The study takes as its focus the techniques of Drama-in-Education as developed by Dorothy Heathcote and analyses the classroom discourse produced by teacher's and pupils when they are engaged in unscripted 'In-role' drama. The study asserts that the specific spoken genre produced by the framed discourse of Drama alters the semiotic context of the classroom in such a way that the language interactions of both pupils and teachers differ from the commonly accepted "recitation" pattern of much classroom discourse. The drama discourse was examined from the following perspectives; 1. The data was classified in terms of M.A.K. Halliday's Systemic Linguistics in order to establish the basis of a specific spoken genre for 'In-role' drama. 2. The data was then statistically compared, with the aid of a specifically developed computer based classification system, to a large sample of non-drama classroom discourse (The Primary Language Survey 1980-81). The research findings showed that 'In-role' drama is some 20% more about societal concerns and correspond1ngly less about material facts than is traditional classroom discourse. The study also showed that the use of drama techniques enabled teachers to shift the focus of communicat1on from centrally controlled participant structures to a more flexible context, which in turn allowed a greater range of classroom verbal initiatives on the part of the pupils. A central issue that emerged from the data was the degree to which cognitive and affective responses are inseparable In the Intellectual development of primary school pupils. The language of the drama genre was seen to comb1ne these elements 1n a way that 1s absent in most classrooms. It 1s claimed that expressive language, espec1ally In the explorations of interpersonal power and authority which were a characteristic of the more open discourse of the drama frame, enabled pupils to move into higher order areas of abstraction and language competency. It is recommended that the Inclusion of Drama-in-Educat1on strategies within the pr1mary syllabus would go some way to redressing the 1mbalance in what 1s seen as an overly pos1t1v1st1c curr1culum. It 1s further argued that "In-role' drama prov1des a powerful alternative teaching/learning strategy to the "recitation" methodology still prevalent in many pr1mary schools.

This is a descriptive qualitative study that explored Korean and English learning for Korean transnational immigrant children living in the United States. The study design included qualitative methods. Observations of five children in a Korean language school offered information about how they were taught Korean to retain their heritage language and culture. Additional observations of two of the children in their respective local public schools offered descriptions of their experiences learning English and U.S. public school culture. Interviews with the three teachers in these classrooms, as well as with three of the children's mothers, added background information and extended the observations. A thematic analysis process led to further understanding about the differences in the three classroom learning environments and described the ways instruction was delivered, the ways the individual children demonstrated their language learning, and the cultural context in each setting. The study found that the Korean language school and English speaking elementary schools were essential for the Korean immigrant children to improve their language proficiency in two languages as well as to learn different cultural and educational expectations.

The continual decline of Chinese proficiency has caused serious concerns in Hong Kong. Although most Hong Kong people speak Chinese as their first language, they have not been strongly motivated to learn it in part because of the socio- economic status of English, and in part because of the discrepancies between the spoken and the written forms of Chinese. The absence of a link between the spoken dialect (Cantonese) and the written Modem Standard Chinese language (based mainly on the syntax of Mandarin) makes the learning of Chinese in the 'trilingual' (Cantonese, Mandarin and English) and 'biliterate' (Chinese and English) society laborious. The perception that Chinese proficiency is waning has led to criticisms of the quality of language teachers and language teacher education in the community. Hence, a study of the problems in Chinese language teacher education in Hong Kong is an indispensable step in improving the quality of Chinese language education in Hong Kong. This study takes pre-service teachers' (PST) perceptions as the predomhant factor in understanding how they learn to become a teacher of Chinese. As both students and teachers, the PSTs in this study provide insights into learning, teaching, and learning to teach, the Chinese language. Famous for its cultural tradition, Chinese teaching is typically transmissive. In particular, teachers of Chinese are expected to teach with a missionary zeal for 'educating' students by acting as exemplars. As a result, how a teacher teaches is often determined by how he or she was taught to interpret the nature of Chinese Language. The use of