First and Second Language Acquisition Commons^™

Lessons Learned: Insights Into One Teacher’S Experience Working With Karen Refugee Students In The United States, Daniel J. Gilhooly

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This study is informed by funds of knowledge and culturally responsive teaching studies that aim to explore and legitimize the cultural knowledge immigrant children bring to their communities and schools. Consequently, this paper specifically addresses issues related to the educational experiences of Karen children and their parents from one American teacher/researcher who has worked with the Karen for the past four years. In aggregate, this paper addresses issues germane to Karen education including; (1) background information on Karen educational experiences prior to resettlement, including a review of their journey from Thailand to the U.S.; (2) important characteristics of Karen culture; …

Praxis: Gender Matters In Counselor Education And Training: Increasing Gender Awareness In Counselor Education And Training, Reiko Miyakuni

Counseling Faculty Research

Western society defines male and female sex from physiological attributes (e.g., genitals and chromosomes), this dichotomous view of gender is referred as gender binary.

Problems with Gender Binary

• Variations in sex and gender do not fit in the male/female, masculine/feminine dichotomy (Wiseman & Davidson, 2011).

• Diamond (2002) defined, “gender” is the social and cultural expectation of how females and males should identify themselves, how they think, behave (e.g., ‘typical’ female/male acts in a feminine/masculine ways) and feel (e.g., prefers heterosexual attraction). This gender binary socialization pressure restricts individuals’ potential.

• “Behavior does not have gender, but in today’s …

The Development Of Korean Preschoolers' Ability To Understand Transitive Sentences Using Case-Markers, Kyong-Sun Jin, Minju Kim, Hyun Joo Song

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

We examined whether Korean 2- and 3-year-old children can use case markers to understand the meaning of Korean canonical (subject–object–verb; SOV) and noncanonical (object–subject–verb; OSV) word order in a transitive sentence. Side-by-side videos depicted the same caused motion events, both of which involved the same two characters but with the agent versus patient roles reversed. Along with the videos, children heard SOV sentences (e.g., Bear-nominative Rabbit-accusative is pushing.) or OSV sentences (e.g., Rabbit-accusative Bear-nominative is pushing.), both of which were marked with nominative and accusative case markers. Two-year-olds correctly understood only the canonical sentences (Experiment 1). In contrast, 3-year-olds understood …

Investigating English Teachers' Perceptions Of Intercultural Communicative Competence In The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, Hazem Ahmed Osman

Doctoral Dissertations

This mixed-method study examines the perceptions of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) by English teachers in the Preparatory Year (PY) program at King Saudi University. Studies that aim to investigate teachers’ perception of ICC and its implementation in a foreign language classroom are relatively scarce. Additionally, the majority of the studies that generally targeted the concept of ICC in a foreign-language learning context were studies that either relied on online blogs, discussion forums, and chat rooms to allow students to communicate cross-culturally, or examined ICC development during sojourns or study abroad periods in the target country. Relatively fewer studies have addressed …

Rimanchis Runasimita: La Enseñanza En Quechua Como Una Herramienta Del Mantenimiento De La Identidad Cultural De Los Jóvenes Quechua Hablantes / Rimanchis Runasimita:Teaching In Quechua As A Tool To Maintaincultural Identity Of Young Quechua Speakers, Willow Shram

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study examines the use of teaching in Quechua as a tool to help maintain the cultural identity and strengthen the self-esteem of young Quechua speakers. I went to three rural schools to complete my fieldwork: I.E. Nº 50492 in Ocongate, I.E. Nº 50765 in Sallikancha, and I.E. Nº 501432 in Kumunkancha. All the schools use the method of Bilingual Intercultural Education in Quechua and Spanish, and are part of the project “Fe y Alegría”. The objectives of this investigation are to describe, analyze, and explain the method of teaching in Quechua in bilingual intercultural schools in rural communities to …

Enhancing Vocational English Learning Through Peer Tutoring, Man Wai, Miranda Lam, Chung Woon, Avery Chan

Practical Social and Industrial Research Symposium

No abstract provided.

