The purpose of this research was to explore the perceptions of teachers, teaching assistants and pupils about small group work for newly arrived EAL pupils. This was a case study of one secondary school with a high intake of newly arrived EAL pupils. At the time, there were several whole school initiatives to address government directives to improve teaching and learning across the curriculum. Two parallel questionnaires were administered to teachers and teaching assistants. 19 teachers and 3 teaching assistants completed the questionnaires. 10 teachers and 2 teaching assistants responded to a request to be interviewed and 13 pupils participated in two focus group discussions. The findings demonstrate that teachers hold positive perceptions about the inclusion of newly arrived EAL pupils in mainstream lessons but are concerned about issues such as the impact on monolingual and advanced bilingual learners, assessment, language and/or content teaching and professional development opportunities for staff. To varying degrees, teachers perceive that small group interaction can support pupils but there are dependent factors. Teaching assistants perceive that small group interaction is beneficial but have highlighted areas for consideration and development. The pupils share mainly positive views about their involvement in small group work and at the same time, identify challenges that they encounter as they try to work with their peers. This study provides an insight into the experiences of newly arrived EAL pupils in mainstream lessons in one school and highlighted areas of concern worth investigating in EAL teaching and learning in mainstream classrooms.

The current study builds upon previous UK EAL research by i. sampling EAL children who do not struggle with reading comprehension and ii. investigating participants’ semantic ability at the word, sentence and discourse levels. Four groups of 9-10 year old children were recruited: EAL Average Readers; EL1 Average Readers; EAL Above Average Readers; EL1 Above Average Readers. At the word level, EL1 participants significantly outperformed EAL participants on 2 out of 6 vocabulary measures administered (TOWK Expressive Vocabulary and Multiple Contexts). The results of an idiom comprehension measure (ICM) showed that EAL and EL1 participants did not differ in their ability to engage in semantic analysis or in inference from context (semantic ability at the sentence and at the discourse levels respectively). The EL1 Above Average group alone were able to use prior experience with English language idioms to their advantage when answering the ICM. For the EAL participants, relationships between performance on the TOWK Expressive Vocabulary and Multiple Contexts and on the ICM are stronger than for the EL1 participants. The relationships between performance on the ICM and on a measure of reading comprehension are also stronger for EAL than for EL1 participants. These results suggest the following: i. it is important to develop the vocabulary abilities of EAL children, as the relationships between word-level semantic skills and sentence/discourse level semantic skills are stronger for EAL children than for their EL1 peers; ii. the relationships between the knowledge and skills measured by the ICM (i.e. prior knowledge of English language idioms; semantic analysis; inference from context) and reading comprehension are stronger for EAL than for EL1 children, suggesting the importance of a comprehensive approach to the semantic development of EAL children.

This doctoral study explores the museum as site and resource for language learning by adult migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) provision has emerged over the past decade in museums across the UK and elsewhere within an increasing emphasis on informal adult learning programs. While there has been extensive research on second language acquisition, museum learning and social inclusion separately, there have been few studies that have investigated language learning in the context of museums, and even fewer studies that have sought to understand the benefits of language learning in museums for this target group of learners and how it might relate to the concept of inclusion. The study is centred around an ethnography that addresses these gaps in the literature and which examined three primary questions: (a) what are the target learners’ experiences of social inclusion and exclusion post-migration, and its interface with their English language abilities? (b) what are learners’ perceptions of the impact of participating in ESOL in museums in terms of exclusion and inclusion?, and (c) what occurs in interaction during ESOL in museums? In collaboration with City of Edinburgh Council Museums and Galleries Service, a cohort of 14 adult ESOL learners were studied over a 5-month ESOL course held in the City’s Museums and Galleries. In-depth time-series interviews were conducted with participants over the 5-month period. Narrative analysis (Labov & Waletzky, 1967; Riessman, 1993) of interviews examined narrative trajectories within case and across cases, mapping experiences post migration, in and beyond museums. In order to investigate the affordances of dialogue in museums, conversational interaction was observed and recorded during the 11 weekly museum visits. Conversation analysis (Leinhardt & Knutson, 2004; Markee, 2000) examined what occurred in talk, focusing on interaction between interlocutors, its function and content. Drawing on a social theory that conceptualizes language as symbolic power (Bourdieu, 1977, 1989, 1991) and identities as constructed and reflexive (Block, 2007b; Giddens, 1991; Norton, 2000), analysis indicates that the experience of migration provoked deficit conceptions of self as participants negotiated their new social milieu through English language. Access to opportunities to engage in English are mediated both by institutional forces, e.g. social space afforded in institutional contexts, and perceptions of self. Analysis of dialogue in museums shows participants positioning themselves and being positioned as ‘knowers’, where primacy was given to collaborative meaning making about museum displays, objects and artefacts in conversational interaction. Analyses of interviews indicate shifts in identity trajectories from deficit to competent views of self through participation in ESOL in museums. These findings suggest a cumulative effect of micro-interactions on identities constructed in dialogue and point to the critical role which learning in museums and other informal environments can have in terms of providing social space within which to engage in positive dialogue that both challenges isolation and exclusion and helps foster increasing confidence and competence in the target language alongside feelings of inclusion for the majority of participants in the research.

