Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies'
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Alborough, Clare Louise. "Designing social identities : a case study of a primary school theatrical performance by Zulu children in an English ex-model C school." Thesis, University of Cape Town, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/6718.
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This multimodal case study investigates the discourses that emerge in a theatrical performance, constructed and performed by a group of grade seven, Zulu speaking students as a representation of themselves. The performance was set in an ex-model C primary school in Kwa-Zulu Natal and reflects the tensions between the students' identities that are located in the different fields of home, school, traditional settings and urban settings. The study is qualitative in nature, with the performance text being a participatory, creative, multi modal, joint-construction involving the participants and the researcher. The performance was structured so that each scene represents one of the participants' social fields. The analysis of the performance follows this structure and explores the way discourses and identities emerge from the Traditional, Home, School and Urban scenes of the performance. The study draws on the New London Group's Multiliteracies theory, using the concepts of discourse, identity, interest and design, as well as drawing on Bourdieu's notions of field and capital. The study makes use of social semiotic analysis, drawing particularly from Kress and van Leeuwen's visual grammar, to explore the multi modal nature of the performance, analysing the linguistic mode alongside those of the visual, the gestural and the spatial. The study attempts to be consistent with the multimodal nature of the performance and so presents the data through photographs, sketches and video clips integrated with the written text. The study alms to amplify the participants' voice through the richness of their representation. It attempts to contest the notion that marginalised people are powerless in the face of hegemonic discourses, asserting rather that there is always agency.
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Braam, Daryl. "The role of a school community's perceptions of the implications of a change in language policy in a Western Cape primary school." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7807.
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Bibliography: leaves 79-83.The constitution, South African Schools Act and the Language in Education Policy (LiEP) all advocate the development and promotion of all official languages. LiEP also gives a clear directive for additive bilingualism whereby the home language of learners should be encouraged as the foundation for learning additional languages. This policy is clearly aligned with the constitutional provisions for promoting parity of esteem between all languages.
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Haley, Jamalieh. "Escalating Language at Traffic Stops: Two Case Studies." PDXScholar, 2017. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/3887.
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In recent years, the public has seen a rise in recorded footage of violent encounters between police and Black American citizens, partially due to technology such as cell phones, dash-cameras, and body-cameras. This linguistic study examines how these encounters get escalated to the point of violence by asking 1) what kind of directives were used, 2) how were they responded to, 3) how the directives contributed to escalation, and 4) how might power and authority have played a role. I use two case studies to analyze directives and their responses. Findings reveal that repetition of directives on the part of the officers, as well as the rejections to those directives on the part of the motorists tend to aggravate the conversation. I conclude that a variety of directives may represent a variety of reasons the officer might have for a motorist to comply with their directives and that police authority might be better understood and agreed to by the motorist if a variety of linguistic resources were used.
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Proctor, Elspeth. "Talking democracy in Grade 7 : a discourse analysis of SRC practice in a primary school." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7882.
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Bibliography: leaves 111-117.My research set out to clarify to what extent democracy education is an identifiable and teachable concept in Curriculum 2005 and to find pedagogically useful ways of conceptualising and teaching active democratic participation. I chose a two-staged explorative qualitative research framework, informed by the New Literacy Studies and Critical Discourse Analysis, with Grade 7 learners in a primary school. I identified school Student Representative Councils (SRC's) as a potential site for 'democracy education-in-action'.
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Dyer, Dorothy. "Why won't they learn? : a contrastive study of literature teaching in two Cape Town high school classrooms." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7463.
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Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-75).Literature is included as part of most English curricula around the world. South Africa is no exception, and students are expected to study novels, poetry and plays as part of their school language curriculum. There are many debates about the best way to teach these texts in the classroom. However what is often overlooked is that reading literature, like reading anything, is primarily a social activity, and as such has been 'learned'. The way we respond to literature depends on the social activities, attitudes and behaviours -what can be called the practices -of our social grouping that holds value for us. What many teachers hold as the 'right' way of reading and responding literature reflects their commitment and participation in a particular set of practices, whereas students come to class from backgrounds that are different from theirs, and with different commitments. This thesis uses a case-study, ethnographic approach to study two teachers' English classrooms in a working class high school to in order to examine how practices around literature were negotiated between teachers and students who came from working class backgrounds. Despite differences in personality and beliefs, both teachers in the study approached literature study in a limited way -the way that examinations prescribe -viewing the text as a given that had to be mediated for the students so that they were able to 'get the message'. The students in both classes were generally unruly, or passive, with about less than half the class focusing on the lesson at anyone time. This may partly be ascribed to this limited approach to literature. However this approach has been used more successfully in other schools, and I argue that the reason for the 'failure' of these lessons lay beyond the classroom walls. Working class students who want to perform adequately at school have to, in some ways, give up something of the values and beliefs of their backgrounds, and develop a new set of understandings of who they are, a new identity that incorporates these practices. It is unlikely that this investment is going to be made without some reward or fulfilment. In the classes in this study, students had no motivation to join this new literature club that might even affect their participation in other domains. They did enough to get by, to pass through the lessons and exams, but were engaged in very little real meaning making in the classroom. Literature study remained a foreign and sometimes puzzling requirement for examination purposes.
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Pietersen, Nicola Aideen. "What counts as English? : a discursive investigation between two English language Cape Town primary school grade six classrooms." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/11156.
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Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-67).What counts as English depends on the circumstances and where and how it is employed. In classrooms this socio-cultural artefact is constructed through practices in particular ways. Language and literacy practices in schools produce and re-produce certain things that count. In this dissertation I asked what counts as English and what practices were employed in varying contexts to validate what counted in a greater context. I was concerned to find out whether and how English-language resources in different contexts or did not contribute to enhancing students’ (social and economic) mobility. This ethnographically-based study focused on two Grade Six classes in State run Primary schools in Cape Town, one of them being a well-resourced, monolingual, English classroom and school and the other being a poorly-resourced, multilingual, English as an Additional language classroom and school.
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Kendal, Charmaine Allana. "Everyone has a view of literacy : learners' perceptions of literacy and their practices at home and at school." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8077.
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Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-93).This is an ethnographic study of how learners write about, speak about, depict and value their literacy activities at home and how this links with their performance at school. It also examines the shift in learners' perceptions of literacy through their involvement in the research project. The theoretical framework for the research is drawn from the New Literacy Studies with its emphasis on the autonomous and ideological models ofliteracy (as formulated by Street) and on literacy as situated practice. The data is a series of literacy activities, of seven learner profiles made up of their writing, literacy inventories, photographic depictions, focus group discussions, semi structured interviews, and tasks assessed in the formal academic domain. Critical Discourse Analysis is used as a tool for the analysis of some of the data and traces the similarities and differences in the kinds of literacy activities that learners engage in, ranging from homework to hobbies, cell phones, conversations, computer games and so forth. Interpretation of the data also draws on Gee's theory of primary and secondary Discourses.
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Nthara, Ivy Jeb. "An examination of classroom practices for the development of writing in English as a second language in a Malawian primary school." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/11765.
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Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-88).
This study arises out of an awareness of the history of Malawi' s language in education policy from the era of British colonialism to the present multilingual era. English is given a high status in schools despite the fact that many more teachers and pupils speak local languages. Malawi's new language in education model stipulates that "English should be offered as a subject from Standards 1 to 3; English should be offered as medium of instruction from Standards 4 to 8" (MOE. 1996). The Malawi in education bilingual model is thus subtractive, which impacts negatively on second language learning. I discuss various theories that underpin the teaching of literacy in a second language. namely bilingualism and cognition, social learning, and theories with an educational or classroom orientation to establish a framework for my empirical investigation.
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Ralphs, Liana. "Peripheral Normativity: Language and literacy, teaching and learning in two Grade Four classrooms in an under-resourced school in the Western Cape." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8276.
