This study explores which concept of citizenship is typically promoted in ESL programs available to adult immigrants in Canada: citizenship as status, citizenship as identity, citizenship as a set of civic virtues or citizenship as agency. Is there a difference between the stated purpose of ESL programs, the integration and active participation of immigrants in Canadian society through language development, and the actual citizenship learning that occurs in these programs? What influences this? The study traces the historical link between citizenship education and ESL in Canada, and draws on existing research to reveal how citizenship concepts are presented in ESL classrooms. These findings are then matched with data from my textbook analysis, classroom observations and student interviews obtained from two advanced ESL courses offered by COSTI, as an indication of the citizenship learning and the citizenship concepts most likely to be promoted in ESL programs for adult immigrants across Canada.

This paper critically reviewed the literature on the relationships between Pinyin and Chinese bilingual and monolingual children’s phonological awareness (PA) and identified areas of research worth of further investigation. As the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet providing pronunciation of the universal Chinese characters, Pinyin facilitates children’s early reading development. What research has found in English is that PA is a reliable indicator of later reading success and meta-linguistic training improves PA. In Chinese, a non-alphabetic language, there is also evidence that PA predicts reading in Chinese, which confirms the universality of PA’s role. However, research shows the uniqueness of each language: tonal awareness is stronger indicator in Chinese while phonemic awareness is stronger indicator in English. Moreover, Pinyin, the meta-linguistic training, has been found to improve PA in Chinese and reading in Chinese and possibly facilitate the cross-language transfer of PA from Chinese to English and vice versa.

This study examines relationships between Indigenous parents and their children’s non-Indigenous teachers. As many Indigenous students are taught by mostly non-Indigenous teachers, this thesis aims to provide teachers with insights or strategies on how to work in a community that is perhaps unknown to them. There are three areas of focus within this thesis: critical issues within systems of education in Indigenous communities, critical issues that Indigenous parents face, and critical issues that schools with Indigenous students face. This project has given both parents and teachers the chance to talk about the experiences of Indigenous children, the experiences of parents and teachers, and the relationships that form between the school, home, and the community. Also included are ideas that can be used by schools, school boards, and Indigenous communities to encourage strong relationships between homes of students and their schools.

This study explores which concept of citizenship is typically promoted in ESL programs available to adult immigrants in Canada: citizenship as status, citizenship as identity, citizenship as a set of civic virtues or citizenship as agency. Is there a difference between the stated purpose of ESL programs, the integration and active participation of immigrants in Canadian society through language development, and the actual citizenship learning that occurs in these programs? What influences this? The study traces the historical link between citizenship education and ESL in Canada, and draws on existing research to reveal how citizenship concepts are presented in ESL classrooms. These findings are then matched with data from my textbook analysis, classroom observations and student interviews obtained from two advanced ESL courses offered by COSTI, as an indication of the citizenship learning and the citizenship concepts most likely to be promoted in ESL programs for adult immigrants across Canada.

This paper critically reviewed the literature on the relationships between Pinyin and Chinese bilingual and monolingual children’s phonological awareness (PA) and identified areas of research worth of further investigation. As the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet providing pronunciation of the universal Chinese characters, Pinyin facilitates children’s early reading development. What research has found in English is that PA is a reliable indicator of later reading success and meta-linguistic training improves PA. In Chinese, a non-alphabetic language, there is also evidence that PA predicts reading in Chinese, which confirms the universality of PA’s role. However, research shows the uniqueness of each language: tonal awareness is stronger indicator in Chinese while phonemic awareness is stronger indicator in English. Moreover, Pinyin, the meta-linguistic training, has been found to improve PA in Chinese and reading in Chinese and possibly facilitate the cross-language transfer of PA from Chinese to English and vice versa.

This study examines relationships between Indigenous parents and their children’s non-Indigenous teachers. As many Indigenous students are taught by mostly non-Indigenous teachers, this thesis aims to provide teachers with insights or strategies on how to work in a community that is perhaps unknown to them. There are three areas of focus within this thesis: critical issues within systems of education in Indigenous communities, critical issues that Indigenous parents face, and critical issues that schools with Indigenous students face. This project has given both parents and teachers the chance to talk about the experiences of Indigenous children, the experiences of parents and teachers, and the relationships that form between the school, home, and the community. Also included are ideas that can be used by schools, school boards, and Indigenous communities to encourage strong relationships between homes of students and their schools.

