, Our Human Superpower, Kristin Lems Feb 2021

Music, Our Human Superpower, Kristin Lems

Faculty Publications

Research about music pervades every discipline because music touches every area of life. Studies revealing the salutary effects of music can be found not only in music educator research, but in research in psychology, speech and hearing, child development, neuroscience, and increasingly, health and wellness, aging, rehabilitation and recovery. Since my focus is especially in the areas of language and literacy, I research the positive effects of music on reading, writing, and learning languages - and of this, there is no shortage. In this brief Academia article, I share what I’d like to call an “homage-with-references” to our great Superpower, …


Dual Language Teachers' Beliefs And Practices Regarding Effective Second Language Instruction: A Qualitative Study, Deddy Amrand Jan 2021

Dual Language Teachers' Beliefs And Practices Regarding Effective Second Language Instruction: A Qualitative Study, Deddy Amrand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The present study examined dual language (DL) teachers' beliefs and practices regarding effective second language instruction. DL teachers are expected to integrate language teaching and content instruction. However, balancing the two areas of instruction has been proved challenging. It has also been reported that bilingual educators lack pedagogical skills and hold incorrect beliefs about second language acquisition. Five DL educators participated in the study. Data about the teacher's beliefs were collected using semi-structured interviews, and data about their classroom practices were gathered from their teaching journals. Second semi-structured interviews were conducted to reveal the factors influencing the enactment of stated …


"Do You Hear What I Say?" A Phenomenological Exploration Of International Students' Oral Communication Experiences With Pechakucha Oral Presentations In A Us English For Academic Purposes Program., Van Thi Hong Le Jan 2021

"Do You Hear What I Say?" A Phenomenological Exploration Of International Students' Oral Communication Experiences With Pechakucha Oral Presentations In A Us English For Academic Purposes Program., Van Thi Hong Le

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

With the importance of oral communication skills and digital literacy skills for 21st-century learners (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2006), there is an increasing tendency to incorporate technology in language learning and teaching. In this trend, PechaKucha Presentation (PKP), a unique, fast-paced format of giving presentations, has recently been advocated for its benefits in developing learners' oral communication skill in various contexts (Angelina, 2019; Coskun, 2017; Mabuan, 2017). This paper presented a study that explored seven international students' speaking and listening experiences with PKP activities while completing the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program prior to their undergraduate programs in …


Mediating The German Case System Through Concept-Based Instruction In An Online Learning Environment, Lea Pienkoss Jan 2021

Mediating The German Case System Through Concept-Based Instruction In An Online Learning Environment, Lea Pienkoss

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The English language clarifies the role of nouns through sentence structures, something German does through a case system consisting of four cases that are dependent on gender, form, and quantity (Stocker & Young, 2012). This complexity of the concept of cases often results in difficulties German language learners encounter when identifying and producing the correct forms in the new language. Thus, Ritterbusch et al. (2006) suggested teaching the case system concept-based, allowing a holistic understanding of the cases and their meaning. This case study reacts to the call to action by developing and analyzing the teaching of the meaning of …


Corrective Feedback In L2 Pronunciation: The Learner Lens, Elif Saribas Jan 2021

Corrective Feedback In L2 Pronunciation: The Learner Lens, Elif Saribas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This study investigated learner perceptions of correction in L2 (second language) pronunciation. Research indicates that L2 learners have a strong preference toward corrective feedback provided by the teacher and also favor peer feedback (Kaivanpanah et al., 2012). In addition, external feedback is shown to contribute to the development of internal feedback, or self-correction (Huang & Jia, 2016). Learners were also found to carry positive opinions towards explicit error correction, with culture and proficiency level influencing those opinions (Yang, 2016). The current study used a qualitative approach to investigate learner perceptions toward correction in L2 pronunciation and examine real-life correction instances …