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This study focuses on how children in the post-Foundation phase of Primary Schooling encounter reading and writing practices and learn to be certain kinds of readers and writers in poorly-resourced school settings in the Western Cape in South Africa. The aim of this research was to investigate how literacy practices in a socially situated domain, such as a classroom in a poorly-resourced school, are shaped by both the internal dynamics of classroom teaching as well as by external factors beyond the school, relating to the social location of the school within a peripheral social context. Through an ethnographic-style case study of a multilingual context in one primary school site, this study examined how specific notions of Grade Four school-appropriate language, literacy and learning activities operated as locally normative resources that produced complex outcomes in relation to the language-of-instruction and in relation to what counted as worthwhile classroom learning. By focusing on two Grade Four classes (the 'Afrikaans class' and the 'English class'), this study investigated the ecological and cultural dimensions of the language debates that were operating at the research site, and how these influenced the children, teachers, and the school. It was found that what characterised teaching and learning at this research site involved peripheral normativity: the downscaling and localisation of educational standards and language debates to attainable local levels of possibility. The children received localised, restricted versions of language use and literacy that was context-specific. The school's educational response to the multilingual context and to the social pressure for access to high status linguistic and literacy resources was to stream the predominantly Afrikaans-speaking school community into two parallel streams where the language of learning and teaching was either 'English' or 'Afrikaans,' and these divisions reflected a broader division in the wider community between those aspiring to upward social mobility and those who more clearly constituted a social underclass. The language and literacy learning practices characteristic in both the Grade Four classes did not, however, provide the resources for school success for children in either group.
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BARBOSA, GABRIELA BRITO. "UNDERSTANDING WHAT STUDENTS DO NOT UNDERSTAND: APPLIED LINGUISTICS, EXPLORATORY PRACTICE AND LITERACY IN HIGH SCHOOL FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2018. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=34790@1.
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PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIROCOORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTS. DE ENSINO
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTITUIÇÕES COMUNITÁRIAS DE ENSINO PARTICULARES
A presente dissertação objetiva investigar as dificuldades de letramento apresentadas por alunos de primeiro ano do Ensino Médio de um colégio estadual localizado em um bairro de baixa renda da Zona Norte do Rio de Janeiro. A autora desta dissertação é professora de língua inglesa nesse contexto e se interessou pelo tema ao perceber que os desafios enfrentados por seus alunos ecoavam notícias publicadas em jornais, portais eletrônicos, rádio e televisão acerca do fraco desempenho dos estudantes brasileiros em exames nacionais e internacionais como o SAEB, o ENEM e o Pisa. Buscando entender e contribuir para essa grave situação social, a presente pesquisa, de cunho qualitativo-interpretativista, se insere nos estudos da Linguística Aplicada e foi realizada com diversas turmas de primeiro ano do Ensino Médio, ao longo das aulas de inglês, na qual a pesquisadora em questão também era a professora. A base teórica foi construída a partir dos conceitos de letramento, tanto em LM como em LE, apresentadas por Street (1984), Soares (1998) e Rojo (2009) bem como da Prática Exploratória (Allwright; Hanks, 2009). Assim, a professora-pesquisadora sistematizou suas observações cotidianas a respeito do trabalho de letramento que realiza há nove anos, sob a perspectiva de gêneros textuais como formas de vida e ações sociais (Miller, 1984; Bazerman, 2006), com alunos ingressantes no Ensino Médio. Os entendimentos reflexivos alcançados confirmam a necessidade de intensificar o ensino-aprendizagem de LM e LE através de gêneros textuais e sugerem a importância de fomentar mais estudos sobre práticas de letramento escolar.
This work aims to investigate the literacy difficulties presented by high school students of a state school located in a low income neighborhood of the Northern Zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The author of this dissertation is an English language teacher in this context and became interested in the subject when she realized that the challenges faced by her students echoed news published in newspapers, electronic, radio and television portals about the weak performance of Brazilian students in such national and international examinations as SAEB, ENEM and Pisa. Seeking to understand and contribute to such a serious social situation, this qualitative-interpretative research is considered an Applied Linguistics study and was carried out with several 1st year high school English classes, in which the researcher was also the teacher. The theoretical framework was anchored not only in the concepts of literacy, both in the mother tongue and in the foreign language, as presented by Street (1984), Soares (1998) and Rojo (2009) but also in the ideas of Exploratory Practice (Allwright; Hanks, 2009). Thus, the teacher-researcher systematized her daily observations regarding the literacy work that she had been doing since 2010, from the perspective of textual genres as forms of life and social actions (Miller, 1984; Bazerman, 2006), with entering high school students. The reflective understandings achieved confirm the need for intensifying mother tongue and foreign language teaching and learning through a genre pedagogy and also suggest the importance of encouraging further studies on school literacy practices.
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Folkeryd, Jenny W. "Writing with an Attitude : Appraisal and student texts in the school subject of Swedish." Doctoral thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för lingvistik och filologi, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-7410.
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Learning in school is in many respects done through language. However, it has been shown that the language of school assignments is seldom explicitly discussed in school. Writing tasks are furthermore assigned without clear guidelines for how certain lexical choices make one text more powerful than another. The present study is a contribution to a linguistic and pedagogical discussion of student writing. More specifically the focus is on the use of evaluative language in texts written by students in the school subject of Swedish in grades 5, 8 and 11. The major investigations of the study have been accommodated within the theoretical framework of Appraisal. An overview is given of the language resources in the student texts for constructing emotion, judging behavior in ethical terms and valuing objects aesthetically. Another question addressed is that of how attitudinal meaning is intensified, thus creating greater or lesser degrees of positivity or negativity associated with the feelings. The results show that manifestations of attitude are found in practically all texts in the study. However, variations are noted in relation to different genres, age, proficiency level, language background and gender. A contribution of the study in relation to the theoretical framework upon which it draws is an extension of the system of Attitude as well as an identification of different patterns in the use of attitudinal resources. These patterns are furthermore discussed in relation to how students talk about their own written production in terms of text movability. Results indicate that students with a high degree of text movability also use attitudinal resources to a large extent. It is argued that applying the linguistic tool of Appraisal can facilitate a discussion of how to make one aspect of the hidden curriculum more visible, namely, how to write with an Attitude.
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Whitman, Robert Leader. "Literacy, new capitalism, and new work orders: Case studies from school-to-work education." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/280663.
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This dissertation examines literacy practices in settings that have been transformed by changes in capitalism of the last forty years. These settings are characterized by increased technologization, accrediting processes, team-building, and a requirement for independent critical thinking on the part of workers. The two school-to-work programs included in the dissertation are biotechnology and nursing. Both were sited in a two-year urban community college and both had the characteristics mentioned above. However they also provided a contrast it two ways. First, nursing is a traditional practice that has recently been transformed by changes in capitalism while biotechnology is a completely new field that didn't exist forty years ago. Second, students in these school-to-work programs were pointed towards different class positions within their work settings; biotechnology students toward elite positions, and nurses toward a more traditional and less elite position. The dissertation examines how apprentice workers in these settings learn new practices of a changed capitalism through literacy and other discursive processes as they move back and forth between school and work settings. It also examines students as they learn other aspects of capitalism through the grammars of their respective fields. These include gendered work identities, highly prescriptive critical thinking processes that bear the footprints of a sociohistorical past, and new processes of thinking and acting that are characteristic of a new moment in capitalism.
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CHEANG, Ka Ian Justina. "Domesticating translation can make a difference : a case study of foreign film-title translation in Hong Kong and Taiwan." Digital Commons @ Lingnan University, 2005. https://commons.ln.edu.hk/tran_etd/12.
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This thesis seeks to examine the translation of selected foreign film-titles in Hong Kong and Taiwan from 1990 to 2002. Lawrence Venuti’s theory on “domesticating translation” and “foreignizing translation” will be taken as the conceptual framework for the study. Building on Friedrich Schleiermacher’s perspective on translation and on his observations about the Anglo-American publishing industry, Venuti asserts that “foreignizing translation”, being a strategy to bring the target-text audience toward the original text, should be preferred over “domesticating translation” as the former would guarantee difference by introducing foreign elements to the text recipients. By doing so, people will have more chances to be exposed to cultures other than their own and thus a heterogeneous society will be formed and maintained. Since Venuti’s study has not touched upon the Asian region situated in the periphery of global culture as opposed to the Anglo-American one, his suggestion for “foreignizing translation” might not be feasible globally. Selected film-titles will be examined in this thesis. Data show that most of the translated titles in Hong Kong are domesticated. The same can be said of Taiwan in recent years, though to a lesser extent. Unlike other text types, film-titles are normally translated or adapted by the local film distributors rather than professionally or academically trained translators. With box-office sales as the major concern of the movie business, the adoption of the domesticating strategy can easily be rationalized, if not justified. Equally notable is the fact that, as recent trend in Taiwan demonstrates, domesticating strategy also reflects a stronger sense of local identity.
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Matutu, Samkelo Nelson. "'Heteroglossia in IsiXhosa/English bilingual children's writing: a case study of Grade 6 IsiXhosa Home Language in a Township School." Master's thesis, Faculty of Humanities, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32826.