What Predicts The Effectiveness Of Foreign Language Pronunciation Instruction?: Investigating The Role Of Perception And Other Individual Differences, Elizabeth M. Kissling

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

This study investigated second language (L2) learners’ perception of L2 sounds as an individual difference that predicted their improvement in pronunciation after receiving instruction. Learners were given explicit pronunciation instruction in a series of modules added to their Spanish as a foreign language curriculum and were then tested on their pronunciation accuracy. Their perception of the target sounds was measured with an AX discrimination task. Though the best predictor of pronunciation posttest score was pretest score, perception made a unique and significant contribution. The other factors associated with better pronunciation of some L2 sounds were time spent using Spanish outside …

Engagement Differences For 2-Year-Olds Identified As Late Talkers, Brianna Hendrickson, Shari L. Deveney

Special Education and Communication Disorders Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

This poster discusses: Background, Research Question, Methods, Results, Conclusions, Clinical Implications, and Limitations & Future Directions.

Social Media, Fandom And Language Learning: A Roundtable With Shannon Sauro And Steven L. Thorne, Dean Wang, Shannon Sauro, Steven L. Thorne

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Last November, Dr. Shannon Sauro and Dr. Steven L. Thorne visited the UAB campus to give lectures on, respectively, ‘Fandom, Social Media and Learning’ and ‘Human development and semiotic remediation through mobile place-based gaming’. (. . . ) Questions and responses are transcribed here.

The Impact Of Wiki-Based Collaborative Writing On English L2 Learners' Individual Writing Development, Gina Christina Caruso

Dissertations and Theses

Although the benefits of group and pair work in the second language (L2) classroom have been extensively studied, most documented research has focused on the use of oral tasks and spoken interaction between learners. Recently however, researchers have begun to investigate the advantages of collaboration on written work. More specifically, with the advancements in computer technology and web-based collaborative platforms like wikis, there has been a growing awareness of the educational possibilities of wikis to enhance L2 writing instruction. This study followed a pretest/posttest repeated measures design to investigate the impact and students' perceptions of wiki-based collaborative writing activities on …

Emerging Lexical Organization From Intentional Vocabulary Learning, Adam Jones

Dissertations and Theses

The role that vocabulary learning plays in second language acquisition has been receiving increased attention from both teachers and researchers. However, there is still much that is not known about the processes through which new words become functioning components of the mental lexicon. This study used a word association test (WAT) to investigate how new words are initially integrated into the lexicon immediately after being studied for the first time. This initial lexical organization of new words was compared with the existing lexical organization of well-known items. In addition, this study investigated how sentence writing, thought to encourage deeper levels …

Second-Language English Fluency Change In Native-Speaker Context, John Zehnder

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

This study examines the influence of social context on oral proficiency change among English language learners on the campus of an American university. Speech samples were taken from 2 rounds of interviews with 9 East Asian women. These were analyzed using the phonetic analysis program Praat in order to determine each speaker’s rate of stressed syllables at the beginning and end of the study. The change in these rates was used as a proxy for fluency change. This was then compared with each speaker’s social context. The results suggested that English language learners improve their fluency when they have at …

Executive Control In Hispanic Children: Considering Linguistic And Sociocultural Factors, Miriam M. Martinez

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Executive control represents a collection of high-order cognitive processes that are associated with important child outcomes, including academic achievement and social competencies. Despite the burgeoning interest in examining the development of executive control, less is known about the development of these skills among ethnic minority children. Hispanic children are currently the largest ethnic minority group in the United States and their diverse sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds provide an excellent context to study the influence of linguistic and sociocultural factors on the development of child executive control. The purpose of the three complementary studies reported in this dissertation is to contribute …

