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.

The purpose of this thesis is to reflect upon the complex process of educating the sons and daughters of immigrant parents from diverse cultural communities. The study stresses the importance of valuing the language and culture of students in Aotearoa-New Zealand for whom English is another language. It is argued that the discourse of what shall be called ‘technocratic pedagogy’ falls short of meeting this goal. What is needed is more expansive and inclusive programmes that apprehend the social, economic, and political contexts of learning. This is necessary if the students are to continue their education not simply to absorb prescribed information and ideas but to actively understand, question, challenge, and change the school and the classroom. The thesis is written from the perspective of an indigenous Maori teacher trained in technocratic approaches of practice looking to aspects of her intimate culture, Tongan and Samoan ways of representing the world, and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy to transform contemporary education that tends to exclude the adolescents from learning in school. This thesis is not simply another contribution to the ways in which teachers of school English in general think about methodologies and approaches to learning; rather, it is addressed more specifically to those Maori, Tongan, and Samoan teachers in this country who work with and alongside communities who are from the Kingdom of Tonga and the islands of Samoa. Thus, there is great value placed on educational experience with indigenous Tongan and Samoan teachers and students in an educational project referred to in the thesis as a ‘School-within-a-school’. The School-within-a-school refers to a site of education for teaching school English to immigrant adolescents within a large, state, secondary school in the city of Auckland. Particular attention is also paid to educational experience with indigenous teachers in a Curriculum Committee and Maori and Tongan grassroots organisations located within the same school. A fresh approach to teaching English accepts culture as the ground on which to begin to reflect on a practice within a specific context. The teachers who have a dynamic relationship with students argue that culture is a primary site for contradictions and that a revolutionary challenge to technocratic pedagogy is necessary, but not sufficient, to value and actively include the students in school. Since the English language and its attendant practices, values, traditions, and aspirations are the grounds for the students' marginalisation, immediate, consciously organised changes in the teaching beliefs, contents of education, and society at large in Aotearoa are necessary parts of any reintegrative pedagogy. On this account, the belief is that pedagogy is vitally important since it can enable the students to understand the technocratic discourse and draw upon the personal and collective experiences to counter the tendency that denies them full participation in school and the classroom. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

The purpose of this thesis is to reflect upon the complex process of educating the sons and daughters of immigrant parents from diverse cultural communities. The study stresses the importance of valuing the language and culture of students in Aotearoa-New Zealand for whom English is another language. It is argued that the discourse of what shall be called ‘technocratic pedagogy’ falls short of meeting this goal. What is needed is more expansive and inclusive programmes that apprehend the social, economic, and political contexts of learning. This is necessary if the students are to continue their education not simply to absorb prescribed information and ideas but to actively understand, question, challenge, and change the school and the classroom. The thesis is written from the perspective of an indigenous Maori teacher trained in technocratic approaches of practice looking to aspects of her intimate culture, Tongan and Samoan ways of representing the world, and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy to transform contemporary education that tends to exclude the adolescents from learning in school. This thesis is not simply another contribution to the ways in which teachers of school English in general think about methodologies and approaches to learning; rather, it is addressed more specifically to those Maori, Tongan, and Samoan teachers in this country who work with and alongside communities who are from the Kingdom of Tonga and the islands of Samoa. Thus, there is great value placed on educational experience with indigenous Tongan and Samoan teachers and students in an educational project referred to in the thesis as a ‘School-within-a-school’. The School-within-a-school refers to a site of education for teaching school English to immigrant adolescents within a large, state, secondary school in the city of Auckland. Particular attention is also paid to educational experience with indigenous teachers in a Curriculum Committee and Maori and Tongan grassroots organisations located within the same school. A fresh approach to teaching English accepts culture as the ground on which to begin to reflect on a practice within a specific context. The teachers who have a dynamic relationship with students argue that culture is a primary site for contradictions and that a revolutionary challenge to technocratic pedagogy is necessary, but not sufficient, to value and actively include the students in school. Since the English language and its attendant practices, values, traditions, and aspirations are the grounds for the students' marginalisation, immediate, consciously organised changes in the teaching beliefs, contents of education, and society at large in Aotearoa are necessary parts of any reintegrative pedagogy. On this account, the belief is that pedagogy is vitally important since it can enable the students to understand the technocratic discourse and draw upon the personal and collective experiences to counter the tendency that denies them full participation in school and the classroom. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