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The South African constitution recognises 11 official languages, of which isiXhosa is one. IsiXhosa belongs to the Nguni language family which also comprises of isiZulu, isiNdebele, and siSwati. IsiXhosa is mostly spoken in the Eastern and Western Cape Provinces. Those that regard isiXhosa as their home language (HL) are referred to as amaXhosa. However, as a teacher of isiXhosa HL, I have observed that there is often a mismatch between the isiXhosa used by the students and the one used in the schooling context. Thus, this study explores and investigates the written language varieties Grade 6 isiXhosa HL students use in their formally assessed and informal writing. The theoretical framework used in this study reviews literature on discourse/language and literacy as social practice, language ideologies and identity, heteroglossic and translingual practices, as well as primary school children's writing in South Africa to understand the complexities of students' language varieties. Moreover, this study explores the way in which the isiXhosa HL students represent their varied language resources through use of a language body portrait. Further, issues of language standardisation in relation to children's literacy are also reviewed. This study takes the form of qualitative case study in design. Students' Formal Assessment Task (FATs), language body portrait and informal paragraph writing about their linguistic repertoire were collected and analysed. Data analysis revealed the following themes: language ideologies, linguistic repertoires, use of urban and everyday language varieties, Standard Written isiXhosa (orthography), language borrowings, as well as unconventional spellings. Themes and categories are intensively analysed in Chapters four and five of this study. This study displays evidence of hybridity and fluidity of named languages, as well as heteroglossic practices that the students employ. Analysing the students' writing was effective in helping understand how bi/multilinguals engage in writing and that, while the adopted curriculum approach to language and FAT is monoglossic, children's writing is heteroglossic (see also Bakhtin, 1981; Krause and Prinsloo, 2016). The implications of teaching languages as bounded, fixed and separate entities are explored and problematized. Chapter six of this study concludes the study and offers recommendations that are important for deliberation when teaching writing in isiXhosa/African language contexts.
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Kitano, Hiroko. "Cross-cultural differences in written discourse patterns : a study of acceptability of Japanese expository compositions in American universities." PDXScholar, 1990. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4084.
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Since Kaplan started the study of contrastive rhetoric, researchers have investigated Japanese and English compositions and have found some differences between them. However, few studies have investigated how these differences are perceived by native English readers when the different rhetorical patterns are transferred to English writing.
Drawing from Hinds' study, this research focuses on the following: how the Japanese style of writing is evaluated by Japanese and American readers, especially in academic situations, how Japanese rhetorical patterns are perceived by American readers, and how a change of organization affects the evaluation by American readers.
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Cooper, Lisa. "Building home-school partnerships with parents of English language learners in a high school community| A mixed methods phenomenological study of one high school in Southern California." Thesis, Pepperdine University, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3685321.
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The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine home-school partnerships practices between the high school community and English Language Learner (ELL) parents. More specifically, this study examined the experiences and benefits, if any, of ELL parents who participated in 1 or more of the following four ELL parent engagement practices implemented at 1 high school in Southern California during the 2009-2012 school years: 1. ELAC Parent education meetings; 2. ELL Parent Handbook; 3. ELL Parent Orientation Day; 4. ELL Guidance Counselor.
The convergent parallel mixed methods design allowed for qualitative data of parent interviews and quantitative data of student performance scores to be used in parallel, analyzed separately, and then summarized separately, looking for contradictions or relationships between the 2 data sets. A total of 7 parents participated in the interview process. The parent interview responses were coded to highlight key words and statements, forming them into emerging themes in regard to the 4 implemented parent engagement practices. The quantitative data of student performance scores on the California English Language Development Test (CELDT), Math California Standards Test (CST), and English language arts CST were compared among the students whose parents participated in 1 or more of the engagement practices to the total population of identified ELL students at this one school site during the 2009-2012 school years. The quantitative data also compared ELL student performance scores from the year prior to the implementation of the parent engagement practices.
The findings of this study support the following conclusions. Existing ELL parent engagement practices are viewed by ELL parents as valuable; however, new means need to be explored to benefit a larger number of parents. ELL parents benefit from and place higher value on practices that provide opportunities for 2-way communication. ELL parents value sharing their personal experiences with other ELL parents in support of student learning. Specifically designed ELL parent engagement practices prompted parents to communicate with their children. Lastly, parent participation in 1 or more of the 4 implemented practices may have contributed to greater student success.
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Schlebusch, Anne. "Non-racial schooling in selected Cape Town schools : language, attitudes and language learning." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/17504.
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Bibliography: pages 111-118.This study examines some elements of the language environment, language learning processes, and language inter-actions between child and teacher, and child and child in the changing South African education system. As more classrooms become non-racial, new dimensions are arising in language use and in learning: classrooms are perforce multilingual as different language groups come together to receive instruction through the medium of English. What dynamic do these multilingual elements bring to the standard classroom? I focus on part of the Standard Six population of 5 Western Cape English medium schools. The schools are different in many respects and similar in others; some have more Black pupils than others. By using a variety of research methods, including questionnaires, worksheets, personal observation, interviews and essays, I explore the experiences and attitudes of pupils, teachers and principals. My object is to try to identify trends: to look for positive features arising out of present classrooms and to look for possible points of tension as well, in order to extract central features to analyse. These are highlighted, and cross-referenced with relevant international studies, as matters of interest for practitioners in the classroom and for education planners. The field is immense: the study essentially provides a broad-based platform for further research. I tried not to have any preconceptions about what I would find, so made it a comprehensive and far-ranging study. It uncovers important elements which teachers and schools may attend to, relatively easily, indicates the importance of development of one's Mother Tongue and exposes deeply-felt emotions about Language and identity. It asks questions about Bridging Programmes and about the language of the teacher in the classroom and in testing. I also ask about the future of English in this country, about feelings about learning Afrikaans and about learning Xhosa. The main target in the recommendations is the teacher, as the generator of learning opportunities in the classroom. I call for more specific communication between teacher and pupil and the evolution of child-specific language learning processes. It is every teacher in every classroom who needs to adjust consciously to the new classroom profiles. Differing patterns clearly emerge from the schools with different intake profiles. This suggests the need for further studies to examine these findings for generalisability. The situation in schools is both volatile and exciting, calling for concrete and imaginative attention to aspects emerging from the personal, perceptive and wide-ranging input of the sample studied in this research project.
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Shen, Jing Qi Flora. "Code-switching in language practices of secondary school students in Macau." Thesis, University of Macau, 2018. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b3953685.
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Lo, Bee Hong. "Indeterminacy in first and second languages: Case studies of narrative development of Chinese children with and without language disorder." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2000. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1353.
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Bilingual children with specific language impairment (SLI) from non English speaking background (NESB) present a major diagnostic problem to speech pathologist and educationist in an English speaking country. There has been no known study on the simultaneous narrative development involving bilingual Chinese children with and without SLI. This longitudinal case study examined the relationship of Chinese (L1) and English (L2) in narrative development in a child with no language difficulty (Child LN) and a child (Child L1) diagnosed as having SLI. The hypothesis posed for this study was that Child L1 has the same developmental profile for narrative skill in L1 and L2 as Child LN, but at a slower rate of progression and there was no within subject difference in the narrative development between L1 and L2. The narrative characteristics of L1 and L2 of these two children were studied over a twelve months period between the age of six and half and seven and half years. A total often recordings of the children's retelling and generation of stories in both L1 and L2 were made, using various bilingual and text less children's books and pictures. The narratives were analysed with regard to their form and content. The narrative form was measured by T-unit/utterance ratio, the cohesive score and the number of complete episodes. The narrative content was analysed according to the total number of story grammar components (measuring content amount), the types and frequency of grammar components, and the developmental staging (measuring narrative maturity). For each child, the narrative characteristics of L1 and L2, with regard to the indices studied, were closely linked. Both children showed a similar developmental pattern in their narrative production, and parallel progression with age in the narrative production of coherence score, total grammar components, and number of complete episodes. However, Child L1 generally performed at the lower level than Child LN in both his Chinese and English languages for T-unit/utterance ratio, developmental staging, coherence, and number of complete episodes The study also confirmed the past findings of the important influence of age, topic and communicative context on the production of narratives of young children. Whilst Child LN was developing culture related narrative characteristic in the way of using different constituents for his grammar components, Child Ll was yet to do so. The frequent sequence of "initial event", "attempt" and "consequence" was found in Child LN's Chinese narratives, indicating the "cause-effect" discourse pattern of Chinese culture. This was in contrast to his English narratives where "setting" was found to be more frequent than "consequence". No difference in the frequency of common grammar components between L1 and L2 of Child L1 's narratives was found. They were "attempt", "initiating event" and "internal response". The preponderance of "internal response" in Child LI's narrative was in contrast to past studies on children with SLI. The outcome of this study indicates that the indices used in this study may be culturally relevant for analysing the narrative structure of bilingual Chinese children. The results indicated that simultaneous analysis of L1 and L2 narratives of these children may help to differentiate SLI from ESL (English as second language). In this respect, gaining access into L1 data through linguistically competent transcriber may be crucial to accurately identify narrative difficulties of children from non English background. This study, although descriptive in nature with only a single representative case, raised a number of questions that need to be addressed in future research. They will be discussed in the thesis. Further research to see if the same characteristics could be isolated among most bilingual Chinese children is necessary for cross-cultural study of children with SLI.