Conversational prosody or tone of voice (e.g. intonation, pauses, speech rate etc.) plays an essential role in our daily communication. Research studies in various contexts have shown that prosody can function as an interactional device for the management of our social interaction (Hellermann, 2003, Wennerstrom, 2001, Wells and Macfarlane, 1998, Couper-Kuhlen, 1996). However, not much research focus has been given to the pedagogical implications of conversational prosody in classroom teaching and learning. Informed by Community of Practice theory (Lave and Wenger, 1991) and Academic Task and Social Participation Structure (Erickson, 1982), which place participation at the core of the learning development, the current research employs an exploratory case study to examine the function of speech prosody during the co-construction of classroom talk-in-interaction in and between different classroom activities (e.g. whole class instruction, group discussion, group presentation, etc.). Audio–video data of classroom lessons were collected over a two-month period. Transcribing conventions described by Atkinson and Heritage (1984) were adopted to note the prosodic features in the recordings. Prosodic features such as pauses, volume, intonation, and speech rate were set as the main criteria for analysing the classroom talk. Analysis of the transcripts showed that speech prosody can function as a coordination tool for language learners to organise their social participation roles in collaborative learning activities (e.g. forming alignment, managing turn-taking, signalling repair sequences, etc.). The research also showed that prosody can function as a pedagogical tool for language teachers to manage classroom interactional ground (e.g. provide scaffolding, align academic task structure and social participation structure, frame classroom environment, etc.). Moreover, the research showed that prosodic analysis can be an effective tool in unfolding the pedagogical importance of classroom interaction (e.g. IRE/F sequences) in classroom teaching and learning.

The research presented in this thesis investigates the feasibility of a corpus-influenced syllabus for primary literacy education in Japan. It achieves this with reference to two aspects of the context within which such an initiative might be developed. One is the cultural context; that is,the demands of primary ELT in Japan. Therefore this research explores policy makers’ and teachers’views, the texts frequently used in primary ELT classrooms, and some aspects of teacher training. The other focus is from a linguistic viewpoint, concerned with the identification of linguistic features which pupils need to learn for the development of their English literacy. This thesis describes an innovative method for identifying such features. The cultural context was investigated by means of three surveys, the first of which was used to inform the choice of texts to include in the corpus. The surveys reveal a lack of attention to literacy teaching and teacher education in primary ELT in Japan, but also point to some potential for syllabus development. The research offers support for a corpus-influenced syllabus for teaching English literacy, while concluding that there is a need for incorporating it into teacher education and developing teaching methodologies which suit the pedagogic context of the Japanese primary school classroom.

This thesis reports on a longitudinal qualitative study of the L2 motivational systems of a group of South Korean university students. The study adopts a complex dynamics system approach to the collection and analysis of data, and develops an original three-level model of context to investigate the interaction of elements within the learners’ motivational systems and to track how these interactions led to perceptible changes in these systems over the course of the research. The study highlights the complex, dynamic nature of L2 motivation and the necessity of including context as a key part of the L2 motivational system. It further calls into question traditional conceptions of autonomy in the field and the general applicability of some current concepts in L2 motivation. In addition, it emphasizes the importance of non-quantitative approaches in illuminating the motivational processes at work within individuals. On the basis of these findings, the thesis calls for the general incorporation of complexity perspectives in L2 motivation research and for language pedagogy to incorporate the insights gained from such studies to enhance the classroom environments and learners’ investment in language learning.

