Magister Artium - MA / Research on EFL students has received increased interest in recent years (Elachachi, 2015; Al- Zubaidi, 2012; Awad, 2012; Eldokali, 2007; Wahba, 1998). Although much research attention has focussed on the EFL classes and practices, very little research has focussed on the Arab students and the resources used for teaching them English abroad. In particular, the linguistic and cultural barriers Arab students face when seeking higher education in a foreign country, in this case South Africa, where they have minimal to no exposure to the language of instruction used by the host institution, have not received much attention. The study investigated the academic writing skills in English of Arab students and evaluated the efficacy of the EFL teaching materials used at selected English schools in Cape Town for those intending to study in South Africa. The researcher did a text-based analysis on written essays by the Arab students, using Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) as a theoretical and analytical framework. The study also evaluated course books used by private language schools to teach EFL students in Cape Town. The textbooks were analysed by means of Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA, an offshoot of SFL to explore the different modes used in the teaching material as aspects of cultural social semiotics. It was found that the selected course books used in Cape Town language schools were focusing on teaching conversational English rather than written academic English, which was critical for essay writing required at tertiary level education. The essays showed that Arab students writing lacked in English academic writing conventions, and often resorted to adopting and adapted their first language style, which often led to unsatisfactory writing. Thus, it was concluded that the schools did not adequately prepare the students to face the academic requirements at institutions of higher learning. The study recommends a number of pedagogical measures on how to improve academic writing, as well as infusing Arabic cultural modes in the teaching material to contextualise learning and aid meaning making and consumption.

Studiens syfte är att fördjupa kunskapen om de digitala spel som används i engelskundervisningen på mellanstadiet, hur och i vilket syfte spelen implementeras samt vilka möjligheter och utmaningar lärare upplever med detta. Materialet samlades in med hjälp av en webbenkät och tolkades dels genom SPSS, dels med hjälp av utvärderingsverktyget PHEG. Resultatet visar att majoriteten av respondenterna använder digitala spel i sin undervisning en gång i veckan eller mer sällan, och de digitala spelen spelas vanligtvis mellan 10-15 minuter under engelsklektionerna för att öka elevers motivation, som en extraaktivitet och för att repetera innehåll. De mest framträdande utmaningarna är brist på tid och svårigheter att hitta passande spel. Lärare som själva spelar tenderar att implementera digitala spel i sin undervisning i större utsträckning än de som inte spelar. Slutsatsen är att det framför allt är läraren som påverkar om ett digitalt spel gynnar språkinlärningen eller inte.

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<p>The writing centers created to serve predominately white institutions (PWIs) are not designed to meet the needs of Indigenous writers. Despite ostensible moves towards equity and social justice, Indigenous peoples often remained overlooked in writing center studies, partly due to the lack of attention paid to centers in Indigenous-serving institutions. <em>Weaving Centers of Resistance</em> responds to this gap by mapping the writing centers and tutoring centers at Indigenous serving institutions, investigating how tutoring pedagogy for writing is adapted in these contexts, and developing recommendations for culturally relevant writing center pedagogy. The research was conducted in three stages: A survey designed to collect basic demographic information was sent to 33 Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs),  35 Native American-serving, Non-Tribal Institutions (NASNTIs), and 13 Native Hawaiian-serving Institutions (NHSIs). From participants in the survey, 10 writing and tutoring center practitioners were recruited for two rounds of virtual interviews. Finally, two interview participants were recruited for virtual case study interviews. This dissertation is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter contextualizes this project in Indigenous movements towards rhetorical sovereignty set against composition’s implication in racist ideologies. The second chapter lays out the history of western colonial education, surveys Indigenous topics in writing center studies, and argues for decolonizing the writing center movement towards just pedagogies. The third chapter troubles empirical methodologies within writing center studies and discusses the methodologies and methods used for this study. The fourth chapter offers findings from the survey sent to Indigenous-serving institutions. The fifth chapter introduces the ten writing and tutoring center practitioners interviewed for this study. The sixth chapter reports on themes developed in qualitative coding of interviews. The final chapter synthesizes the findings, discusses limitations, and offers a path forward for writing center practitioners working with Indigenous peoples. A few of the key findings of this project are the prevalence of learning centers in Indigenous-serving institutions, the deeply intersectional challenges faced by Indigenous writers, and the importance of relationship for tutoring in Indigenous contexts. This work attempts to offer practitioners in Native educational contexts better tools to teach writing from Indigenous perspectives and provides scholars across humanities strategies for rethinking resistance to linguistic colonialism.</p>