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Khezri, Mohammadreza. "MUSIC AND VOCABULARY LEARNING : a pilot study on probable pedagogical effects of music on the learning of new vocabularies of a foreign language." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Avdelningen för språk och kultur, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-71722.
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Learning and memorizing vocabularies of a new language is regarded as an important factor ingaining mastery over a new language while it is a tedious and challenging task. Learners feel reluctant to learn new words by heart and, in most cases, they fail to do so. The aim of this studyis to propose a pleasurable teaching methodology by using music as a variable to enhance and tofacilitate the learning process and to bring joy to the language learning environment.
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McGarry, Theresa. "English Translations of the Reading Passages in James W. Gair & W. S. Karunatilaka." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2014. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/6143.
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Excerpt: James W. Gair and W.S. Karunatilaka’s Literary Sinhala, published at Cornell University in 1974, remains the best textbook for non-native speakers who want to learn literary Sinhala, which is quite distinct from the colloquial language. Given that very few institutions outside Sri Lanka offer Sinhala instruction, many persons seeking a reading knowledge of the language use this textbook on their own. Literary Sinhala, however, was produced with the assumption that the user would have access to an instructor, and does not include English translations of the Sinhala reading passages. This publication, commissioned and published by the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies 40 years after the appearance of Literary Sinhala, provides these translations. The intention is to make the textbook more helpful, especially for those using it without an instructor.
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Sundh, Lydia. "The function of teacher questions in EFL classroom activities in Cambodia : A conversation analytic study." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-149649.
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The present study aims to examine teacher questions in an English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom with a conversation analytic (CA) approach. Specifically, the study focuses on the sequential position of the teacher questions, and on their function in the management of classroom activities. Two activities in an intermediate leveled English classroom in Cambodia with students aged 20-24 were recorded and subsequently transcribed according to CA conventions. Thereafter, the teacher questions were identified and categorized. The findings showed that there were five categories of questions used by the teacher; that is, understanding checks, activity managing questions, repair regarding understanding and repair regarding accomplishment of task and lastly topic elaboration questions. Each category of question was used in a specific time in order to manage classroom activities, however, the findings also reveal that questions can interfere with the pedagogical focus when they appear out of context and can limit students’ participation in class.
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Czaplinski, Iwona. "Affordances of ICTs: an environmental study of a French language unit offered at university level." Thesis, The University of Queensland, 2012. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:289156.
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This project investigates the integration of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) into educational settings by closely looking at the uptake of the perceived affordances offered by ICTs by students enrolled in a French language course at Queensland University of Technology. This cross-disciplinary research uses the theoretical concepts of: Ecological Psychology (Gibson, 1979; Good, 2007; Reed, 1996); Ecological Linguistics (Greeno, 1994; Leather & van Dam, 2003; van Lier 2000, 2003, 2004a, 2004b); Design (Norman, 1988, 1999); Software Design/ Human-Computer Interaction (Hartson, 2003; McGrenere & Ho, 2000); Learning Design (Conole & Dyke, 2004a, 2004b; Laurillard et al. 2000;); Education (Kirschner, 2002; Salomon, 1993; Wijekumar et al., 2006) and Educational Psychology (Greeno, 1994).
In order to investigate this subject, the following research questions, rooted in the theoretical foundations of the thesis, were formulated: (1) What are the learners’ attitudes towards the ICT tools used in the project?; (2) What are the affordances offered by ICTs used in a specific French language course at university level from the perspective of the teacher and from the perspective of language learners?; (3) What affordances offered by ICT tools used by the teacher within the specific teaching and learning environment have been taken up by learners?; and (4) What factors influence the uptake by learners of the affordances created by ICT tools used by the teacher within the specific teaching and learning environment?
The teaching phase of this project, conducted between 2006 and 2008, used Action Research procedures (Hopkins, 2002; McNiff & Whitehead, 2002; van Lier 1994) as a research framework. The data were collected using the following combination of qualitative and quantitative methods: (1) questionnaires administered to students (Hopkins, 2002; McNiff & Whitehead, 2002) using Likert-scale questions, open questions, yes/no questions; (2) partnership classroom observations of research participants conducted by Research Participant Advocates (Hopkins, 2002; McNiff & Whitehead, 2002); and (3) a focus group with volunteering students who participated in the unit (semi-structured interview) (Hopkins, 2002; McNiff & Whitehead, 2002).
The data analysis confirms the importance of a careful examination of the teaching and learning environment and reveals differences in the ways in which the opportunities for an action offered by the ICTs were perceived by teacher and students, which impacted on the uptake of affordances. The author applied the model of affordance, as described by Good (2007), to explain these differences and to investigate their consequences. In conclusion, the teacher-researcher considers that the discrepancies in perceiving the affordances result from the disparities between the frames of reference and the functional contexts of the teacher-researcher and students.
Based on the results of the data analysis, a series of recommendations is formulated supporting calls for careful analysis of frames of reference and the functional contexts of all participants in the learning and teaching process. The author also suggests a modified model of affordance, outlining the important characteristics of its constituents.
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Kim, Y. R. "A cross-cultural study on complaint letters : Australian and Korean." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 1996. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/942.
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The aim of the study is to examine the cross-cultural features of Australian and Korean complaint letters. The point of view adopted is that cultural barriers generate difficulties to producing efficient and successful intercultural communication in addition to linguistic barriers. Although the concept of complaint letters is the same in the two countries, there are difficulties when Australians and Koreans attempt to communicate with the other culture. Firstly the study will explore the validating of the concepts of Korean's four-unit structure (Ki-Sung-Chen-Kyul) and the three unit structure typical of western letter writing (Introduction-Body-Conclusion), and contrast the structures. It posits that Korean complaint letters are more reader-responsible this is defined as a reader needing to infer the implicit meaning of what is the writer's request, this Australian letters showed writer responsible language, this is defined as a reader being provided enough explicit information by a writer in order to comprehend the meaning of what the writer intends to deliver. The results might relate to the claims that Korean society is characterised by features of collectivism (Triandis, 1983), avoiding confrontation with others and saving face, which can be realised in vague and emotive terms. Secondly, the indirect speech of Korean writers will be analysed through the adaptation of Kim and Wilson’s study of request categories (1994). The results imply that Koreans use hint strategies as much as they use direct request, while Australians tend to use a more direct strategy in the interest of the readers. An Australian's politer acts are expressed on the basis of the virtue of the frankness of the request first, before the announcement. Conversely the Korean language employs the same amount of hint strategy and direct strategy which might explain typical Korean cultural attributes such as Nunchi, meaning reading others mind(Kim 1975), Kibun, 'feeling' and Cheymyen 'saving face'(Sohn 1986). As a consequence Australian letters, which tend to make obvious what they are expressing, will feature ideational functions weighted toward clear, concise and direct expressions whereas Korean letters which think highly of interpersonal functions appear to be more influenced by their collective cultural values. The results of this study will suggest that intercultural miscommunication is caused by the degree of cultural variances and that to learn the target language well is not just to achieve linguistic competence but also to be a member of its culture.
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Sweeney, Philip John. "Taiwanese Language Medical School Curriculum: A Case Study of Symbolic Resistance Through The Promotion of Alternative Literacy and Language Domain Norms." PDXScholar, 2013. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/938.
