First and Second Language Acquisition Commons^™

Segmental Error Gravity In L2 Arabic Speech Comprehensibility And Accentedness: L1 Consonant Age Of Acquisition As A Predictor, Mark Papai

Theses and Dissertations

Second language (L2) pronunciation studies have found that the intelligibility (i.e., listeners’ actual understanding) of L2 speech is most closely related to its comprehensibility (i.e., listeners' ease of understanding) rather than to its overall nativelike pronunciation. The segmental errors that are most detrimental to communication are predicted by phoneme Functional Load (FL): mispronouncing high FL segments affects speech comprehensibility more negatively than mispronouncing low FL ones. However, no data are available on the FL hierarchy of Arabic segments. On the other hand, FL correlates highly with consonant age of acquisition (CAoA) in languages that rely heavily on consonants to contrast …

Drawing About Writing: Exploring Egyptian Middle School Students’ Writing Motivation And Perceptions, Maryam Elbayady

Theses and Dissertations

The principal aim of this study is to explore Egyptian middle school students’ perceptions of their writing experiences using artistic expression, specifically drawings. It also aims to understand their levels of writing motivation using the Self-Beliefs, Writing-Beliefs, and Attitude Survey (SWAS) (Wright et al., 2019). Finally, it examines the relationships among participants’ perceptions, motivation, and their narrative writing performance. The view that students’ voices are valuable to research geared towards school improvement has largely propelled this study (Bland, 2018; Zumbrunn et al., 2017). In addition, due to the limited literature about middle school students enrolled at private Egyptian schools, this …

The Near-Synonymous Classifiers In Mandarin Chinese: Etymology, Modern Usage, And Possible Problems In L2 Classroom, Irina Kavokina

Masters Theses

Many Chinese classifiers are nearly synonymic – they can be used with the same head nouns without changing the meaning of the sentence, in other words, such classifiers can be used interchangeably or almost interchangeably. This poses a challenge for Chinese language learners, especially those who lack such a grammatical category in their own native language. Another complication arises from the ambiguous English translations of many classifiers.

In this paper we investigate the collocation behavior of near-synonymous Chinese classifiers, focusing on their semantic nuances and interchangeability. Analyzing 6 pairs of classifiers — 栋 and 幢, 匹 and 头, 批 and …

Differences In Code-Switching Between Chinese Heritage And Non-Heritage Learners In Computer-Mediated Communication, Feng Xiao, Cecilia Wade

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

In the fields of bilingualism and second language (L2) acquisition, growing attention has been paid to code-switching in Chinese heritage learners , as they show how early linguistic and cultural influence affects language use. Most existing studies focused on balanced bilinguals but little has been done to understand the differences in code-switching between Chinese heritage and non-heritage learners. Moreover, no studies have focused on L2 code-switching in computer-mediated communication which has become a daily routine of many L2 learners after the COVID pandemic. To fill these gaps, the present study compared differences in code-switching instances between five Chinese heritage and …

An Analysis Of Communication-Related Information And Services Offered To Parents Of Deaf Children In Puerto Rico, Brenda Belcher

Capstone Collection

The period from birth to five years is a critical stage for human language acquisition, and inadequate access to language during this period can cause far-reaching negative effects. Young deaf and hard-of-hearing children face barriers to acquiring language through speaking and listening techniques, and their parents must make consequential decisions about what communicative strategies to pursue for their child. In Puerto Rico, information and support around communication approaches flow to parents from a variety of sources, including the Island’s local Early Hearing Detection & Intervention (EHDI) system, three dedicated schools for the deaf, and a variety of community-based organizations. This …

English Learners In Nyc, Raquel Neris

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

English Learners in NYC is a Digital Humanities project that intersects Migration Studies and Foreign Language Learning Studies by presenting a podcast series about the learning experience of international students in English as a Second Language (ESL) programs at English schools in New York City. The project aims to provide visibility to the educational migration in this specific context and to promote a discussion on how international students and educators can reimagine their teaching and learning experience. It also aims to reveal ESL schools' challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they incorporated digital technologies during and after this event. …

Applying Linguistics To The Adult Esol Classroom: A Guide For Esol Teachers In Community Centers, Lenore Costello