texts written by distinguished authors as teaching materials further encourages language teachers to give higher priority to literature, culture and moral education than language use. Inheriting such a tradition, modem Chinese language teacher education is faced with multiple challenges: to promote cognitive developments in teachers and cognitive teaching approaches to meet the needs of rapidly developing society, and to prepare teachers to maintain a proper balance between moral education and appreciation of culture and literature on the one hand, and teaching language use on the other. This study draws on the literature on Chinese language education, TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages), learning to teach, teacher knowledge, beliefs and perceptions, and develops a conceptual framework to interpret the relationships between perceptions and practices as a reciprocal cycle. Perceptions of self as a teacher, the subject matter, and teaching and learning of the subject matter are inseparable from the beliefs and knowledge of the PSTs, which affect how they prepare lesson plans to teach and actually teach in the classrooms. Planning and classroom practices are realised in teaching objectives, instructional strategies and evaluation of teaching effectiveness, which then reinforce knowledge, beliefs and perceptions. The cycle goes on as the PSTs learn more about teaching and accumulate teaching experiences. From this recurring cycle, the PSTs generate personal theories of teaching a specific subject. This study is longitudinal in design, which follows a logical procedure of inquiry. It first examines the PSTs' perceptions of teaching and learning Chinese on entry to, during and on exit from a.two-year teacher education program. Then it turns to the perceptual development and the sources of perceptions and perceptual changes, and how they impact on the PSTs. Finally, the complex relationship between perceptions, lesson planning and classroom practices are elaborated. In particular, data collected in some stages were dependent on the findings of the preceding stage. This adds complexity to the overall research desip of the study. This study uses a multimethod approach with two research populations -the questionnaire surveys of the entire cohort and qualitative data collection from twelve sub-sample participants. Because of the lack of well-established research instruments in the Chinese research context, all methods of inquiry have been revised according to the results of pilot studies. The multimethod approach in this study demonstrates how questionnaire surveys, repertory grids, individual interviews, focus groups, classroom observations and the analyses of lesson plans and reflective journals can be used in a complementary manner to assure the validity of the research. Questionnaire surveys yield the overall perceptions of the cohort on entry to and exit from the teacher education program. The perceptual development of the entire cohort is understood by the findings of the two surveys. Against the backdrop of the overall perceptions of the cohort, the qualitative methods are used to study the sub-sample. Repertory grids reveal the participants' views of teachers of Chinese from different perspectives, whereas individual interviews and focus group discussions tap more deeply into the participants' thinking about how they have learned to teach Chinese. Other qualitative methods such as classroom observation and the analyses of lesson plans and reflective journals provide compelling evidence for indicating the extent that the participants have grasped the craft of teaching. This study suggests from the persistent perceptions and perceptual development of the PSTs that Chinese language education in Hong Kong has been ineffective. Ineffective Chinese language education has a long-lasting negative impact on students including the PSTs. The strong emphasis on literature, culture and moral education, and the knowledge telling and teacher-led traditions have led to a low level of cognitive demand in Chinese teaching. The procedures recommended for teaching a text in Chinese and the assessment criteria of the teacher education program have encouraged the,PSTs to become more didactic in teaching, although they themselves are aware that they should pay more attention to the needs of students. This study argues that student teachers' perspectives form a critical element in reforming Chinese language teacher education in Hong Kong, and that language teacher education should first be ameliorated before language education can be effectively improved. Not only should PSTs of Chinese Language be equipped with better subject matter knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, but Chinese language teacher educators should also be cognisant of the necessity for change. Because learning to teach is often discipline-based, it is more cost-effective and consistent if the teacher educators' Chinese language classes also emphasise cognitive development in the PSTs. To be real exemplars for the PSTs, the Chinese language teacher educators should be involved in continuing critical evaluation of their own practices.