An increasing number of newcomer English language learners (ELLs) in Canadian high schools are from refugee backgrounds, have a history of interrupted formal schooling (IFS), and do not have alphabetic and numerical literacy skills in their first language (MacKay & Tavares, 2005; Yau, 1995). While ELLs with IFS pose challenges for Canadian high schools and teachers, the struggles faced by these learners to integrate and succeed in their new educational environments are far more complex. This study aimed to gain insight into how two teachers are attempting to support the academic, linguistic and social integration of ELLs with IFS. Through classroom observations, interviews and document analysis, I examined the envisioned, enacted and experienced stages of two Manitoba high school programs that were created specifically for ELLs from refugee backgrounds who have disrupted or limited formal schooling and are at high risk of academic failure. The findings from this study revealed how teacher agency and divisional as well as administrative input significantly alter current and future learning opportunities for ELLs with IFS. The unique circumstances of each school’s Intensive Newcomer Support classrooms, i.e. student population, support services, teaching practices and administrative decisions, were found to impact the design and delivery of each school’s program and thus the experiences of the students. This study identifies how two teachers in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, attempted to provide a meaningful and relevant education for their ELL with IFS students. It is the researcher’s hope and intent that this study will inform educational policy, teacher education and educational development initiatives both in Canada and in the various international contexts that serve refugees.

This study examines French-as-a-second-language (FSL) learning in Canada through the lens of an educational publisher. The fields of language and policy planning, second language learning, and educational publishing provide a focus for the study. The principal purpose of this thesis is to identify key stakeholders in second language learning and to analyze the impact of their actions on the development of FSL resources in Canada. Through qualitative field research with representatives from significant Canadian publishing companies, this analysis of relationships and roles will assist future Canadian second language stakeholders in better understanding the impact of their decisions on the field of publishing, on educational resources, and ultimately, on FSL students in classrooms across the country.

In this study ten Grade 2-3 Japanese-English bilingual students wrote compositions on the same topic in Japanese and English. The students received an intervention designed to help them improve their Japanese writing, and were asked again to write in English after that. The compositions in Japanese and English before and after the intervention were compared and examined in terms of fluency, lexical complexity, grammatical complexity and accuracy, and using holistic measures. The results showed that the fluency, lexical complexity and theme statement of the compositions were highly related across languages before the intervention. Also the intervention was observed to exert a positive effect on lexical complexity and the use of metaphor, but negatively on accuracy. All the patterns found in the quantitavie data were investigated qualitatively. The thesis concludes with practical suggestions for parents and educators of bilingual students about how to support them trnasfer their knowledge across langauges.

This thesis is based on an ethnographic study conducted in a split grade five and six classroom in Toronto during the 1985/86 academic year. Data were collected through participatory observation, as well as through individual and focus group interviews. A group of eight activist African-Canadian high school students, as well as 26 Euro- Canadian “drop-backs” were also interviewed. The time during which I conducted the study was a period of intensive education activism of parents and the community in Toronto. I was interested in determining whether or not, and this activism was reflected at the school level, and if it was reflected, how. I also wanted to examine whether or not the historically supportive auxiliary role that parents played during this period was elevated to more substantive and meaningful active involvement in the education of their children during the last half of the 1980s. This study shows that activities in the classroom were driven by pre-packaged curriculum materials and were implemented with very few modifications. Coupled with teacher-centred practice, this closed the door for any diversifying opportunities that could have found their way into the classroom, not only from the homes of the children and the school community, but also from critics of the use of prepackaged material and, most importantly, from the students themselves. Furthermore, teacher-centred classroom discourse pushed students to develop a cynical attitude towards schooling. Having no say in what or how they were taught provided the children with few choices but to develop a coping mechanism of passive resistance. Their short-term survival strategies included appearing as though they were striding along, but not embracing their school experiences fully. By the same token, they were not challenged to think critically, to evaluate or to problem-solve. A link was also established between the students’ passive resistance at the elementary level with ‘fading out’ or ‘dropping out’ and successful resistance at the high school level.