Data-Driven Learning (DDL), an approach developed by Tim Johns, is an exploratory learning methodology which enables students to analyze the lexical and grammatical patterns of key words in various authentic contexts, organized into a series of concordance lines. It is a learner-centered approach that encourages students to work autonomously, engaging in what Johns calls ‘discovery learning’. DDL has proven itself to be an effective tool for advanced students to further improve the depth of their linguistic knowledge, but the wider possibilities to which DDL might be applied have been sparsely researched. In this study, I investigate the efficacy of DDL as a core component of two communication-oriented English language learning courses at a Japanese university. The courses couple traditional concordance line analysis with communicative activities. I call this novel teaching methodology ‘Communicative Data-Driven Learning’. This study is a form of action research, which involves actively reflecting upon and revising approaches at every stage, from planning, through execution, to observing results. The data was collected in two years: in 2014 and 2015. The results demonstrate that Communicative DDL has immense potential for developing students’ language competencies, especially with respect to their fluency and confidence when communicating in English.

This study explored the nature of classroom interactions in which teachers and learners from a Mexican university engaged to practise speaking. Throughout a five-year programme, learners in this context are trained to become EFL teachers or translators, and are also expected to learn the language skills to an advanced proficiency level. In a previous study conducted in the same context (Garcia Ponce, 2011), learners were found to obtain passing grades in speaking tests, but were perceived to develop a low oral competence which deters them from communicating. Through a quantitative and qualitative analysis, the study draws attention to the role of teacher and learner ideologies in language learning outcomes, showing how the teachers' and learners' diverse and sometimes conflicting beliefs shaped the nature of classroom interactions and speaking practice. In particular, the teachers' and learners' interactional- and teaching and learning-related choices and beliefs were found to influence three aspects of learner talk: oral performance, discourse functions, and negotiations of meaning. This study concludes that the teachers and learners need support from inside and outside their classrooms to break away from existing pedagogical beliefs and interactional behaviour to try new approaches which might be more beneficial for developing learners' speaking skills.

This thesis critically examines two distinct differences among learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Saudi Arabia: their learning styles (specifically, perceptual learning styles, peer collaboration and tolerance of ambiguity (TA)) and the affective factors (namely, anxiety, motivation and self-efficacy) that influence their learning. This mixed-methods study builds systematically and methodically on the little that is known about these variables among Arab learners of EFL. Its originality lies in it being the first study to explore the interrelationships between six major learning styles and affective factors in an EFL learning context. To achieve this, three self-developed questionnaires were distributed to 334 freshman students at a public university in Saudi Arabia. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with 20 learners. Findings revealed that the participants were multimodal, exhibited a moderate preference for peer collaboration and were moderately tolerant of ambiguity. They also showed moderate levels of anxiety, motivation and self-efficacy. Importantly, all six variables were significantly related to English proficiency and/or performance. Furthermore, all correlations between learning styles and affective factors were significant, except those between peer collaboration and self-efficacy and between TA and motivation. The thesis concludes with a discussion of theoretical, practical and research implications of the findings.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of a Data Driven Learning (DDL) approach on Iranian EFL learners' writing skills development and their attitudes towards the approach. A pre-test post-test control group design supplemented by a set of interviews and a questionnaire was employed to collect the required data. The control group received instructions through a conventional method while the experimental group received a certain number of classroom concordance-based handouts in addition to the conventional method. It was found that the DDL group participants can improve their declarative knowledge more than the Non-DDL group. Regarding analytic scoring, the results show that the DDL participants have improved their ‘language use’ features more than the Non-DDL group. This finding has been supported by the results obtained from analysing the ‘Accuracy’ measures. In the CAF analysis, lack of improvement in 'Complexity' features of the learners' performance and slight regression in mean length of T units and mean length of clause was explained as an indication of a trade-off between accuracy and fluency. Results obtained from qualitative data showed the participants’ positive attitudes towards the DDL approach. It was also found that DDL-based materials can help teachers in getting learners involved with learning through 'noticing'.