Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Intermediate language classroom'

This dissertation examines the negotiation of language ideologies and identity construction amongst university intermediate level Spanish Heritage Language (SHL) learners in the U.S. Southwest. Combining sociolinguistic and ethnographic methods with discourse analysis, this study seeks to provide deeper insight into the linguistic practices and the negotiation of language ideologies that takes place amongst SHL learners. Data from participant observation of interaction in the SHL classroom throughout the semester, questionnaires, interviews with students and instructor, and student focus group discussions were used to analyze discourses about language and the multiple values placed on English and Spanish in general, and on standard and local varieties of Spanish in particular. More specifically, this study analyzes, through the application of Bourdieu's (1991) notions of linguistic capital and symbolic power, how SHL learners negotiate these values and discourses as they study their heritage language. In addition, this study examines performances of identity observed during interactions within this group of SHL learners, recognizing the construction of multiple social identities, including bilingual, heritage learner and ethnic identities, as a dynamic and complex process that is recurrently shaped by interaction and the negotiation of competing language ideologies.

Thesis (M. A. (English Studies)) --University of Limpopo, 2019
There is a universal consensus among educationalists and cognitive development theorists that integration of higher order thinking (HOT) in language teaching has farreaching positive implications in learners‘ future. Their extensive body of research clearly indicates the interrelationship between language and thinking. It shows that to develop well-rounded learners who can later deal capably with varying demands of the 21st century, teaching them linguistic and cognitive skills concurrently is a prerequisite. However, there is still a dearth of language teaching classroom-based data to be collected to ascertain which language pedagogic practices promote thinking or not. Hence, a qualitative exploratory case study was conducted to address this gap. The study was undertaken in five intermediate English FAL classes in Mankweng circuit. The aim was to establish whether HOT is encouraged in the intermediate English FAL classes. The study used two data analysis techniques: firstly, Tesch‘s inductive coding technique was used to analyse semi-structured interview results sourced from five English FAL teachers. They were sampled for the study to assess their conceptualisation of HOT and its application in their language classes. Contrastingly, Anderson and Krathwohl‘s (2001) framework was used to analyse one Grade 4 English workbook. To determine if its exercises‘ instructional verbs were promoting HOT or not; to check if the questions in its exercises were equally distributed over all the six levels of Bloom's revised Taxonomy of the cognitive domain; and to evaluate if there was an incremental introduction of HOTs in its exercises through the year. The results revealed the following: the five teachers could not conceptualise HOT and showed poor knowledge of how to teach it in their classes. The instructional verbs did not comprehensively encourage HOT; those which did were only pitched at the third level of thinking i.e. apply; most of the questions were in favour of low order thinking and there was little incremental introduction of the three top levels of Bloom‘s revised taxonomy in Grade 4 English FAL workbook specifically analyse, evaluate and create/design. Key words: High order thinking skills, cognitive domain, high order thinking and Bloom‘s revised taxonomy.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2002.
Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xv, 312 p. Includes abstract and vita. Advisor: Charles R. Hancock, College of Education. Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-260).

In this study, the possible impact YouTube can have on students reading and listening comprehension in English is investigated. In order to identify this possible impact, two main research questions were asked, analysed and answered. The sample group researched in the study consisted of 123 students in the 8th grade at an intermediate school in Sweden. Two surveys, one listening comprehension test and one reading comprehension test, were submitted to the sample group. Based on the results and the discussion, some conclusions could be drawn. Students who spend an average amount of time on YouTube seem to perform at a higher level regarding reading and listening comprehension. However, students who spend a lot of time on YouTube did not perform at the highest level of proficiency, making it difficult to determine with absolute certainty how extensive the correlation between social media and language comprehension is.