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In contemporary Taiwan, Mandarin language proficiency and literacy in Han characters are not only key skills needed for success in academic institutions and employment markets, but they also carry meaning as symbolic markers of national and supranational Chinese identity. This study examines how Taiwanese-language medical studies curriculum planners are promoting alternative linguistic practices as a means of resisting the influence of Chinese nationalism in Taiwan and striving to replace it with a rival Taiwanese nationalism. I conducted research for this study during the 2010-2011 school year in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. I collected data for this study by engaging in participant observation research at Taiwanese-language curriculum-editing meetings; auditing Taiwanese-language courses at Kaohsiung Medical University; and conducting interviews with both curriculum planners and students at KMU. The role of official languages, literacy, and historical narratives are examined as symbolic components of a Chinese nationalist hegemony, which was constructed through the policies of the Kuomintang's Republic of China administration in post-war Taiwan. This study also examines the relationship between occupation, language skills, and national identification in the context of the contemporary Greater China regional economy. The curriculum planners who are the subjects of this study are employed in the field of medical care, where Taiwanese language skills are valued resources for communicating with patients from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition, medical doctors have historically been vocal opponents of the Kuomintang administration's pro-Chinese nationalist policies. Therefore, this case study illustrates how the curriculum planners' occupations and language practices are utilized as resources in their efforts to foster Taiwanese autonomy in the Greater China region. This study also examines current limits to the effectiveness of language preservation and revitalization policies in Taiwan due to the importance of Mandarin-language literacy in the majority of high-status occupations in Greater China and to changing conceptions of the relationship between language practice and national identity. This study contributes to the fields of linguistic anthropology and Asian studies by examining relationships between nationalism, employment, language practice, and literacy in the context of Taiwan's ambiguous status as a national entity. It also analyzes ways in which language practices and literacy forms are created and modified as strategic acts to both identify people with competing nationalisms and allow them access to employment opportunities in the context of shifting administrative and economic power structures in the Greater China region.
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Ahlbrecht, John James. "College Student Rankings of Multiple Speakers in a Public Speaking Context: a Language Attitudes Study on Japanese-accented English with a World Englishes Perspective." PDXScholar, 2018. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4334.
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This language attitudes study used a matched guise technique to compare participant reactions of American-accented English to Japanese-accented English. Participants (n = 40) were college educated adults living in the Portland area who completed an online survey which measured characteristics related to Status, Solidarity, and Dynamism using semantic differential Likert scales. Results showed that while Japanese-accented English received less favorable ratings on the Status and Solidarity dimensions on a statistically significant level, the small effect size may have indicated that the differences were negligible. Interpreting the results from the data through the World Englishes Kachruvian paradigm, it is argued that English learners and users would benefit by focusing more on achieving intelligibility than on attaining perfect control of an idealized variety of English.
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Shelton, Abigail Leigh. "Japanese native perceptions of the facial expressions of American learners of L2 Japanese in specified contexts." The Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543450226217818.
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Tordsson, Julius. "Language Learning Strategies : The Influence of Research on the English Syllabus in the Swedish Curriculum for Compulsory School Year 7-9." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för språk (SPR), 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-75982.
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This essay has studied the extent to which research on language learning strategies has influenced four Swedish syllabi for the English subject in compulsory school year 7-9. The study has made use of hermeneutics to both categorize and interpret the various mentions of language learning strategies that can be seen throughout the various syllabi. All in all, it can be concluded that research, especially Swedish research, has come to increasingly influence the syllabi over time, which can be seen through both the increased number of mentions of language learning strategies and through the more clearly defined terminology used when mentioning the strategies in LGR 11 (2011). This development may be seen as showcasing a shift in focus from teaching methods regulated by the teacher to learning strategies applied by students and their significance for the degree of success and level of achievement reached in the target language. However, for the teachers and students reading the syllabus, it is still not overtly mentioned what the strategies are, and in order to find out, they have to find the description of language learning strategies on their own. It can, therefore, be beneficial to include workshops and seminars on the topic to ensure that all English teachers understand what kind of strategies they should be looking for in their students. This would strengthen the verification of the grades given to the students and the overall professionalism of the teachers. How exactly these seminars and workshops should be constructed and incorporated in schools and universities, however, is not within the scope of this essay, but can be determined in future studies on the subject.
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Hessel, Gianna. "The impact of participation in ERASMUS study abroad in the UK on students' overall English language proficiency, self-efficacy, English use anxiety and self-motivation to continue learning English : a mixed-methods investigation." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7ae490c6-2303-4889-ae67-df3deb5eb870.
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It is widely assumed that participation in study abroad contributes to developing second language (L2) proficiency, as well as related outcomes such as higher levels of L2 learning motivation and intercultural competence. However, empirical studies into the outcomes of participation in study abroad have been affected by a series of methodological limitations, including complete reliance on participant self-assessment, the omission of longitudinal design elements, failure to control for non-equivalent comparison groups where these are included and insufficient sample sizes for testing programme effects. Thus, the present study investigates further the impact of studying abroad with the EU's ERASMUS programme on the participants' overall L2 proficiency, their self-efficacy and anxiety in using the L2 with native and non-native speakers and on their self-motivation to continue learning the L2. To this end, a longitudinal mixed methods design was employed in which 143 German university students who applied for an ERASMUS exchange with a British university for the academic year 2012-2013 and were either accepted or rejected/ withdrawn formed the abroad and comparison groups. All students completed C-tests of overall English language proficiency and questionnaires that inquired into the students' mobility history, their L2 learning background, L2 motivation, intergroup attitudes and aspects of the study abroad experience itself. Both instruments were administered online at the onset of the study abroad period (September 2012), one term into the programme (December 2012) and prior to the students' return (either December 2012 or June 2013). This predominantly quantitative group-level study served to establish the outcomes of participation in study abroad for the students' linguistic and motivational development. Repeated interviews with a sub-sample of 15 participants served to illuminate the observed outcome patterns in terms of the motivational dynamics during study abroad, as well as common factors associated with individual differences in linguistic development. The results of the study show that during the first 3 months abroad the ERASMUS students made significantly higher gains in overall English proficiency than the group of potentially mobile students who continued to study at home. The effect of the learning context was large and highly significant (p =.001), even after the influence of pre-existing participant characteristics on the students' proficiency development was controlled for. During the subsequent 6 months of the study abroad period, however, progress among the ERASMUS group slowed and the between-group differences were no longer significant. The participants' L2 proficiency level at programme entry emerged as the strongest predictor of overall L2 proficiency gain, explaining up to 31.5% of the variance. The students' attitudes towards their own national group, their perceptions of self-efficacy and feelings of anxiety when using English in social interactions, the perceived present-future L2 self-discrepancy and gender explained another 13.6% of the variance in overall L2 proficiency gain. Learner-external factors, including participation in English language instruction, participation in clubs and societies, the number of academic contact hours and type of enrolment, and free time spent with co-national peers, including friends and family back home explained a further 10.9%. The qualitative analysis of the students' accounts provided further insights into the ways in which these factors play out in L2 learning abroad, as well as into the students' perceptions of aspects of studying abroad that contributed most to their linguistic development. Regarding the motivational impact of the study abroad experience, the study found that ERASMUS students tended to develop significantly higher levels of self-efficacy in using English in social interactions as compared to the group of potentially mobile students who continued to study at home, while both the levels of perceived present-future self-discrepancy and English use anxiety with native and non-native speakers fell during the first 3 months abroad. While the overall impact of the study abroad experience on the students' motivation to continue learning the L2 was perceived as positive by the vast majority of participants, a decline in learning motivation was observed for most students after the initial 3-month period. The qualitative analysis showed that this decline can be plausibly explained by developments in the students' English self-concept that occurred in response to the study abroad experience. Evidence-based recommendations are made regarding ways in which the linguistic and motivational development of ERASMUS students can be more effectively supported by higher education institutions.
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Blecher, Hannah, and Martin Hörlin. "Formative assessment in elementary school." Thesis, Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för lärande och samhälle (LS), 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-40027.
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This study's purpose is to investigate formative assessment/feedback in elementary school. According to the Curriculum (2018), it is essential to use formative feedback in the classroom because it helps students progress in their learning. The aim is to see how formative assessment is conducted in English as a second language/English as a foreign language classroom. The research questions that we used were to what extent is formative feedback used in the elementary classroom? Furthermore, are there different ways of giving formative assessment in an English classroom? The primary method used has been electronic searches in two databases, such as Education research complete and ERIC. The study results will show that the teachers know that formative assessment is beneficial for the students' learning process. However, they do not use it due to the lack of experience, time and knowledge. We investigated the teachers' role in formative assessment and discussed how essential time and prioritizing are.
