How are beliefs about the nature of knowledge reflected and reproduced in language use? It is clear that some linguistic resources, e.g. the modal verbs may and must, indicate one’s epistemic stance with respect to a proposition, i.e. one’s judgement of how likely it is to be true. What is less clear is how the use of such resources relates to speakers’ beliefs about the nature of knowledge per se, i.e. their epistemic policies (Teller 2004). To investigate the putative relationship between epistemological variation and linguistic variation, I examine samples of written and spoken English from a community that is particularly epistemologically diverse: academia. I synthesize research on social epistemology, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and Academic English (AE) to propose an explanatory model of variability in the expression of epistemic stance. Then, using AE as a case study, I evaluate the predictions of this model both quantitatively via corpus analysis of research articles and regression modelling of interview data, as well as qualitatively via analysis of discursive practices in terms of experience-organizing frames (Goffman 1974) and the semiotic notion of indexicality (e.g. Irvine 2001), whereby ideological differences produce, and are reproduced by, linguistic differences. This research makes contributions to a number of fields. It questions the analytic validity of disciplinarity, providing support for a unifying theory of variation in AE based instead on an epistemologically principled analysis of institutional language use. The indexical basis of sociolinguistic research on language and belief/identity is problematized by attending to epistemological context; the ramifications of this will be explored in future research. I develop a linguistic metric of epistemic belief, offering a means of developing a quantitative social epistemology to complement that field’s highly articulated theoretical work. Applications beyond academia are possible in areas concerned with knowledge management and transfer, such as public health.

The study developed from realisation that there is no information available about strategies or processes in the iBT speaking scoring rubrics, although ETS (Educational Testing Service) claims that the iBT speaking test is designed to measure strategic processes, which is one constructs of academic proficiency. Therefore, the study investigates which strategic processes are used to complete given speaking tasks. This would provide evidence to help in the evaluation of the validity claims proposed by the test designers. Six Korean participants, studying at English-medium universities, completed 2 independent tasks and 2 integrated tasks both in a test and in their class. Participants’ speech samples were collected during the performances and stimulated recall verbalisation was conducted after they had completed the tasks. Speech samples were coded into five categories: approach, compensation, cognitive, metacognitive strategies and feelings. Consequently, the study examined how strategies reported through stimulated recalls were present in actual speech. The findings showed that metacognitive strategies were used most frequently under both conditions. Fair-level speakers employed more strategies in the test, while good-level speakers used more strategies in the class. Moreover, integrated task types elicited more strategy use for both conditions. Speakers reported that they felt significantly more negative under test conditions than in the class. More importantly, two conditions shared 67.74% of the strategy types, and 84% of the strategy types used in the test were also used in the classroom, which may strengthen the validity of the iBT speaking test in terms of strategy use. Finally, evidences of strategy use were identified in actual speech, which can open the way to operationalised strategy use assessment in speaking test. However, the figure of evidenced strategy use was very low: 5.28% and 2.66% respectively in the test and in the class. It is recommended that future research be carried out with a large number of participants in order to generalise strategy use in speaking performance. Moreover, further studies might be conducted to examine the significance of observable strategic evidence in speech, to inform decisions to include strategies in the scoring rubrics.

This study, within the framework of improving the English course for postgraduate level at IPB (Bogor Institute of Agriculture), attempts to determine the extent of English reading activities for academic purposes expected by agricultural teaching staff at post graduate level, different expectations across the study programs or a particular area of specialised discipline, the extent of English problems experienced by postgraduate students and the strategies used to cope with English needs in their postgraduate studies, to test a hypothesis that there is a positive correlation between the students' command/scores of English and their achievements/scores in agricultural subjects. Questionnaires for agricultural staff and students were adapted from Hughes (1988) and Weir (1988) to address these questions. Students' academic records were obtained to compute the correlation between scores in English and agricultural subjects. Review of literature and research in current theories of reading in EFL is given to serve as a theoretical foundation to discuss English reading lessons from secondary level to tertiary level in Indonesia and to provide general implications to improve the English course at IPB. The results indicate that staff reading expectation in English is high in comparison to the students' level of English and in that all eight types of reading activities listed in the questionnaires were expected. There are some different expectations across the study programs. However, the most relevant finding to note in regard to the the English course is that reading English texts as review of literature for research proposes and reading English texts for writing assignments were expected across all the study programs. It is also found that reading English texts for academic purposes was still a problem for the majority of student respondents and there are various interesting reading strategies used by the student to cope with the English needs of their studies. However, further investigation is essential to assist the students with reading problems since the results do not specify the nature of reading problems and methods used by the respondents. A significant correlation is found between scores in English and agricultural subjects at the level of 5% and 1% by the Spearman rank- order and the Pearson product-moment correlation formulas. This implies that English is central to the students' success in their postgraduate studies, which is also supported by the student respondents' opinions. General implications and suggestions are provided to assist postgraduate with reading problems and to improve the English course for the students.