The purpose of this research study is to examine reading assignments given in the secondary classroom of a rural secondary school. The intention is to analyze student readiness to handle complex text found in post-secondary education and/or the workforce, based on current reading trends within the school. The research questions guiding this study focus on the average amount of reading students are expected to complete in a week, what strategic support is being provided to students to enhance comprehension of text, the methodology behind how teachers select both reading assignments and reading strategies, and finally the methodology behind how teachers assess student content learning through assigned text. This study is broken down into three major components: teacher-completed reading logs, student surveys, and two case studies. This mixed methods data collection process revealed that students are typically assigned less than two reading assignments per class per week, however nearly half of these students indicate that they read all of an assigned text. Case study data concluded that teachers are not consistent in their methodology neither in selecting reading assignments nor in utilization of reading strategies. Finally, based on the data, it is reasonable to conclude that students in this setting may not be prepared to handle complex texts found in post-secondary education and/or in the workforce.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of administrators, guidance counselors, and classroom teachers in the high schools of Northeast Tennessee regarding their schools’ academics, climate, culture, parent engagement, and their English Language Learners’ school experiences. The researcher sought to ascertain if significant differences exist between the perceptions of different groups of educational professionals in the school, with those groups to include school administrators, guidance counselors, and classroom teachers. Data were analyzed from 50 survey questions with 42 of those questions measured on a 5-point Likert scale, 5 questions as multiple choice, and 3 questions as open-ended. Data were collected through an online survey program, Survey Monkey. The survey was distributed to 12 school districts consisting of 39 high schools. There was a 23% response rate among administrators, a 29% response rate among counselors, and a nearly 10% response rate among teachers. There were no significant variations of the participants’ perceptions of their schools’ conduciveness to ELLs’ success with regard to classroom practice, student resilience, school climate, school culture, and the strength of home and school partnership.

Foreign language learning depends greatly on the quality of the classroom teaching and the extent of the input, output, and the interactions in which learners engage through responding to instructions, asking and answering questions, and undertaking activities both individually and with peers. The aim of this interpretive study was to gain insights into how trainee teachers’ practice activities provided opportunities for learners to speak English as a foreign language at two different public intermediate school classrooms in Saudi Arabia. The study had two types of participants: first, two trainee teachers in their final college year and undertaking their teaching practicum; and second, first-year and third-year students from two different intermediate schools. The aim was explored through research questions guided by the study’s theoretical perspectives of input, interaction and output (Long, 1996; Krashen, 1982; Swain, 1985). The qualitative exploratory data were collected using the triangulated methods of semi structured interviews (both before and after the lesson), lesson presentations, and my classroom observation notes, and contextualised data from the teacher’s preparation book and the pupil’s book were also gathered to situate the analysis and interpretation. The findings suggested that there were many more similarities between these teachers than there were differences. The trainee teachers used the pupil’s book as a transcript for classroom activities. They used their first language to explain second language words. The teachers had some basic knowledge about the role of students’ participation, working in groups and taking risks in language learning. There were limited opportunities afforded by the teacher-learner interaction, and these mostly emerged from students’ spontaneous responses based on real life situations. Indeed, overall, the nature of the speaking opportunities created by teacher-learner interaction in its totality (as a provider of input and as affording situations for output) in the classrooms investigated, was mostly ineffective for developing and enhancing students’ ability to speak English. Theoretical implications and recommendations for creating opportunities for students to speak English are provided.

This dissertation centrally explores understandings of foreign/second language and culture learning and its potential to prepare learners to participate in a globalized world. More specifically, this study explores the potential of a dynamic or complexity orientation to understand how beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions towards language and culture learning are constructed and negotiated in the relationship between learners and instructors, as complex social beings, and the learning site, as “contestatory discursive site” (Mckay & Wong, 1996).

The site of this ethnographic study can be understood as interconnected contact zones. These contact zones are two Spanish language and Latino cultures classrooms situated at a university in San Diego on the border between the United States and Mexico. Primary participants include two third-semester university level Spanish instructors, Yesenia and Vicente, and their respective students.

I collected data in two learning spaces: the language learning classrooms and the sites where students from Yesenia’s class completed community-service learning (CSL) projects; all of these latter CSL sites involved the students’ engagement with local immigrant populations. In both spaces, I employed qualitative methodology with an ethnographic focus, which involved participant observation, extensive field notes, audio- and video-recordings of classes, and collecting class-related textual artifacts and pedagogical materials. I applied discourse analysis to explore classroom interactions, teaching materials, and interviews with a focal group of students from each class, the instructors, the department chair, and personnel related to the CSL program, including staff, site coordinators, community leaders, and community participants.

My analysis suggests that the two language and culture classrooms not only reflect the larger tensions of globalization, but also produce new tensions. The instructors and the learners have differing perceptions of language and culture and the importance of their learning. These understandings are constructed in relationship to their positionings within the classroom, the university, the community, and the local context. The two instructors struggle with their conflicted positioning within the power structure of the university and in the broader relationship between the United States and Latin America, particularly as they are both Mexican immigrants. They also grapple with the instrumental approach that is imposed through the textbook in which learners accumulate grammatical forms and vocabulary while culture is consumed through superficial representations of “Otherness”, presented as imagined tourists visits and the accumulation of geographical and historical information.