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Mitchell, James Donald. "Foreign Language Anxiety, Sexuality, and Gender: Lived Experiences of Four LGBTQ+ Students." PDXScholar, 2018. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4336.
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The relationship between foreign language anxiety and gender identity has been largely a quantitative endeavor that has shown contradictory results. Furthermore, sexual identity has not been researched in foreign language anxiety literature. A qualitative account of LGBTQ+ language learners with different gender identities has been absent from the literature. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between foreign language anxiety and sexual and gender identity. To gain insight into this relationship, this qualitative study investigated the lived experiences of four LGBTQ+ foreign language university students who represented three gender identities. Data were collected through multiple, in-depth interviews, observations, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS, Horwitz et al., 1986), and a questionnaire. The four participants were further situated through the results of the FLCAS, which was distributed to the research site and garnered 141 responses. Presentation of the data includes portraits of two of the participants and a cross-case analysis of the four participants. The portraits provided rich, thick descriptions of the educational and historical backgrounds of the two learners as well as themes related to their individual anxiety levels. The cross-case analysis found that foreign language anxiety across participants related to invalidated identity, privileged identities, context, and trait anxiety. These themes largely caused participants to experience communication apprehension, possible cognitive interference, avoidance behavior, and a lack of willingness to communicate. This study offers pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research. The data show that language teachers need to be aware of the pervasive nature of foreign language anxiety and how the identities of LGBTQ+ students can play into foreign language anxiety. Furthermore, teachers need to affirm the identities of their students.
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Shak, Juliana. "Nudging young ESL writers : engaging linguistic assistance and peer interaction in L2 narrative writing at the upper primary school level in Brunei Darussalam." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7723ad72-5ccb-4933-b239-a21b33b053aa.
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Motivated primarily by a cognitive approach, with consideration of interactional processes from a sociocultural perspective, the present study examined the use of linguistic assistance and peer interaction to facilitate second language (L2) writing of young ESL learners. A total of 257 Year 5 children (age 10) from twelve intact classes (from six different schools) took part in this eight-week intervention-based study. Using a quasi-experimental design, the classes were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups or the control group. Pretests, interim tests, immediate posttests and delayed posttests were administered. As the study concerned both the processes and products of L2 development, peer interaction and children's written production were taken as the two primary sources of data for this study. For the written production, four criteria were used to rate learners’ writings: Quality of ideas, Story shape and structure, Vocabulary and spelling and Implicit grammar. Partial correlation was employed to examine if there were any statistical relationships between treatment and learners’ written performance while controlling for prior attainment. Results show that the provision of enhanced and basic linguistic assistance may have a positive influence on only certain aspects of L2 writing, while opportunities for peer interaction does not appear to have an impact on learners’ L2 performance. For peer interaction, a subset of 60 learners were selected from the two treatment groups which received basic and enhanced linguistic assistance, to compare their dialogic performance. Based on quantitative analyses of their recorded interactions, the findings suggest that the provision of varying degrees of linguistic assistance may affect, not the content of peer discussions, but how peer assistance is given during task. The results also show that through the provision of linguistic assistance, peer interaction mediates the participants’ performance on Quality of ideas, Story shape and structure and Implicit grammar in their subsequent individual writing.
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Meyer, Heather Lynn Boik. "An investigation into the linguistic characteristics and cognitive implications of academic writing at senior secondary level thesis submitted to Auckland University of Technology in partial fulfillment of the degree of Master of Arts in Applied Language Studies, December 2004 /." Full thesis, 2004. http://puka2.aut.ac.nz/ait/theses/MeyerH.pdf.
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Begovic, Nina. "A study of communicative strategies in upper-secondary school." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Akademin för utbildning och ekonomi, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-10826.
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The present study investigates communicative strategies used by a group of four upper-secondary L2 learners of English. To be able to reach this goal, I have recorded and transcribed a conversation between these students in order to detect natural communication. The communicative strategies I have looked for were: pauses and hesitations, questions, code-switching and message abandonment. Previous research on communicative strategies is divided into two different fields. These two approaches define and classify communication strategies as either interactional or psycholinguistic. The definition and classification of communicate strategies depends viz. on what kind of approach is used.
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Dijkstra, Daniel. "Motivation and English as a foreign language : Motivation among Swedish upper secondary school students." Thesis, Karlstad University, Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Education, 2009. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-4271.
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In order to be able to influence the motivation of second language learners one first has to understand what motivation is, what its preconditions are and how to detect it. The research for this essay was done with the help of one hundred and ten students from seven classes in two different upper secondary schools and most of these learners were first year students.
The aim was to find and measure the students' motivation to learn English and how this motivation can be influenced in a positive manner. The method used to collect the necessary data was a questionnaire which asked questions about the relevancy of the English course and how frequently the students used English and how interested they were in the language.
The results give a clear picture of the students' motivational levels as well as to which parts of the English course they respond and to which they do not.
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Frigerio, Sara. "The Role of Transfer in Italian High School Students' Written Production in English." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för språkstudier, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-144710.
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This study aims at exploring to what extent transfer plays a role for young Italian learners of English. The informants consisted of a group of Italian high school students whose English written compositions are investigated. The collection of data is made up of an error analysis based on Pit Corder’s methodology (Corder in Ellis 2008: 46), in which six different linguistic categories are examined such as collocations, word order, the past tenses with special focus on the simple present perfect versus the simple past, furthermore the null subject parameter, false friends and subject-verb agreement. A brief discussion is also dedicated to the difference between what constitutes an error and a mistake. What emerges in this study is that the category of collocations is the one in which most instances of transfer errors are found followed by word order and the use of the simple past tense. Finally, the research aims to find out what could be the plausible reasons as to why certain categories appear to be more subject to the transfer phenomena.
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Vrikki, Maria. "Investigating the impact of learner codeswitching on L2 oral fluency in task-based activities : the case of EFL primary school classrooms in Cyprus." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:6d2170f3-3498-42d4-8bc8-45ff74684e63.
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The potentially beneficial role of classroom codeswitching, or the use of the first language (L1) in foreign language (FL) classroom settings, is gradually becoming acknowledged in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) research. However, researchers call for the construction of a framework, which indicates when this use is beneficial for language learning and when it is not. In an attempt to contribute to the construction of this framework, the present study investigates whether codeswitching can be used as a tool within task-based learning settings for the development of second language (L2) oral fluency. It is hypothesised that by allowing learners to codeswitch during task completion, their willingness to communicate (WTC) is enhanced because the function of that switching is likely to be mainly the metalanguage needed to complete the task. Previous research has also suggested that task repetition might lead to greater fluency. However, both teachers and learners may be sceptical of the value of repetition without some form of feedback on the first task attempt. This study sought to explore therefore the value of task repetition with feedback (TR+). By repeating the task with feedback that recycles metalanguage into the L2, it is hypothesised that learners will learn to move to a state of less reliance on their L1, while simultaneously achieving the overall aim of tasks, which is effective L2 communication. With increased WTC and L2 metalanguage, extensive L2 oral practice will facilitate the proceduralisation processes needed for fluency development. In short, the pedagogical package of TR+ on recycled language is tested in the present study as a potential contributor to oral fluency. The thesis begins by relating these themes with the context of Cyprus through teacher interviews. It becomes evident through these interviews that the activities taking place in this context are not tasks in the sense researchers intended. Following the setting of the context, the interactions of 75 primary school learners of English (11-12-year-olds) practising TR+ are analysed qualitatively. This analysis determines whether the package can lead to enriched output on the second attempt. In addition, there is a quasi-experimental aspect to the study. The students were allocated in three groups, each testing a different package. The codeswitching group was allowed to switch to Greek while completing the tasks and had their L1 metalanguage recycled into the L2 when they repeated the tasks. The English-only group completed the tasks strictly under L2 conditions and repeated them with feedback on accuracy. The comparison group completed the tasks once with no language instructions. Oral production tests, used as pre- and post-tests, partly support the hypothesis by suggesting that WTC is enhanced with the incorporation of codeswitching, but no evidence supports fluency development. Nevertheless, when comparing TR+ with no task repetition, the data indicate that TR+ leads to greater fluency. It is suggested that a larger and longer intervention would have allowed more time for fluency to be developed when codeswitching was incorporated. As for task-based learning, it is suggested that TR+ is a more viable way to move forward in real classroom contexts, particularly those with young learners. Furthermore, the results of the present study indicate that this package works better with learners of a certain proficiency level.