The aim of the study was to investigate to what extent integrating systematic reflection into the academic English courses at the tertiary level fosters learning. To this end, the teacher-researcher designed an action research study and carried it out with seventy-one students in the three sections of ENG 101 she taught at the Middle East Technical University. In the course of the action research, the teacher-researcher developed an interactive reflection model in which the teacher and students engage in a collaborative process of reflection to improve their performance. For each writing and speaking task in the syllabus, a related reflective task was developed, and the reflective writing assessment rubric was created. Students wrote reflective paragraphs through which they explored their strengths and weaknesses in their performance. Moreover, the teacher-researcher and students engaged in reflective dialogue. In their reflections, students were expected to develop an action plan for further improvement. The teacher-researcher kept a reflective journal in which she reflected on the research and her teaching skills. At the end of the semester, the students evaluated the effectiveness of the reflective activities. The data collection tools were student questionnaire, student work, transcripts of the reflective dialogues, students&rsquo / evaluation of reflective activities and teacher&rsquo / s reflective journal. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data revealed that the integration of reflection in the course increased students&rsquo / awareness of their strengths and weaknesses in relation to the tasks they performed, improved their self-assessment skills and increased their self-confidence. Reflecting with students and on students&rsquo / reflections became a journey of discovery for the teacher-researcher. She developed an action plan and put it into implementation.

The use of English has increased greatly in the higher education system with universities across the world including English as part of their education programs. One of many consequences of this is that many students have to read and study in a second or foreign language, which has shown to be of difficulty for many students according to previous research. The purpose of this present study is to investigate the academic reading habits of students and explore their perceptions and attitudes towards reading academic English, and what experiences they have in relation to that. A total of 68 participants took part in this study, all recruited at Stockholm University. All participants responded to a questionnaire and interviews were conducted with four of the students. A relatively high degree of commitment was reported towards the assigned reading and a majority of the students did not perceive reading academic English as difficult and reported mostly positive attitudes about it. The results suggest that the personal interest and perception of the assigned reading is crucial and matter more for students than the target language.

abstract: English proficiency is one of the major factors affecting international students’ academic adjustment to American universities. Many international college students select to improve their academic English proficiency through an English intensive program. Collaborative learning is an educational approach to teaching and learning that allows students and teachers to engage in a common task and work together to search for knowledge and skills. This thesis study aims to develop, design, and iteratively refine strategies to help English intensive program teachers build collaborative learning and promote international students’ effective collaboration, so as to improve students' academic English proficiency. In this study, two different collaborative learning strategies were designed, implemented and iterated. Data was collected using qualitative methods and follow the principle of design-based research (DBR; Barab, 2014) The results of this study suggest that successful instructional strategies for collaborative learning should be designed in the following ways. First, gathering participants’ opinions and feedback at all phases of design and iteration; Second, linking the new strategies or activity to students’ grade should be the center of the design. Third, in DBR，researchers need to be patient to build good relationships with practitioners, which can provide a basis for continuing research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Art 2020

This thesis investigates changes in Chinese undergraduate students’ language learning motivation during the transition from their home cultural setting to the host cultural setting, while studying on a China-UK 2+1 collaborative programme at the University of Bedfordshire. Since the 1990s, there has been growing attention to research on L2 motivation in classroom or other educational settings. To bridge the gap between general and L2 motivational theories, a number of theoretical frameworks have been developed. The most comprehensive of these is Dörnyei’s (1994a) three-level motivational framework. However, there is as yet little empirical evidence to verify this. The study employed mixed methods. Firstly, in order to identify whether these students’ language learning motivation changed over time, a two stage questionnaire survey was carried out with 158 students. Questionnaires were first administered in October shortly after students arrived in the UK to begin their courses and again in May when they were close to completing their degrees. Factor analysis was used to verify the structure of the questionnaire. Paired t-tests were used to evaluate whether significant changes had occurred in each of the motivational dimensions addressed. Secondly, in-depth face-to-face interviews were conducted with 14 of the questionnaire respondents. The interviews explored motivational change in more open-ended fashion and in greater depth. Students’ comments were transcribed, translated and categorised on the basis of Dörnyei’s (1994a) framework. The conclusions, triangulated by both the key findings and the interview results, indicate that Chinese students have strong instrumental orientations and that their language learning motivation changes significantly at the Learner Level and Language Learning Situation Level of the framework. Some patterns underlying these changes were also discovered. The research findings additionally served to support the applicability of the Dörnyei (1994a) framework. Based on the empirical research findings, some practical recommendations are offered respectively for Chinese students and academic staff. These include: 1) The university should provide more information, or relevant training, about the British academic system and culture. 2) Academic staff need to understand Chinese students more fully and might adjust their teaching style to accommodate them. 3) There is a need for the university to redesign the academic English module to help students efficiently cope with their studies in the UK.