Stance And Engagement In Scientific Research Articles, Caoyuan Ma Jan 2021

Stance And Engagement In Scientific Research Articles, Caoyuan Ma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Stance and engagement are important rhetorical resources for writers to construct interaction with readers and ideas by marking epistemic evaluation and bringing readers into the texts. Building on previous research that suggests notable differences in the use of stance and engagement in academic discourse, this comparative study investigates the use of stance and engagement in scientific research articles. By comparing two corpora that contain 144 research articles in total across 16 scientific disciplines, this study examines if the numbers of stance and engagement differ between manuscripts (unpublished research papers) that are produced by nonnative writers and those that are published …


Financial Literacy For Latino Immigrants: A Guidebook For Esl Teachers, Anna Braden Dec 2020

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 …


Lowering Language Learner Anxiety: The Impact Of Collaborative-Dynamic Assessment In The Intermediate University Spanish Classroom, Lynda Mcclellan Dec 2020

Lowering Language Learner Anxiety: The Impact Of Collaborative-Dynamic Assessment In The Intermediate University Spanish Classroom, Lynda Mcclellan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents a new framework for the application of Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory (SCT) in the second language (L2) classroom called Collaborative-Dynamic Assessment (C-DA). C-DA is a melding of Collaborative Learning (CL), Dynamic Assessment (DA), and Group Evaluation (GE) in all aspects of L2 instruction and assessment. A study was conducted with 64 university students in an intermediate Spanish classroom to determine if the application of C-DA would lower Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA). Horwitz’ (1986) Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) was administered to the participants at the beginning of the course and then again at the end of …


Noun Animacy As A Factor In The Production Of L2 English Passives By L1 Mandarin Learners, Shanshan Duan Sep 2020

Noun Animacy As A Factor In The Production Of L2 English Passives By L1 Mandarin Learners, Shanshan Duan

UM Graduate Student Colloquium in Applied Linguistics and TESOL

Shanshan investigates whether there is a greater likelihood of producing passives with animate (as opposed to inanimate) patients being placed in the grammatical subject position during syntactic priming activities.


50 Anos De Evolução Nos Estudos Linguísticos Transculturais: Da Retórica Contrastiva À Retórica Intercultural, David Sánchez-Jiménez Sep 2020

50 Anos De Evolução Nos Estudos Linguísticos Transculturais: Da Retórica Contrastiva À Retórica Intercultural, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

Este trabalho apresenta um panorama histórico dos estudos linguísticos transculturais, discorrendo sobre o surgimento da retórica contrastiva por meio do trabalho seminal de Robert Kaplan em 1966 e as contribuições de Ulla Connor ao rebatizar tais estudos como retórica intercultural. Explana-se também sobre as críticas endereçadas à retórica contrastiva feitas durante os anos 1980, 1990 e 2000 e de que maneira tais críticas redefiniram o quadro teórico-metodológico e o objeto de estudo da disciplina. Conclui-se com exposição de uma crítica à homogeneização das distintas culturas retóricas causada pela globalização e internacionalização do inglês no âmbito acadêmico e nas atividades profissionais.


The Effect Of Semantic Neighborhood Density On Vocabulary Learning In Spanish As A Second Language And Spanish As A Heritage Language, Marián Giráldez Elizo Jul 2020

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, …


Direct And Indirect Written Corrective Feedback On The Use Of Past Tense Amongst Esl Learners, Tuck Mun Tang Jul 2020

Direct And Indirect Written Corrective Feedback On The Use Of Past Tense Amongst Esl Learners, Tuck Mun Tang

Student Works (2020-2029)

For decades, a considerable amount of attention has been given to written corrective feedback (WCF) in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). In the early development of WCF, Truscott (1996) raised a few theoretical issues which led studies on WCF to be carried by researchers opposing his claims. He claimed that 1) a simple transfer of information cannot be expected to be beneficial due to the well-established SLA insights about the complex and gradual nature of the process of acquisition, 2) if WCF approach is employed at a time that is not consistent with the natural order, it could …


Critical Period Controversies For Second Language Acquisition: Implications For Language Teaching, Randy Lucio Jun 2020

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 May 2020

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 …


Student Perceptions Regarding The Use Of Purposive English In A Spanish As A Foreign Language Classroom, Kacey Booth Apr 2020

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 …


University American Sign Language (Asl) Second Language Learners: Receptive And Expressive Asl Performance, Jennifer Beal Dr. Feb 2020

University American Sign Language (Asl) Second Language Learners: Receptive And Expressive Asl Performance, Jennifer Beal Dr.