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Bal, Betul. "Analysis of Four-word Lexical Bundles in Published Resesarch Articles Written by Turkish Scholars." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2010. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/alesl_theses/2.
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This study investigated the use of lexical bundles in research articles written in English by Turkish scholars. For the purpose of the study, a corpus of published research articles produced by Turkish scholars in six different academic disciplines was collected. The four-word lexical bundles that appeared at least twenty times in this one million word corpus were identified and further analyzed both structurally and functionally based on the previous taxonomies developed by Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan (1999) and Biber, Conrad and Cortes (2004). The results of this study revealed that the lexical bundles found have structural correlates as well as strong functional features that help to construct discourse in academic writing. The conclusions drawn from this study could be applied to the teaching of academic genres to researchers in English as a Foreign Language context and are expected to provide insights for further corpus-based studies in academic writing.
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Persson, Joakim. "Speech and Gender in the English as a Second Language Swedish High School Classroom: a Sociolinguistic Study." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Pedagogik, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-26140.
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Gender dominance has been the focus of research in recent years. However, this research was conducted in countries with less progressive stances towards gender equality than Sweden. This paper focuses on gender equality in the Swedish high school English as a second language classroom. A mix of quantitative research, empirical analyses using modern technology and qualitative interviews were conducted. This approach focused upon students’ views regarding gender and speech dominance and how these views correlate with the views of the teachers. Furthermore, the quantitative amount of spoken language output was measured to confirm informants’ views about speech dominance. Three informant groups were interviewed and observed. For a myriad of reasons, it was impossible to come to a definite conclusion regarding speech and gender equality. However, it is clear that floor-time is a vital factor for students’ learning, meaning that it is important that second language teachers are aware of the issues raised.
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Sjölander, Max. "Digital EFL reading versus traditional EFL reading in upper secondary school. : A study of reading comprehension in digital and print text." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för humaniora, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-35943.
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This study tested differences in reading comprehension between printed text and digital platforms. Two groups of upper secondary EFL students took eight tests, aiming to test their reading comprehension. The students took four tests in which they read traditionally and four in which they read digitally. The results of those tests were then compared using the percentage of correct answers, mean scores, and a t-test. The results showed slightly, but statistically insignificant higher scores in favor of the traditional test-takers. One test showed a statistically significant difference in favor of traditional test takers. The results were later discussed through relevant previous and related research. The reason for the difference in performance is, arguably, due to test mechanics.
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Sabra, Sara. "Gender differences in young learners’ English skills in Swedish schools : A study of perceived and actual gender differences in skills, attitude towards and interest in the English language." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för humaniora, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-26705.
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This study examined gender differences in young learners of English in terms of skills, attitude and interest, and teachers’ perceptions of potential gender differences. To examine potential gender differences in skills, a three-part test was conducted with two third grade classes in a school in Sweden. A survey was conducted in the same third grade classes to map the students’ interest and attitude, and structured interviews were conducted with six different teachers to investigate their perception of potential gender differences in skills and interest and attitude. The results revealed that boys’ and girls’ skills were almost equal, although boys at an average acquired a slightly higher level of points in listening and reading comprehension, while more girls wrote at a higher level than boys in the writing assignment. Boys and girls were not equal in their attitude towards and interest in the English language, as girls were more positive towards the language while boys were more confident in their English skills. Teachers perceived no gender difference in interest and attitude, and most perceived none or slight difference in skills.
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Henriksson, Johan. "Self-regulation and the motivation to achieve : A quantitative study on the effects of self-regulation strategies and motivation on learning English at an upper secondary school in Sweden." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-144051.
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The Swedish National Agency for Education recently begun explicitly promoting teaching through self-regulation strategies in national steering documents intended for teachers, following a number of other countries world wide (Skolverket, 2012; LGY 11; Dalland & Klette, 2016). The goal of self-regulation strategies is for the students to take control of their own learning process, and though there is research on the benefits of self-regulation strategies and motivation, these ideas are based on abstract concepts and biological processes in the brain, that are very difficult to measure (Zimmerman, 1990; Hattie, 2012; Simpson & Balsam, 2016; Schumann, 2004). As such, more research on these strategies is warranted, and little has been done to evaluate their effects on Swedish upper secondary school students. Consequently, the purpose of this study was to attempt to operationalize the theoretical concepts of self-regulation strategies in order to calculate the correlation between students perceived usage of self-regulation strategies, and English performance, with a special focus on motivation. This was done by operationalizing motivation and self-regulation strategies into six variables based on previous research, and then surveying 40 English 05 (year one) students at Enskilda Gymnasiet upper secondary school in Stockholm, and then running correlation tests with their grades from a grammar test the week after the survey, as well as with their overall grade from the previous year. The results showed almost no statistically significant correlations between the students´ grades, and the students self-reported usage of self-regulation strategies. The exception was a statistically significant positive correlation between high levels of intrinsic motivation and good grades. The causes of these results are not specified within the parameters of this research project, however, it could be that there simply were no correlations between the perceived usage of self-regulation strategies and performance due to the strategies not having an effect on performance, or because the strategies were not being used properly. However, it could also be that the operationalizing of the variables in the questionnaire did not generate accurate levels of usage of these strategies. Either way, the results of this essay stress the need for further research that evaluates the effect of self-regulation strategies and motivation on learning English.
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Gustafsson, Tova. "Acquiring Pragmatic Knowledge through Textbooks : Explicit Teaching of Speech Acts in EFL Textbooks in the Swedish Upper Secondary School." Thesis, Mittuniversitetet, Institutionen för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-42573.
Full textAbstract:
Previous studies in the field have suggested that speech acts are underrepresented in EFL textbooks and that, in addition, these tend to have little or no presentation of meta-pragmatic information. In relation to these findings, the present study investigated the extent and manner in which speech acts are presented in EFL textbooks currently used in the Swedish upper secondary school. The focus was limited to explicit teaching of speech acts and, thus, does not present any information or findings concerning implicit teaching of speech acts or to what extent this is presented in the textbooks. The findings showed that the four textbooks examined provide limited presentation of speech acts and that, when presented, little or no meta-pragmatic information is included, which is consistent with the findings of previous studies. To begin with, the findings of the present study show that, on average, speech acts cover less than 1% of the content in the four textbooks examined, providing students with very little opportunity for frequent repetition and to acquire knowledge about speech acts through these textbooks. Moreover, the findings show that the range of speech acts presented in the textbooks is rather low, presenting only 8 different speech acts in total between the books, which compares rather well with the findings of Nguyen (2011: 21) who, as mentioned in Section 6.1, also found 8 distinct types of speech act presented in EFL textbooks designed for courses for more proficient students. Further on, the manner in which these are presented is problematic. Two manners of presentation were identified: speech acts were either presented in lists of useful phrases or integrated as examples of phrases to use within a written assignment. The speech acts presented as useful phrases were listed according to level of formality and the integrated examples provided, to some extent, contextual information concerning the gender and status of an addressee. However, this is the extent to which meta-pragmatic information is presented. No textbook provides any explanation as to why some speech acts are more formal than others or why one phrase may be better suited than another. Subsequently, the findings of the present study have implications for teachers and learners using the textbooks for the purpose of teaching and learning EFL. As the findings suggest that speech acts are underrepresented in Swedish EFL textbooks and that, once mentioned, there is still a lack of meta-pragmatic information on these, such information must be provided in the teaching elsewhere. This can mean a number of things. For one thing, it could mean that textbooks need to be further developed, providing a wider range of speech acts presented and including more metapragmatic information. It could also mean that, in the meantime, teachers need to find alternative ways of incorporating speech acts and information on these, so that students are given the opportunity to acquire this language feature elsewhere.Godkänt datum 2021-06-06
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Forsberg, Carrie. "Breaking Down the ELL Sound Barriers : Listening Comprehension Strategies for Swedish High School Students." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för humaniora, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-32464.
Full textAbstract:
The purpose of this qualitative research study was to identify difficulties some Swedish learners have with listening comprehension in the English 5 course in Upper Secondary Schools and to find methods of teaching such as scaffolding, schematic knowledge, preparation and peer cooperation that may prove successful. The methodology for this study was to test three groups of students representing three different programs of study at a high school in Sweden. These groups performed two different tasks to test theories about listening comprehension methods, and data was collected through test results and observations in the classroom, which were subsequently analyzed through discussion and comparison. The study showed that affective filters affected learning. However, scaffolding, schematic knowledge, preparation, and peer cooperation proved successful as reflected in higher all-around test scores. The researcher has attempted to identify the main aspects that make English listening comprehension difficult for Swedish learners, and to come up with ideas on how to break down the barriers to learning in order to promote improved listening comprehension in both live classrooms and in online learning situations.