This dissertation presents the findings of an on-line survey completed by 222 FYC (First Year Composition) instructors at universities and community colleges across the United States along with supplemental information derived from multiple open-ended interviews with seven FYC instructors in Arizona. Both survey and interview questions were designed to accomplish three primary goals: to determine which conventions of academic English FYC instructors identify as most important; to understand the common problems encountered by instructors in teaching those conventions, and; to solicit instructors' perceptions about ways in which learning outcomes might be improved. Results indicate general consensus among FYC instructors on which skills are both the most critical to academic English proficiency and the most difficult for their students to learn. At the same time, the survey and interview responses reflect widespread dissatisfaction with the ways in which academic English sequences are currently structured, apparently related to the instructors' common perception that the sequences are only "somewhat" successful in terms of preparing students for successful academic writing. Accordingly, the overwhelming majority of FYC instructors suggest changes for increasing the effectiveness of their programs; however, there is surprisingly little agreement among them on what those changes should be. The concluding section of this study presents pragmatic suggestions - congruent with a number of the instructors' observations - for reconfiguring FYC sequences. Additionally, it is argued that, aside from the targeted skills addressed by the instructors, the survey and interview responses indicate that academic English has been implicitly invested with culture-specific values which should be made explicit in instruction and which, given the gatekeeping status of FYC courses, the increasing diversity of student populations and the growing divide between the academic and wider cultures, require critical examination.

English CLIL-instruction in Sweden is supposed to be beneficial to students who want to improve their academic English vocabulary proficiency in preparation for studies or employment abroad. However, recent research shows that there is no difference in academic English proficiency between students in upper secondary school CLIL-programs and students in regular upper secondary schools in Sweden. Furthermore, educational researchers question if CLIL-programs in Sweden qualify to be defined as CLIL-instruction since Swedish translanguaging is extensively used which does not make the programs 100% Englishmedium instruction. Through teacher observations and questionnaires, this study investigates the classroom practices at a CLIL-program in Sweden in addition to ask the CLIL-teachers about their teaching strategies in regards to promoting students’ acquisition, development, and use of academic English. The findings include that the classroom practices are in accordance with practices considered beneficial to students’ proficiency in academi c English by numerous previous studies. In addition, all the teachers questioned in this study purposely work to support and develop students’ academic language proficiency in their respective subject areas and across the curriculum. The study also found four possible factors that perhaps can undermine the acquisition, development and use of academic English vocabulary and those include the following: First, the teachers believe that the students are already sufficiently fluent in academic English, and thus concentrate more on content than on language in their instruction. Secondly, extensive translanguaging in the classroom is common in addition to the students’ habit of speaking Swedish to each other in stude nt-tostudent communication. Thirdly, the students do not receive the corresponding level of education in their native language of Swedish as they do in English, which can have detrimental effects on their abilities to develop their English past their Swedish language abilities. Finally, classroom practices that are not inclusive of all students can work to undermine the acquisition and use of academic English vocabulary.

The level of fluency in the genre specific language of schooling, also known as Academic English (AE), determines students’ success in school. Government agencies that legislate school policies therefore give teachers the directive to conduct education in ways that promote communicative abilities in academic English across all curricula. While the acquisition of an AE register entails hard work for native English-speaking students it presents an enormous challenge for English language learners (ELLs) who are faced with the triple burden of leaning basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) in addition to content knowledge and academic English. Classroom practices, teachers’ training, and students’ cognitive abilities are predictive factors in the successful acquisition of academic English by ELLs. This literature review, which draws on cognitive theory in addition to systemic functional linguistics theory, contributes to the topic of how to most effectively teach AE to ELLs in English speaking classrooms. The results from seven peer reviewed research sources indicate that teaching practices differ depending on the nature of the subject, but that systemic learning theory, scaffolding, and contextual awareness are reoccurring elements. Furthermore, the results imply that there are challenges including that ELLs constitute a very heterogeneous student body with varying cognitive abilities that require a variety of teaching approaches. In addition educators’ attitudes, competences and training in teaching AE across all curricula pose a challenge to the quality of instruction. Further research on the topic could involve making actual classroom observations in addition to conducting teacher interviews in schools that have content and language integrated learning in Sweden to explore what instructional methods are used to teach AE in CLIL- education.