Esta dissertação tem como objetivo investigar a aprendizagem de estudantes universitários de japonês como língua estrangeira (JLE) e sua autonomia fora da sala de aula no contexto da cidade de São Paulo. Levando em consideração que a aprendizagem de língua tem o caráter contínuo ao longo da vida, o aprendiz precisa desenvolver a capacidade de dirigir seu estudo por conta própria, ou seja, autonomia. Enquanto essa concepção indica um atributo do aprendiz, sua prática pode ser restrita por fatores externos como o ambiente e a relação com outras pessoas. A fim de pôr qualquer ação em prática que visa à promoção da autonomia do aprendiz, faz-se necessário reconhecer formas e ambientes reais em que a aprendizagem se concretiza. No geral, o aprendiz tende a realizar atividades com sua língua-alvo fora da sala de aula por sua iniciativa, e para desenvolver sua proficiência nesse contexto, ele precisa gerenciar seu estudo. Partindo-se dessa perspectiva, fora da sala de aula é uma situação em que permite observar a autonomia do aprendiz uma vez que há certo grau de liberdade de dirigir sua aprendizagem. A pesquisa teve a natureza qualitativa com dados qualitativos e quantitativos, e configurou-se como estudo de caso. Os participantes foram trinta estudantes no total, de uma disciplina da língua japonesa (LJ) de nível básico do curso de habilitação na língua de uma instituição de ensino superior, localizada na cidade de São Paulo. Para a coleta de dados, foram utilizados instrumentos; observação de aulas, questionário para todos os estudantes, entrevista para sete estudantes e diário de estudo para três estudantes. Para a análise, os dados foram identificados, descritos e interpretados. Os resultados apontam que os estudantes desenvolviam várias atividades utilizando a LJ além da sala de aula por sua iniciativa, principalmente as receptivas no domínio pessoal. Na maioria das atividades de interação, amigos e colegas de estudo foram interlocutores. Apesar da ampla disponibilidade de recursos para a aprendizagem da LJ na cidade graças à imigração japonesa e ao intercâmbio econômico e comercial com o Japão, os estudantes tenderam a utilizar recursos e meios digitais como sites da internet, redes sociais e chat. Embora muitas atividades fossem realizadas principalmente pelo interesse cultural, alguns alunos tentaram compreender o conhecimento obtido durante aulas, aplicando-o nas atividades fora do contexto da instituição educacional intencionalmente. Verificou-se também o esforço de uma estudante para procurar oportunidades de interagir com falantes da LJ no domínio público e profissional. / This thesis aims at investigating the learning of undergraduate students of Japanese as foreign language and their autonomy beyond the classroom in the city of São Paulo. Considering that language learning is a lifelong activity, a learner needs to develop the capacity to direct your study on your own, namely, autonomy. While this concept indicates an learner\'s attribute, its practice can be restricted by external factors such as his environment and relationship with other people. In order to put into practice any action in pursuit of this capacity, it is essential to comprehend real forms and environments in which learning occurs. Generally speaking, the learner tends to realize activities using his target language outside the classroom taking his initiative, and so as to develop his proficiency in this context, he needs to administrate his study under his own direction. From this perspective, it can be said that it is a situation in which allows us to observe the learner autonomy because there is a certain degree of freedom to direct his own study. This research was qualitative treating both qualitative and quantitative data, and its approach was case study. The participants were thirty undergraduate students in total of a Japanese language basic level subject of the language course in the city of São Paulo. For the data collection, the instruments such as classroom observation, questionnaire for thirty students, interview for seven students and learning diary for three students were employed, and for the analysis, the data was identified, described and interpreted. The results point out that the students developed various activities using Japanese beyond the classroom, especially that of reception in the personal domain. In many cases of interaction, friends and classmates were their interlocutors. Regardless of wide range of variety of resources available to Japanese language learning in the city due to the Japanese immigration to Brazil and economic relationship with Japan, these students tended to use digital resources and medias such as internet sites, social networking services and chat. Although most activities were held primarily because of their interest in Japanese culture, some participants sought to comprehend the linguistic knowledge acquired in the classroom, using it in those out-of-classroom activities. Among the student\'s attempts to use the language, it was observed that a student looked for opportunities to interact with Japanese speakers even in the public and professional domains.

Esta dissertação tem como objetivo investigar a aprendizagem de estudantes universitários de japonês como língua estrangeira (JLE) e sua autonomia fora da sala de aula no contexto da cidade de São Paulo. Levando em consideração que a aprendizagem de língua tem o caráter contínuo ao longo da vida, o aprendiz precisa desenvolver a capacidade de dirigir seu estudo por conta própria, ou seja, autonomia. Enquanto essa concepção indica um atributo do aprendiz, sua prática pode ser restrita por fatores externos como o ambiente e a relação com outras pessoas. A fim de pôr qualquer ação em prática que visa à promoção da autonomia do aprendiz, faz-se necessário reconhecer formas e ambientes reais em que a aprendizagem se concretiza. No geral, o aprendiz tende a realizar atividades com sua língua-alvo fora da sala de aula por sua iniciativa, e para desenvolver sua proficiência nesse contexto, ele precisa gerenciar seu estudo. Partindo-se dessa perspectiva, fora da sala de aula é uma situação em que permite observar a autonomia do aprendiz uma vez que há certo grau de liberdade de dirigir sua aprendizagem. A pesquisa teve a natureza qualitativa com dados qualitativos e quantitativos, e configurou-se como estudo de caso. Os participantes foram trinta estudantes no total, de uma disciplina da língua japonesa (LJ) de nível básico do curso