The purpose of this thesis is to reflect upon the complex process of educating the sons and daughters of immigrant parents from diverse cultural communities. The study stresses the importance of valuing the language and culture of students in Aotearoa-New Zealand for whom English is another language. It is argued that the discourse of what shall be called ‘technocratic pedagogy’ falls short of meeting this goal. What is needed is more expansive and inclusive programmes that apprehend the social, economic, and political contexts of learning. This is necessary if the students are to continue their education not simply to absorb prescribed information and ideas but to actively understand, question, challenge, and change the school and the classroom. The thesis is written from the perspective of an indigenous Maori teacher trained in technocratic approaches of practice looking to aspects of her intimate culture, Tongan and Samoan ways of representing the world, and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy to transform contemporary education that tends to exclude the adolescents from learning in school. This thesis is not simply another contribution to the ways in which teachers of school English in general think about methodologies and approaches to learning; rather, it is addressed more specifically to those Maori, Tongan, and Samoan teachers in this country who work with and alongside communities who are from the Kingdom of Tonga and the islands of Samoa. Thus, there is great value placed on educational experience with indigenous Tongan and Samoan teachers and students in an educational project referred to in the thesis as a ‘School-within-a-school’. The School-within-a-school refers to a site of education for teaching school English to immigrant adolescents within a large, state, secondary school in the city of Auckland. Particular attention is also paid to educational experience with indigenous teachers in a Curriculum Committee and Maori and Tongan grassroots organisations located within the same school. A fresh approach to teaching English accepts culture as the ground on which to begin to reflect on a practice within a specific context. The teachers who have a dynamic relationship with students argue that culture is a primary site for contradictions and that a revolutionary challenge to technocratic pedagogy is necessary, but not sufficient, to value and actively include the students in school. Since the English language and its attendant practices, values, traditions, and aspirations are the grounds for the students' marginalisation, immediate, consciously organised changes in the teaching beliefs, contents of education, and society at large in Aotearoa are necessary parts of any reintegrative pedagogy. On this account, the belief is that pedagogy is vitally important since it can enable the students to understand the technocratic discourse and draw upon the personal and collective experiences to counter the tendency that denies them full participation in school and the classroom. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

The purpose of this thesis is to reflect upon the complex process of educating the sons and daughters of immigrant parents from diverse cultural communities. The study stresses the importance of valuing the language and culture of students in Aotearoa-New Zealand for whom English is another language. It is argued that the discourse of what shall be called ‘technocratic pedagogy’ falls short of meeting this goal. What is needed is more expansive and inclusive programmes that apprehend the social, economic, and political contexts of learning. This is necessary if the students are to continue their education not simply to absorb prescribed information and ideas but to actively understand, question, challenge, and change the school and the classroom. The thesis is written from the perspective of an indigenous Maori teacher trained in technocratic approaches of practice looking to aspects of her intimate culture, Tongan and Samoan ways of representing the world, and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy to transform contemporary education that tends to exclude the adolescents from learning in school. This thesis is not simply another contribution to the ways in which teachers of school English in general think about methodologies and approaches to learning; rather, it is addressed more specifically to those Maori, Tongan, and Samoan teachers in this country who work with and alongside communities who are from the Kingdom of Tonga and the islands of Samoa. Thus, there is great value placed on educational experience with indigenous Tongan and Samoan teachers and students in an educational project referred to in the thesis as a ‘School-within-a-school’. The School-within-a-school refers to a site of education for teaching school English to immigrant adolescents within a large, state, secondary school in the city of Auckland. Particular attention is also paid to educational experience with indigenous teachers in a Curriculum Committee and Maori and Tongan grassroots organisations located within the same school. A fresh approach to teaching English accepts culture as the ground on which to begin to reflect on a practice within a specific context. The teachers who have a dynamic relationship with students argue that culture is a primary site for contradictions and that a revolutionary challenge to technocratic pedagogy is necessary, but not sufficient, to value and actively include the students in school. Since the English language and its attendant practices, values, traditions, and aspirations are the grounds for the students' marginalisation, immediate, consciously organised changes in the teaching beliefs, contents of education, and society at large in Aotearoa are necessary parts of any reintegrative pedagogy. On this account, the belief is that pedagogy is vitally important since it can enable the students to understand the technocratic discourse and draw upon the personal and collective experiences to counter the tendency that denies them full participation in school and the classroom. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