In the first classroom, Yesenia accepts the instrumental approach, encouraging the accumulation of largely decontextualized language forms, and she participates in the construction of what I call a tourist gaze on Latin America, believing that it will facilitate learners’ appreciation of her cultural heritage. In the second classroom, Vicente rejects the instrumental approach: he wants to facilitate language and culture learning through critically understanding, reflecting on, and proposing alternatives to the social, economic, and political realities of the contact zone. In both classrooms, however, learners resent these pedagogical choices, their resistance revealing tensions in their own understandings and goals. Learners express a desire to develop cultural awareness so that they can care about the realities of Latin America yet doing so uncomfortably implicates them in larger global relationships in which they must confront their privileged positionings. This process was particularly evident in their CSL experiences in which “putting a face on it” reproduced problematic binaries, such as that of “us” and “them” and “server” and “served”, and in the process reinforced larger power structures and reproduced privilege. Even though the learners want to engage in more than superficial communication they also recognize the limited role of their language and culture learning in their current lives, namely to successfully complete the language requirement, to engage in tourism, and to compete in the global marketplace.

The findings of this study suggest ever increasing tensions between understandings of learning language and culture in the classroom in contrast to the potentiality of this learning as applied outside of the classroom. In both classrooms, the learners and the instructors demonstrate an awareness of the conflicting attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions that they bring to the classroom and how these interact with the teaching materials as well as the local context, yet they do not engage in critical reflection on these understandings. Doing so would require engaging with the central question of power, and how their language and culture learning experiences (re)produce social structures both in and outside of the classroom. In this regard, one of the central limitations of the dynamic or complexity orientation (Wesely, 2012) that I have employed is that it does not centrally interrogate this question of power.

This study points to the need for future research in field of second language acquisition. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The purpose of this study was to design components that should be included in a framework for the use of a classroom interaction approach as a strategy in teaching English as First Additional Language to enhance learners’ communicative competence in the primary schools. The previous research advocates that classroom interaction activities can provide opportunities for the facilitation of the additional language, as they encourage meaningful interaction in the target language and active learner participation. Moreover, a classroom interaction approach helps learners to construct their own learning while expressing themselves in the additional language. In the English First Additional Language (EFAL) settings, where it is an ongoing challenge to provide learners with practical learning and interactive learning opportunities, interaction activities such as discussion, storytelling, role-play, reading aloud and debate are seen as promising strategies, though there is superficial implementation of some of these activities in the Intermediate Phase EFAL classrooms. This multiple case study investigated the nature and scope of classroom interaction in teaching EFAL to enhance learners’ communicative competence. The study explored the teachers’ understanding of classroom interaction, teachers and learners’ beliefs and attitudes and the strategies used by the teachers in teaching EFAL in the classrooms. The research was undertaken at two public primary schools, but the focus was on the Intermediate Phase at Ekurhuleni North District of Gauteng Province. It was found that most of the teachers understood the classroom interaction approach but it was not implemented in some EFAL classrooms as teachers still use the teacher-centred method while learners remain passive receivers. The study recommends that EFAL teachers should be trained to implement the classroom interaction using the interactive activities in additional language and create a conducive teaching and learning environment that permits the learners’ participation; the schools should have a parental involvement policy as a means of encouraging parents to be involved in their children’s learning; policy makers should include debate as an interactive activity in the CAPS document teaching plans in order for the teachers to fully implement it; and parents should be trained on how to assist with homework tasks and take responsibility for their children’s learning.
Curriculum and Instructional Studies
D. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)