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many community centers in urban areas of the United States offer English as a Second or Other Language (ESOL) classes to adults. This thesis is intended as a resource for teachers of those classes, so that they may make pedagogical decisions that are informed by Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research findings on how languages are learned. The thesis is designed for teachers with and without formal background in ESOL or linguistics. Each chapter introduces an SLA concept that pertains to instructed SLA: (1) the natural order hypothesis, (2) mental representation and interlanguage, (3) the role of input in acquisition, (4) …

Filtering Input For Learning Constrained Grammatical Variability: The Case Of Spanish Word Order, Shalinee Maitra, Laurel Perkins

Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics

Children learn basic word order from data in which both subjects and objects can appear in variable positions. Spanish learners acquire a word order that deterministically places objects after verbs, and allows variation only in subject position. We present a model for acquiring this type of constrained variability from messy data. Our model expects that (1) its data contain a mixture of signal and noise for canonical word order, and (2) subjects control agreement on verbs. We find that this model can learn to filter noise from its data to identify the canonical word order for Spanish; a model that …

Noise-Tolerant Learning As Selection Among Deterministic Grammatical Hypotheses, Laurel Perkins, Tim Hunter

Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics

Children acquire their language's canonical word order from data that contains a messy mixture of canonical and non-canonical clause types. We model this as noise-tolerant learning of grammars that deterministically produce a single word order. In simulations on English and French, our model successfully separates signal from the noise introduced by non-canonical clause types, in order to identify that both languages are SVO. No such preference for the target word order emerges from a comparison model which operates with a fully-gradient hypothesis space and an explicit numerical regularization bias. This provides an alternative general mechanism for regularization in various learning …

Modeling Substitution Errors In Spanish Morphology Learning, Libby Barak, Nathalie Fernandez Echeverri, Naomi H. Feldman, Patrick Shafto

Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics

In early stages of language acquisition, children often make inflectional errors on regular verbs, e.g., Spanish-speaking children produce –a (present-tense 3rd person singular) when other inflections are expected. Most previous models of morphology learning have focused on later stages of learning relating to production
of irregular verbs. We propose a computational model of Spanish inflection learning to examine the earlier stages of learning and present a novel data set of gold-standard inflectional annotations for Spanish verbs. Our model replicates
data from Spanish-learning children, capturing the acquisition order of different inflections and correctly predicting the substitution errors they make. Analyses show …

Forming A Global Citizen: Personal Development Through Study Abroad, Anna L. Reiter

Honors Thesis

This literature review examines key benefits of studying abroad, while investigating which elements most contribute to students’ overall success. Current literature suggests that benefits of studying abroad include, but are not limited to, second language acquisition (SLA), identity formation, and intercultural competence. The degree of which each is improved depends on a multitude of variables. SLA improvement is explored via consideration of students’ baseline proficiency level, degree of receptivity of the host country, and length of the study abroad program. Students’ identity formation is explained through the three bases of identity: person, role, and group/social. Finally, intercultural competence in study …

¿Cómo Se Dice...? The Spanish Use Of Hispanic College Students, Christopher Castaneda

Honors Theses

The Spanish language is very prominent in the United States. Millions of Spanishspeakers live there, and the use of the language in their day to day lives has augmented the presence of it in an otherwise Anglophone country. However, there are certain factors that may influence how often Spanish speakers actually use their language in this country. This study sought to analyze two: the existing anti-Hispanic attitudes in the United States and the parental/caretaker level of education of Spanish-speaking people. This study aimed to conduct an analysis of college-aged Hispanic students in order to conclude the extent to which those …

Digital Collaborative Language Learning And Augmented Reality, Matthew Taylor

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

This portfolio is a collection of works written by the author as he was studying in the Masters of Second Language Teaching program at Utah State University. The focus of these works is on technology and its impact on language learning. The first few sections consist of an introduction to the portfolio, a few pages dedicated to the author’s philosophy on second language teaching, and details and insights from an observation of a teacher in practice while in the program. The following section comprises the bulk of the portfolio and includes a paper devoted to augmented reality’s place in digital …

Language Experience: The Perception Of Foreign Language Acquisition Among University Adults, Lileth A. Stricklin