The purpose of this thesis is to reflect upon the complex process of educating the sons and daughters of immigrant parents from diverse cultural communities. The study stresses the importance of valuing the language and culture of students in Aotearoa-New Zealand for whom English is another language. It is argued that the discourse of what shall be called ‘technocratic pedagogy’ falls short of meeting this goal. What is needed is more expansive and inclusive programmes that apprehend the social, economic, and political contexts of learning. This is necessary if the students are to continue their education not simply to absorb prescribed information and ideas but to actively understand, question, challenge, and change the school and the classroom. The thesis is written from the perspective of an indigenous Maori teacher trained in technocratic approaches of practice looking to aspects of her intimate culture, Tongan and Samoan ways of representing the world, and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy to transform contemporary education that tends to exclude the adolescents from learning in school. This thesis is not simply another contribution to the ways in which teachers of school English in general think about methodologies and approaches to learning; rather, it is addressed more specifically to those Maori, Tongan, and Samoan teachers in this country who work with and alongside communities who are from the Kingdom of Tonga and the islands of Samoa. Thus, there is great value placed on educational experience with indigenous Tongan and Samoan teachers and students in an educational project referred to in the thesis as a ‘School-within-a-school’. The School-within-a-school refers to a site of education for teaching school English to immigrant adolescents within a large, state, secondary school in the city of Auckland. Particular attention is also paid to educational experience with indigenous teachers in a Curriculum Committee and Maori and Tongan grassroots organisations located within the same school. A fresh approach to teaching English accepts culture as the ground on which to begin to reflect on a practice within a specific context. The teachers who have a dynamic relationship with students argue that culture is a primary site for contradictions and that a revolutionary challenge to technocratic pedagogy is necessary, but not sufficient, to value and actively include the students in school. Since the English language and its attendant practices, values, traditions, and aspirations are the grounds for the students' marginalisation, immediate, consciously organised changes in the teaching beliefs, contents of education, and society at large in Aotearoa are necessary parts of any reintegrative pedagogy. On this account, the belief is that pedagogy is vitally important since it can enable the students to understand the technocratic discourse and draw upon the personal and collective experiences to counter the tendency that denies them full participation in school and the classroom. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Secondary Education / Jacqueline D. Spears / This study explored the benefits of one instructional strategy on the development of English skills and on the achievement in academic school areas by linguistically different high school students. The specific strategy chosen was the use of printed instructional materials with native language support in subject matter areas. The academic performance of adolescent immigrant students having printed instructional materials with native language support in one subject area was compared to their academic performance in the same subject without using native language support. In addition, the study explored qualitatively the perceptions of the use of printed instructional materials with native language support in subject matter areas among learners, their parents, and ESL as well as subject area teachers. The statistical analysis of linguistically different high school students’ test performance in geometry showed that instructional materials with native language support contributed significantly to the improvement of students’ performance. The comparison of ESL students’ performance with the performance of non-ESL students demonstrated that, on average, ESL students who were lagging behind the non-ESL students before the treatment was applied, outperformed the non-ESL students when native language support was available and then closed the gap between ESL and non-ESL students on subsequent material without native language support. The student survey demonstrated the ESL students’ preference for having regular subject area textbooks in English containing page by page glossaries and explanations in their native language. Parents’ responses to questionnaires showed that the instructional materials with native language support enabled parents to understand what their children study in school and to help their children with their school work. Both ESL and the majority of geometry teachers noticed the positive changes in their ESL students when ESL students were provided with materials containing native language support. All parties participating in the research supported the idea of providing adolescent immigrant students with printed instructional materials containing native language support in all academic subject areas, which would require a collective effort of educators in the fields of science, mathematics, social studies, language arts as well as special education teachers.