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This study examined the rapid rise of the number of ELL/ Hispanic learners who are enrolling in the public school systems of Northeast Tennessee. The purpose of the study was to determine the effect that the rapid rise of ELL/Hispanic learners was having on these school systems. The approach to the study was a mixed-methods approach. Data were collected from respondents using a survey instrument that included both Likert-type responses and short answer questions. The population of this study were the 132 building-level principals of the 17 public school districts located in the First Congressional District of Northeast Tennessee. There were 81 survey responses received from the participants for a percentage of 61.4. Descriptive statistics and frequencies were used to analyze the quantitative portion of the survey using the Statistical Package of the Social Sciences program designed to analyze and display data. Qualitative data were analyzed using the "cut-and-put-in-the-folder method" suggested by Bogdan and Biklen (1998, p. 186). The findings of the qualitative section of the study revealed that principals were concerned about cultural differences and ways to encourage parental involvement at their children's school. The communication barrier was mentioned as the most common barrier at their particular schools. Principals were concerned with the increasing pressure concerning standardized testing and adequate yearly progress. They also stated that the testing process was unfair to ELL/Hispanic students. Attendance and discipline were issues that principals stated that ELL/Hispanic students required no more of their time than did non-ELL/Hispanic students. The quantitative data revealed that principals with a substantial enrollment of 5% or more ELL/Hispanic students in their building reported they do not have an adequate number of translators and they prefer a pull-out program versus a replacement program. The findings also revealed a large neutral response from principals to the Likert-type items. This may be because these principals had few or no ELL/Hispanic students enrolled at their school.

Intelligibility is one of the major concerns among ESL learners due to its impact on their ability to communicate with native speakers of English (Derwing & Munro, 2005). Even though pronunciation is often addressed in classrooms, it is difficult to tackle all intelligibility issues relevant for each student. Therefore, it is crucial for ESL learners to spend some extra time outside of class improving their pronunciation. Faced with a daunting task of regulating and taking charge of their own learning, they often have questions with respect to what exactly they need to work on, what activities will help them achieve their goals, how they need to organize those activities, and how long they should practice until they can see results. In such an endeavor, issues like motivation to persist and put forth great effort arise and influence outcomes. In sum, many factors are in play when ESL learners strive to improve their intelligibility. The main purpose of creating Sofia’s ESL Pronunciation Lab is to guide ESL learners in improving intelligibility, while helping them feel confident and motivated about what they are doing. Thirty students participated in the pilot-testing phase of this project. They participated in six weeks of self-regulated instruction followed by the completion of a survey at the end of that period. The results show that Sofia’s ESL Pronunciation Lab accomplished its purpose. Students thought that the website guided them well in the creation and implementation of their own improvement plan. They also thought that the online guide was professional and informative. Several students gave constructive feedback to further enhance the website. Most suggestions were related to including more graphics and visuals as well as adding more content, such as examples and activities. Overall, students believed that the online guide was a helpful addition to the current instruction they were receiving as part of an intensive English language program of study.

This study explores how native English speakers (NESs) are affected by the backgrounds of non-native English speakers (NNESs) when it comes to being comfortable interacting with then in English. Speech samples of 12 NNESs were gathered from the Level Achievement Tests conducted at Brigham Young University's English Language Center. There were six speakers who spoke Spanish as their first language (L1) and six speakers who spoke Chinese as their L1. In each L1 group, there were two Low proficiency speakers, two Mid proficiency speakers, and two High proficiency speakers. The speech samples were included in a Qualtrics survey which was completed by 122 American NES participants. The NES participants listened to each speech sample and rated their comfort level interacting with each NNES speaker in six different communication situations categorized as either formal or casual. The results were statistically analyzed in order to determine the effect of proficiency level, L1, and communication situation on NES comfort levels in NNES interactions. High proficiency speakers were rated significantly higher than Mid proficiency speakers which were in turn rated higher than Low proficiency speakers. Spanish L1 speakers were rated higher than Chinese L1 speakers. The more casual communication situations were ranked higher than the more formal communication situations. A statistical analysis of the interaction between proficiency level and L1 revealed that Spanish L1 speakers were strongly preferred at higher proficiency levels but Chinese L1 speakers were preferred at lower proficiency levels. These results suggest that Spanish L1 speakers have a greater need to be higher than Low proficiency while Chinese L1 speakers have a greater need to achieve High proficiency. NNESs who anticipate being in formal situations should also aim for High proficiency.

This MA project examines the creation, implementation, and effectiveness of the guidebook, Moving Forward: A Learner-Centered and Participatory Approach to Teaching Community Adult ESL, designed to help adult English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers base their classes on the specific needs of community adult education students. This guidebook was created in response to the need for lesson plans and activities that help teachers focus on learner needs. The activities in the guidebook are based on the National Institute for Literacy's (NIFL) adult literacy initiative, Equipped for the Future (EFF) because it focuses on the tasks adults must perform to function successfully on a daily basis. Participatory Curriculum Development (PCD) was used to create the specific activities in the guidebook because its focus is on creating curriculum based on the needs of learners.