Honors Theses

While bilingualism has always existed within the history of the U.S. and is the global norm, mainstream approaches to learning have traditionally been monolingually centered and fail to employ approaches that produce sustainable motivation towards foreign language acquisition in students. This study sought to investigate the perceptions adult individuals display towards acquiring foreign language skills, emphasizing distinctions exhibited between monolinguals and their multilingual counterparts. A mixed-method approach in the analysis of 506 survey responses yielded results that suggest that university adults generally display positive perceptions towards foreign language learning. Distinctions in perception between monolinguals and multilinguals were very few with …

Supporting English Language Learners In The Era Of Direct Enrollment, Breana Bayraktar

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

In the spring of 2021, the Community College System in which the author works was in the middle of a planned three-year pilot of math and English self-placement (“Direct Enrollment”) procedures. Concerns about the significant English language learner (ELL) population at one institution led to the development of a corequisite support course designed to support English language learners as they enrolled in first-semester composition. This course is considered a “gateway” course, with success rates hovering around 60% for traditional students, dropping to under 35% for students age 25 and older. As the planned pilot of Direct Enrollment was underway, faculty …

The Maldivian Language Predicament: Language Loss Through The Lens Of Students, Azka Hassan

Senior Theses and Projects

This study dives into Maldivian students’ experiences of learning languages in classrooms, as well as how they perceive their proficiency in English relative to their first language, Dhivehi. I investigated the issue of language loss and its contributors via a qualitative study which consisted of 9 semi-structured 45-60 minute interviews with lower secondary Maldivian students who are in public schools in Male’ city. (Key stage 4, ages 13-17) Through this study, I argue that the Maldives is suffering from language loss among youth because students often have negative experiences in Dhivehi classrooms and feel pressure rooted in higher social and …

Identity (De/Re-)Construction: A Shifting Scale Of Identities Moving Abroad And Its Teaching Implications, Matthew Francis

MA TESOL Collection

Language learners who relocate voluntarily to different countries where their native tongue is not the primary spoken language, often uncover and learn aspects of who they are, that is, their identity and user agency. Through personal experience relocating, I intend to share the phenomenon of identity de/re- construction being immersed in another language and culture, moving in between my ‘original’ home country and the ‘new home,’ all while not being able to experience both former and latter identities at the same time (physically). This study will explore what I coin as an ‘identity spectrum’ through first person narratives (interviews) to …

Chatgpt As Metamorphosis Designer For The Future Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai): A Conceptual Investigation, Amarjit Kumar Singh (Library Assistant), Dr. Pankaj Mathur (Deputy Librarian)

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this research paper is to explore ChatGPT’s potential as an innovative designer tool for the future development of artificial intelligence. Specifically, this conceptual investigation aims to analyze ChatGPT’s capabilities as a tool for designing and developing near about human intelligent systems for futuristic used and developed in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Also with the helps of this paper, researchers are analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of ChatGPT as a tool, and identify possible areas for improvement in its development and implementation. This investigation focused on the various features and functions of ChatGPT that …

Intellect Does Not Have An Accent: The Lived Experiences Of Women Native Speakers Of Spanish With Professional Leadership Positions In United States And Have An Accented English Speech, Isabel E. Rodriguez-Mendoza

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This qualitative study examined the experiences of eleven multilingual professional women between the ages of 35 and 65 who share the following characteristics: Spanish is their first language; they speak English with an accent and migrated to the United States as adults and are required to engage in public speaking in their professional leadership careers in the United States. The study’s interview process provided participants with a platform to share their voices and stories. The findings discussed how their accents have shaped their leadership careers as well as the social-emotional aspect of their lives through a phenomenological approach.

The emergent …

Turkish-German Heritage Speakers’ Predictive Use Of Case: Webcam-Based Vs. In-Lab Eye-Tracking, Onur Özsoy, Büsra Çiçek, Zeynep Özal, Natalia Gagarina, Irina A. Sekerina

Publications and Research

Recently, Özge et al. have argued that Turkish and German monolingual 4-year- old children can interpret case-marking predictively disregarding word order. Heritage speakers (HSs) acquire a heritage language at home and a majority societal language which usually becomes dominant after school enrollment. Our study directly compares two elicitation modes: in-lab and (remote) webcam- based eye-tracking data collection. We test the extent to which in-lab e􀀀ects can be replicated in webcam-based eye-tracking using the exact same design. Previous research indicates that Turkish HSs vary more in the comprehension and production of case-marking compared to monolinguals. Data from 49 participants–22 Turkishmonolinguals and …