This dissertation documents the work of two teacher collaborators who brought a focus on linguistic and cultural diversity into their literacy teaching even while teaching in English medium schools. The research was carried out during eighteen months utilizing collaborative case study methodology in conjunction with two teachers in highly multilingual and multicultural public elementary schools in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). This study explores the pedagogical possibilities that are made available by teaching for transfer and highlights the resource that students’ linguistic diversity can be even when the instructional setting is monolingual. The dual language literacy pedagogies of the two teachers provide the basis for an analysis of the paths for knowledge construction and identity development that were made available for students through this work. I examine the role that teacher identity and societal influences play in enabling or constraining a redefinition of literacy for the increasingly globalized context of schools. The image of the child, of literacy and of bilingualism projected by the work of the two participating teachers shape the analysis of their identity and role definition as educators. By examining teaching practices that integrate students’ linguistic and cultural identities into the fabric of the literacy curriculum several themes are considered: (a) the role of teacher identity and choice in creating learning contexts that draw on students’ interests and prior knowledge, (b) the link between student engagement and a classroom ecology that values students’ identities and, (c) the different types of knowledge that are generated in the process of participating in the dual language literacy work. Results suggest that students were able to utilize their first language skills in the service of learning English. They also experienced a renewed motivation to extend their first language skills into the sphere of literacy as a result of its affirmation within the classroom. In the case of both first and second language development, students’ ability to engage cognitively and affectively in their literacy work was heightened by virtue of the integration of their language and culture into the curriculum.

We examined the relationship between orthographic processing and spelling in French immersion children. Study 1 included 148 first graders and they were assessed on orthographic processing and spelling in English and French. In Study 2, we followed 69 second graders for two years. Orthographic processing and spelling in English and French were administered in second and third grade. In Study 3, we analyzed the spelling errors made by the third graders in Study 2. In Study 1, we found a within-language relationship in English and French between orthographic processing and spelling. Cross-language transfer from French orthographic processing to English spelling was also observed. In Study 2, Grade 2 English spelling predicted gains in Grade 3 English and French orthographic processing. Study 3 showed that children made transfer errors when spelling in English and French. Overall, the current research highlights the importance of orthographic processing and spelling in French immersion children.

This thesis presents an ethnographic action research study of Deaf and hearing parents and infants participating in a family American Sign Language (ASL) literacy program in Ontario. The thesis documents the context for parents and children’s learning of ASL in an environment where resources for supporting early ASL literacy have been scarce. At the time of the study, restrictions were placed on young Deaf and hard of hearing children’s learning of ASL, as the Ontario government’s Infant Hearing Program frequently did not provide ASL services to children who received cochlear implants or auditory-verbal therapy. This operational language policy of Ontario infant hearing screening and early intervention services was maintained despite evidence for the benefits that learning ASL confers on spoken and written language development in Deaf children. In this context, participation in a family ASL literacy program is a means for both supporting emerging ASL literacy in young children and resisting pathologizing Discourses (Gee, 2008) regarding signed language and Deaf identity. Through semi-structured interviews and observations of six individual families or parent-child dyads, the study documents participants’ encounters with gatekeepers who regulate Deaf children and their families’ access to ASL. At the same time, the setting of the ASL Parent-Child Mother Goose Program is presented as a Deaf cultural space and thereby a counter-Discourse to medical Discourses regarding Deaf identity and bilingualism. This space features the Deaf mother participants’ ASL literacy and numeracy practices and improvisations of ASL rhymes and stories to enhance their suitability for young children. The practices of the ASL Parent-Child Mother Goose Program leader also serve to define and support emergent ASL literacy in young children. In addition, a Deaf cultural space inside a broader context of public services to young Deaf children provides a means for the hearing mother participants to facilitate critical inquiry of issues surrounding bilingualism, ASL, and a Deaf identity. Collectively, the findings from this study highlight the benefits of emergent ASL literacy in Deaf children and their families, and provide an evidence-based rationale for Canadian governments and government agencies to better support this development.