Journal of Interpretation

American Sign Language (ASL) is used by estimates of up to 500,000 people (deaf and hearing) in the United States (Mitchell et al., 2006); however, the majority of users are typically hearing university students, frequently within university interpreting or deaf education preparation programs, who learn ASL as a second language (L2). It is unclear how these learners develop their skills as they progress through university training programs. The present study documents university learners’ receptive and expressive ASL skills, factors related to performance, and self-evaluation and strategy use at the end of their ASL IV course. Both assessments are readily available, …


Building The Nest: How Native English Speaking Teachers (Nests) In The Tefl Field Develop Intercultural Competence, Emily S. Kraus Nov 2019

Building The Nest: How Native English Speaking Teachers (Nests) In The Tefl Field Develop Intercultural Competence, Emily S. Kraus

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

The role of an English foreign language teacher requires expertise in the English language and pedagogical skills to make the learning process approachable for a variety of students. There are certain characteristics that make a person ostensibly suitable for the role such as patience, intelligence, trustworthiness and creativity. However, the development of teachers is often shaped by their certification preparation, experiences in the field of education and the lessons they learn from their students. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to examine how native English speaking teachers (NESTs) in Costa Rica teaching English as a foreign language develop …


All About The American Flap, Kristin Lems Oct 2019

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)


The Semantics Of Article Acquisition, Emily G. Renie Aug 2019

The Semantics Of Article Acquisition, Emily G. Renie

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

Accurately using articles has consistently been a difficult task for English language learners as articles are often treated as solely grammatical forms rather than also recognizing as representatives of complex semantic properties. This paper aims to synthesize individual research on semantic factors which influence article acquisition and explore how they interact with each other. This paper especially focuses on how native and second language speakers of English acquire and understand the concepts of definiteness and specificity and explores these features within the framework of Chomsky’s theory of Universal Grammar. This paper examines the Fluctuating Hypothesis (FH) and its use as …


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 Jul 2019

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 May 2019

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 …


Fictional Narrative Skills Of Preschool-Age Bilingual Children With Typical Language Development, Lydia Bias May 2019

Fictional Narrative Skills Of Preschool-Age Bilingual Children With Typical Language Development, Lydia Bias

Honors Projects

Oral narrative retells are commonly used in assessment to examine language and literacy development in young children. Due to the increasing number of bilingual children in the United States, it is necessary to understand typical development in order to assess and intervene when needed. English story retells from eight preschool-age Spanish-English bilingual children were analyzed in the present study using the Narrative Assessment Protocol. Analyses were conducted to examine differences in narrative microstructure at two time points. In the present study, a Wilcoxon Signed Rank Sum test which is a nonparametric statistical measure was used to determine whether there was …


More Than Just A Myth: How Shapeshifter Rhetoric Relates To Esl Students 2019, Amber Kent May 2019

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 …


Teaching English To Refugees Through Storytelling, Emily Camplejohn Apr 2019

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 …


Techniques And Methods Change, Methodology Remains The Same: Web Technology Use As Cosmetic Change In Cfl Classrooms, Justin Olmanson, Xianquan Liu, Nannan Wang, Christopher Heselton Feb 2019

Techniques And Methods Change, Methodology Remains The Same: Web Technology Use As Cosmetic Change In Cfl Classrooms, Justin Olmanson, Xianquan Liu, Nannan Wang, Christopher Heselton

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

Technology has been a staple in the language classroom for more than fifty years. From audio cassettes, to video tapes, to multimedia CD-ROMs, to static and interactive web technologies, language teachers have taken the time to learn these tools and integrate them into the classroom experience. Each new technology, each new app, creates an opportunity to alter the experience of teaching and learning—often supporting increased authentic interactions with the Chinese language. This potential however can go unrealized when the ways the technologies are used align with more traditional grammar and vocabulary-focused teaching methodologies and promote efficiency over communication. In this …