de habilitação na língua de uma instituição de ensino superior, localizada na cidade de São Paulo. Para a coleta de dados, foram utilizados instrumentos; observação de aulas, questionário para todos os estudantes, entrevista para sete estudantes e diário de estudo para três estudantes. Para a análise, os dados foram identificados, descritos e interpretados. Os resultados apontam que os estudantes desenvolviam várias atividades utilizando a LJ além da sala de aula por sua iniciativa, principalmente as receptivas no domínio pessoal. Na maioria das atividades de interação, amigos e colegas de estudo foram interlocutores. Apesar da ampla disponibilidade de recursos para a aprendizagem da LJ na cidade graças à imigração japonesa e ao intercâmbio econômico e comercial com o Japão, os estudantes tenderam a utilizar recursos e meios digitais como sites da internet, redes sociais e chat. Embora muitas atividades fossem realizadas principalmente pelo interesse cultural, alguns alunos tentaram compreender o conhecimento obtido durante aulas, aplicando-o nas atividades fora do contexto da instituição educacional intencionalmente. Verificou-se também o esforço de uma estudante para procurar oportunidades de interagir com falantes da LJ no domínio público e profissional. / This thesis aims at investigating the learning of undergraduate students of Japanese as foreign language and their autonomy beyond the classroom in the city of São Paulo. Considering that language learning is a lifelong activity, a learner needs to develop the capacity to direct your study on your own, namely, autonomy. While this concept indicates an learner\'s attribute, its practice can be restricted by external factors such as his environment and relationship with other people. In order to put into practice any action in pursuit of this capacity, it is essential to comprehend real forms and environments in which learning occurs. Generally speaking, the learner tends to realize activities using his target language outside the classroom taking his initiative, and so as to develop his proficiency in this context, he needs to administrate his study under his own direction. From this perspective, it can be said that it is a situation in which allows us to observe the learner autonomy because there is a certain degree of freedom to direct his own study. This research was qualitative treating both qualitative and quantitative data, and its approach was case study. The participants were thirty undergraduate students in total of a Japanese language basic level subject of the language course in the city of São Paulo. For the data collection, the instruments such as classroom observation, questionnaire for thirty students, interview for seven students and learning diary for three students were employed, and for the analysis, the data was identified, described and interpreted. The results point out that the students developed various activities using Japanese beyond the classroom, especially that of reception in the personal domain. In many cases of interaction, friends and classmates were their interlocutors. Regardless of wide range of variety of resources available to Japanese language learning in the city due to the Japanese immigration to Brazil and economic relationship with Japan, these students tended to use digital resources and medias such as internet sites, social networking services and chat. Although most activities were held primarily because of their interest in Japanese culture, some participants sought to comprehend the linguistic knowledge acquired in the classroom, using it in those out-of-classroom activities. Among the student\'s attempts to use the language, it was observed that a student looked for opportunities to interact with Japanese speakers even in the public and professional domains.

This research paper investigates the language that is used by upper secondary students both in gaming and in school related situations. The overarching aim is to compare the language that students in upper secondary school use during online gaming and in classroom situations and how one influences the other and what attitudes students have regarding spoken English during online gaming and in the classroom. A questionnaire was used to gather information about the students’ gamer habits and how they perceive the connection between online games and second language learning. The results provided by the questionnaire showed that there is a positive attitude among the students regarding how online games can provide opportunities for expansion of a second language vocabulary. Many of the students felt that the online sphere provided a more secure and more accessible setting for learning than what their school could give them. It also showed that second language learning through online gaming is possible, but at the same that the language provided through online games has limited use in for example a school environment. Words and phrases that the students have picked up from online gaming are in many cases not useful outside of the speech community of gamers. Therefore, the conclusion that was made was that online gaming is a large part of many students’ second language learning and that many students feel that is a more accessible way to learn a second language. Therefore, a didactic implication is that it is important that teachers start to include online gaming language in their education.

The thesis deals with the code choice in the language classroom, particularly with teaching Czech as a foreign language. This thesis is an excursion into contemporary teaching Czech as a foreign language and its main aim is to explore the role of the code choice in CFL teaching and find out the motives of this choice on the part of the teacher - whole thesis is therefore primarily concerned with teacher's code choice in the language classroom and with factors that influence the choice. This aim is realized with the use of several case studies that examine in detail the code choice in several courses of Czech for foreigners using participant observation, semi- structured interview and the results of previous similar studies are taken into account. In conclusion, the results of individual studies are compared and we tried to find out trends and key factors that could play an important role in the code choice in the language classroom. Key words : Czech as foreign language, classroom language communication, case study, teacher talk, code choice, mediating language