Research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree Masters in applied language and literacy education in the division of languages, literacies and literatures school of education at the University of the Witwatersrand June 2017
This study explored and compared how language structures and conventions were taught in the intermediate phase English Home Language classroom at a public and at an independent school in central Johannesburg, South Africa. The aim was to identify challenges and strategies in an attempt at promoting pedagogies that enhance the learning of language structures and conventions. Specific themes related to the teaching and learning of language structures and conventions have been highlighted as the main point of departure in the study. Such themes include: a synthesis of the curriculum applied at public and independent schools; theoretical viewpoints in the teaching and learning of language structures and conventions, highlighting challenges experienced in the EHL classroom; and lastly, the teaching strategies used in overcoming the challenges. A qualitative research approach was adopted, using a case study as the research design. Most case studies allow space for generalisations to be made, however, in this study I was limited to making such generalisations because my study is considered a minor study. The research methods consisted of: biographical questionnaires; 8 teacher interviews (Grades 4 – 6); and 5 classroom observations (only Grade 6) per school which were audio-taped. The findings suggested that the most common teaching approach used throughout the lessons in both schools was the text-based approach, which is advocated in the CAPS (2011). The classroom observations conducted at the public school illustrated that the Audio-lingual Method of language teaching was used, as opposed to CLT which was evident in the classroom observations at the independent school. Lessons in the public school were primarily teacher-centered, where the teacher engaged in giving instructions, providing explanations and eliciting responses. The type of questions asked consisted of lower level thinking (literal). Learners in the independent school, however, showed more enthusiasm towards participating in classroom discussions and answering questions, thus creating a learner-centered culture. It is evident that the independent school is more flexible in selecting the language components that need to be covered within a specific period. Based on the interview sessions, the teachers at the independent school mention that it is more important for them to cover a minimum amount of work in-depth rather than covering everything and not having learners understand what they are learning. As a future recommendation, a similar study can be conducted comparing an urban public school and a rural public school that apply the CAPS. This study adds to the understanding of how language structures and conventions are taught in the intermediate phase EHL classroom in the South African context. By encouraging and promoting the teaching of grammar, we are able to identify approaches best suited for quality learning to take place.
MT 2018

Although much research has reported the effectiveness of task repetition on oral performance (Bygate, 2018), few studies have investigated its effectiveness on writing performance (Manchón, 2014), especially in languages other than English. For instance, Nitta and Baba’s (2014) longitudinal study revealed that EFL undergraduates considerably progressed their syntactic complexity and lexical aspects, but not fluency, through repeating a timed writing task. In relation to the task repetition, however, whether and how L2 learners develop their grammatical accuracy and communicative adequacy (Pallotti, 2009) has remained unclear in the literature. Furthermore, in addition to the linguistic measurements and the qualitative assessments, scant research has attempted to investigate whether any significant changes are brought about in terms of learners’ perceptions through repeating language tasks.
Therefore, the current study has shed new light on the developmental changes in the writing performance of Japanese-as-a-foreign-language (JFL) learners. It investigated whether any remarkable changes are brought about in terms of overall complexity, complexity by subordination, accuracy, and fluency through repeating a weekly “15-Minute Writing Task” throughout one academic semester (16 weeks) and one academic year (32 weeks). The writing task topics were considered in terms of the Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2001), which states that different cognitive demands of tasks will lead to different L2 output. Regarding this point, this study explored whether there were any significant differences between two task types: descriptive and argumentative essays. JFL learners who were enrolled in an intermediate-level course at an American university engaged in the two different types of timed writing tasks.
First, the one-semester investigation, based on the pre/posttest analysis, revealed different patterns between the two types of writing tasks. For the descriptive essays, despite the improvements in overall complexity, complexity by subordination, and fluency with a large effect size (r ≥ .6) (Plonsky & Oswald, 2014), no significant findings were confirmed for accuracy. In contrast, in the argumentative essays, the learners improved all the linguistic aspects but with a medium effect size (.4 ≤ r < .6).
Second, in the one-year investigation, the JFL learners significantly improved overall complexity, complexity by subordination, and fluency during the study period. The dynamic systems approach (Verspoor & van Dijk, 2011) also unraveled the developmental trajectories to show how different variables interacted in the two different types of writing tasks, respectively, throughout the measurement period. Although there were no statistically significant differences in grammatical accuracy measures, the process of L2 writing development showed fluctuations, demonstrating that the improvements in syntactic complexity seemed to have caused many grammatical errors temporarily. Lastly, the learners’ compositions, which were also assessed qualitatively by two native Japanese speakers in terms of readability, indicated significant improvements in communicative adequacy.
Finally, to investigate any changes in the learners’ beliefs toward Japanese writing before and after the task repetition, the JFL learners completed the Belief Questionnaire About Writing in Japanese (Ishibashi, 2009). In addition, to examine any changes in foreign language anxiety with a focus on Japanese writing, the learners were required to complete the second-language version of the Daly-Miller Writing Apprehension Test (Cheng, Horwitz, & Schallert, 1999). The study found that the extensive writing experience had a positive impact on the JFL learners’ confidence and willingness when writing in L2 Japanese.