Evidence Of A "Hearing" Dialect Of Asl While Interpreting, Campbell Mcdermid

Journal of Interpretation

Little is know about the characteristics of fluent hearing signers and their ultimate attainment of ASL as a second language. To address this, a study was conducted with 12 ASL-English interpreters who were native English speakers to examine their use of ASL while interpreting. Each subject was asked to simultaneously interpret a short English narrative into ASL and a panel of three Deaf native signers assessed their fluency. Though the group included both novice and expert interpreters, the results revealed many similarities in their work. These included a reduction in pronouns between the English source and ASL target text, the …

Statistical Literacy Among Applied Linguists And Second Language Acquisition Researchers, Shawn Loewen, Elizabeth Lavolette, Le Anne Spino, Mostafa Papi, Jens Schmidtke, Scott Sterling, Dominik Wolff

Language Resource Center

The importance of statistical knowledge in applied linguistics and second language acquisition (SLA) research has been emphasized in recent publications. However, the last investigation of the statistical literacy of applied linguists occurred more than 25 years ago (Lazaraton, Riggenbach, & Ediger, 1987). The current study undertook a partial replication of this older work by investigating (a) applied linguists’ general experiences with statistics, (b) underlying factors that constitute applied linguists’ knowledge about and attitudes toward statistics, and (c) variables that predict attitudes toward statistics and statistical self-efficacy. Three hundred thirty-one scholars of applied linguistics and SLA completed a questionnaire. Eighty percent …

Pourquoi J’Écris En Français, Julien Kilanga Musinde

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Why have I chosen to write in French? My personal engagement in front of French language, my profession of teacher and researcher in French linguistics, my quality as a writer and the years I worked as director of French at the International Organization of Francophonie have largely contributed to increase my link with this tongue. We say, the language belongs to his speakers and particularly to the people who use it as the place of expression of art and original thought.

Créativité Et Lecture En Langue Seconde : Propositions Pour La Lecture Des Textes Des Journaux Francophones Du Cameroun, Louis Martin Onguéné Essono

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Nowadays, it is common to say that the French press in Africa greatly contributes to the lower level of French. If true, this assertion hides a much deeper problem that concerns the act of writing and the act of reading in a non-native language. The performance of newspaper, radio or television journalists show that these writers share the same competence and face the same difficulties as the entire French-speaking population who is compelled to transmit ideas and information in a second language they do not master, or just a bit. This paper aims at understanding the reasons why non-African readers …

Nous Habitons Les Langues Et Les Langues Nous Habitent, Cheikh Tidiane Sow

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Who has not his mother, suckles his grandmother. This wolof of Senegal adage tells us that the absence of the native language and the adoption of another language, far from being a handicap, would open more “naturally” to the universal. The author, whose parents are Fulani speaking Pulaar, delivers his experience and his relationship to his two family “second languages”, Wolof and French.

A Comparison Of Linguistic Features In The Academic Writing Of Advanced English Language Learner And English First Language University Students, Margo K. Russell

Dissertations and Theses

Writing for an academic purpose is not an easy skill to master, whether for a native English speaker (L1) or an English language learner (ELL). In order to better prepare ELL students for success in mainstream content courses at the university level, more must be known about the characteristics of student writing in the local context of an intensive English program. This information can be used to inform ELL writing instructors of which linguistic features to target so that their students produce writing that sounds appropriate for the academic written register.

Two corpora of 30 research essays each were compiled, …

The Academic And Cultural Adaptation Of Chinese International Students At Umass Boston: The Struggles And Progress From The Perspectives Of Students And Professors, Pingping Chen, Theodora Chocos, Lorena Fuentes

English Faculty Publication Series

This panel will articulate the struggles and progress of Chinese international students in their learning processes at UMass Boston. Additionally, the challenges some professors have faced in teaching Chinese international students and the pedagogical practice they have used to engage these learners in their courses will be addressed.

This panel was presented as part of the 2014 8th Annual University Conference on Teaching, Learning, and Technology on May 15, 2014. The theme of the conference was "Teaching both What and How for Deep Learning at Every Level."