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Svensson, Mats. "The Way of the Word : Vocabulary learning strategies in an upper secondary school in Sweden." Thesis, Mälardalens högskola, Akademin för utbildning, kultur och kommunikation, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-38539.
Full textAbstract:
One of the hardest challenges that learners may face during the process of acquiring a second language is learning vocabulary. Knowledge of vocabulary is an important factor when achieving the competence to communicate in a foreign language. There are multiple strategies available when it comes to learning new words, depending on factors such as the learner, the environment, and the context. Essentially, as Nation (2001) maintains, there are two ways of learning vocabulary: "incidental learning" and "direct intentional learning". Although there is a growing body of research on vocabulary learning strategies employed by students, studies in the Swedish context that take into consideration both students’ and teachers’ perspectives are scarce. Against this background, this mixed methods study examines on the one hand which strategies to learn and remember new words are preferable from the students' perspective and on the other hand it also investigates what strategies the teachers are actually using and encouraging in the English subject in a Swedish upper secondary school. The reported preferences of the students indicate that they do not explicitly use vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) to any great extent at all, while their teachers' view is that the students should largely be responsible enough to care for their own vocabulary acquisition. However, the students suggest one VLS to be of great advantage to themselves: to use their teacher as help rather than for example dictionaries or textbooks. This is, however, something that the teachers do not encourage in their classrooms, although previous research has shown the benefits of using source language translations in second language learning.
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Dodson, Eric Dean. "Opportunities for Incidental Acquisition of Academic Vocabulary from Teacher Speech in an English for Academic Purposes Classroom." PDXScholar, 2014. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/1639.
Full textAbstract:
This study examines an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teacher's speech throughout one curricular unit of an intermediate grammar and writing course in order to better understand which high-value vocabulary students might acquire through attending to the teacher and noticing words that are used.
Vocabulary acquisition is important for English for Academic Purposes students, given the vocabulary demands of academic language. The Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000) has been shown to include important vocabulary in written academic texts, and has become a standard part of English for Academic Purposes curricula and pedagogical materials. Although explicit vocabulary instruction is important, research has shown that large amounts of vocabulary may be acquired incidentally by attending to meaning. Classroom instruction provides a great deal of input, and could potentially offer a chance for students to encounter and begin to learn academic vocabulary through incidental acquisition. However, existing research on incidental vocabulary acquisition in classrooms has focused on adult instruction and English as a Foreign Language settings, resulting in a lack of evidence about English for Academic Purposes classrooms.
To respond to these needs, this study analyzes the occurrence and repetition of Academic Word List items in the teacher's speech throughout two weeks of a course in an intensive academic English program in the United States. Two weeks of naturalistic class recordings from the Multimedia Adult Learner Corpus were transcribed and analyzed using the RANGE program to find the number of academic vocabulary types in the teacher's speech and how often they were repeated. Additionally, I derived categories of classroom topics and coded the transcribed speech in order to investigate the connection between topics and academic word use.
Academic Word List items are present in the teacher's speech, although they do not constitute a large proportion overall, only 2.8% of the running words. Most of the AWL types relate to specific classroom topics or routines. There are 13 AWL types repeated to a high degree, and 26 AWL types repeated to a moderate degree. These items are the most likely candidates for incidental vocabulary acquisition, though there is evidence from the videos that most of the students already understand their general meanings. It is unlikely that students could learn a great deal about AWL items that they were not already familiar with. However, it is possible that the teacher's speech provides incremental gains in AWL word knowledge.
These findings show that there may be a substantial number of AWL items that students learn about even before explicitly studying academic vocabulary. Teachers should try to draw out students' familiarity with these forms when explicitly teaching AWL vocabulary in order to connect familiar words with their academic meanings and uses.
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Essving, Linn. "Tense and aspect errors in junior high school students’ writing : A study of risk taking." Thesis, Södertörns högskola, Lärarutbildningen, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-38528.
Full textAbstract:
English is taught in Swedish schools as a foreign language. The students are at different levels, and most of them try to achieve a higher proficiency level. While the extent to which students are successful at learning a language depends on many different factors. Previous studies have shown that students who are open to taking risks in their production are at an advantage. The present study investigated 80 texts written by students in the seventh and the ninth grade. The main aim was to investigate to what extent errors and complexity levels can be explained in relation to risk taking. In more detail, the study examined differences between the grades in terms of degree of syntactic complexity and what kinds of aspect and tense errors were made. To be able to investigate the errors an approach called Error Analysis was used. The results showed that for both grades, substitution errors were the most common error and there was a significant difference between the grades (p<0.001); however, the other errors showed no significant differences. Regarding the complexity levels, there was a highly significant difference (significance level p<0.001) for the least complex sentences, but there were no significant differences between the grades for the highest and second highest levels of complexity. The results furthermore suggest that there is a correlation between risk taking and a higher likelihood of making errors, as a large proportion of the erroneous sentences written by students from the ninth grade were found in syntactically complex sentences. Most of the errors made by students in the seventh grade were found in less syntactically complex sentences however.
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Elmén, Isak. "Pictures as an aesthetical tool in English language teaching : An experimental study." Thesis, Karlstads universitet, Institutionen för språk, litteratur och interkultur, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-31538.
Full textAbstract:
This explorative qualitative case study aims at finding out about the impact of pictures as an aesthetical tool in English language teaching, through an experiment in the English classroom. Aesthetical tools are here defined as tools through which one can reach a stronger experience and improve learning. The independent variable in the experiment was a picture assignment and the dependent variable was a Chinese high school class and their teacher in English. After having done the experiment, the research questions were answered through a student questionnaire and an interview with the teacher. The study is based on Dewey’s theory of an experience (Dewey 1934) which is about the benefits of aesthetical experiences, and six themes of aesthetical experience provided by Uhrmacher (2009) meant to make education into such an experience. A majority of the subjects responded positively to the experiment, and the assignment seemed to be able to implement Uhrmacher’s six themes, at least to a certain extent. The claims of earlier findings are also echoed in this study.
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Brunsell, Oskar. "Teaching and Learning English Online : A Study of the Effects of Transitioning to Online Education in an Upper Secondary School in Sweden." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Engelska, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-35903.
Full textAbstract:
This study investigates how teachers and students in a Swedish upper secondary school experience the sudden transition to teaching and learning English as a second language online. Students and teachers have answered questions in online questionnaires and the answers were analyzed and compared to previous research and secondary literature. The results indicate that both students and teachers prefer the physical context compared to the online context. Communication and natural interactions are expressed to be the worst consequences for both the teachers and students. This study aims to provide a deeper understanding of the effects on both teachers and students the transition to an online context due to Covid-19 have had and how similar events can be conducted better
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Rosén, Linda. "Multilingualism and Translanguaging in Swedish Upper Secondary school : An exploration of English teacher candidates’ attitudes." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-144182.
Full textAbstract:
This ethnographically informed, qualitative study aims to investigate English teacher candidates’ attitudes towards multilingualism and translanguaging in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms and in the school environment. More specifically, the study intends to identify potential contributing factors to the formation of said attitudes, such as the influence of policy documents and of the teacher training program on the perception of the future working environment. The data was collected with semi-structured interviews; the participants were four teacher candidates, two females and two males, enrolled in the teacher education program in a Swedish university. In addition, at the time of data collection, all participants had completed most of the teacher education program, an aspect that increased the relevance of their responses, since they would soon be active teachers in the Swedish school system. Overall, the participants expressed positive attitudes towards multilingualism and translanguaging in a school environment. However, some hesitation in their answers was detected when they are asked how they would work with multilingual students in their future practice. These findings suggest that, if teacher candidates receive adequate education to approach their future working environment with confidence they would be better equipped to provide adequate pedagogical support to students whose L1 is other than Swedish. This would foster positive attitudes towards multilingualism and translanguaging and would, consequently, lead to an improvement in the academic results of multilingual students. The teacher candidates’ increased awareness of the benefits and challenges of multilingualism and their ability to put into practice the general principles they learn at university would benefit from changes in the teacher training program, in the curriculum compiled by the National Agency of Education, and in the national pedagogical approach to language learning.