Global ETD Search

791	Uncovering the Complexities of Teaching English in Higher Education in a Post-Castro Cuba Spence, Kevin James 08 December 2022 (has links) No description available. Bilingual Education Caribbean Studies Comparative Education Education Policy Education History Educational Theory Educational Evaluation English As A Second Language Foreign Language Higher Education Administration Latin American Studies Latin American History Linguistics Modern Language Multilingual Education Multicultural Education Personality Psychology School Administration Teacher Education Teaching Technology Cuba ESL EFL Higher Education English as a Second Language English as a Foreign Language Castro authoritarian illiberal regimes educational borrowing non-state actors Motivational Systems Theory social identity English education qualitative research interpretive comparative education low resourced contexts surveillance communism
792	Examination of the (si) and (ʃi) confusion by Japanese ESL learners Nogita, Akitsugu 30 August 2010 (has links) It is a general belief in Japan that the English /s/ and /ʃ/ before high front vowels (as in "see" and "she") are problematic for Japanese ESL (English-as-a-second-language) learners. Some research has also reported the /s/ and /ʃ/ confusion by Japanese ESL learners. Their pronunciation errors are often explained based on phonetics, but there are reasons to believe that the learners’ knowledge of the phonemes of the target words is at fault. This study examines 1) whether monolingual Japanese speakers distinguish the [si] and [ʃi] syllables in both perception and production in the Japanese contexts and 2) what would be the sources of Japanese speakers’ challenges in mastering the distinction between [si] and [ʃi] in their English production if Japanese speakers can produce and perceive the difference between these syllables. This study conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, 93 monolingual Japanese speakers between the ages of 17 and 89 in and around Tôkyô read aloud the written stimuli that had [si] and [ʃi] in the Japanese contexts, repeated the sound stimuli that had [si] and [ʃi] in the Japanese contexts, and listened to the [si:] and [ʃi:] syllables in isolation recorded by a native speaker of Canadian English. The results showed that the participants all distinguished [si] and [ʃi] in both perception and production regardless of their ages. Based on these results, I hypothesized that the [s] and [ʃ] confusion by Japanese ESL learners is caused by misunderstanding, rather than an inability to articulate these sounds. In the second experiment, 27 Japanese ESL students were recorded reading an English passage. The passage contains /s/ (7 times) and /ʃ/ (11 times) before high front vowels. After the reading, the participants were taught the basic English phonological system and the symbol-sound correspondence rules such as “s”-/s/ and “sh”-/ʃ/. The lesson lasted 40 minutes during which the participants were also interviewed to find out their awareness of the symbol-sound correspondence. No articulation explanations were given during the lesson. After the lesson, the participants read the same passage. The results showed that /s/ and /ʃ/ were mispronounced 39 and 67 times respectively in total by the 27 participants before the lesson, but only 7 and 19 times after the lesson. These changes are statistically significant. Moreover, the interview during the lesson revealed that the participants lacked phonological awareness in English as well as the knowledge of the symbol-sound correspondence rules. This study concluded that many of the mispronunciations by Japanese ESL learners, including /s/ and /ʃ/, can be solved by teaching the English phonics rules and some basic phonological rules without teaching the articulation of these sounds. Japanese EFL post alveolar fricative palato alveolar fricative alveo palatal fricative [ʃ] s and sh s vs sh [s] and [ʃ] confusion distinction between [s] and [ʃ] L2 phonology second language phonology pronunciation problem ESL pronunciation orthography spelling rule phonics 42 sounds katakana English phoneme awareness Japanese pronunciation English pronunciation s vs ʃ before i orthographic interference loanword interference palatalization depalatalization hyper correction phonological awareness hypercorrection overgeneralization pronunciation rule orthographic s and ʃ s-sh s-ʃ spelling acquisition phonics for adult
793	An assessment of student's English vocabulary levels and an exploration of the vocabulary profile of teacher's spoken discourse in an international high school Creighton, Graham Robert 10 1900 (has links) In many international schools where English is the language of learning and teaching there are large percentages of students whose first language is not English. Many of these students may have low vocabulary levels which inhibits their chances of taking full advantage of their education. Low vocabulary levels can be a particular problem for students in mainstream classes where fluent English speaking teachers are using English to teach content areas of Mathematics, Science and History. Not only do students have to comprehend the low-frequency, academic and technical vocabulary pertaining to the subject, but they also need to know the higher frequency vocabulary that makes up general English usage. If students’ vocabulary levels fall too far below the vocabulary levels with which their teachers are speaking, then their chance of comprehending the topic is small, as is their chance of succeeding in their subjects. This study has two broad aims. Firstly, I have set out to assess the English vocabulary levels of students at an international school where English is the language of learning and teaching. The majority of students at this school do not have English as their first language. The second aim of this study is to explore the vocabulary profile of the teachers’ spoken discourse at the research school. By gaining a better understanding of the nature of teacher discourse – specifically the percentage of high, mid and low-frequency vocabulary, as well as academic vocabulary that they use – English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers will be in a stronger position to identify what the vocabulary learning task is and be able to assist students in reaching the vocabulary levels necessary to make sense of their lessons. This study revealed a large gap between the generally low vocabulary levels of ESL students and the vocabulary levels spoken by their teachers. As a result the need for explicit vocabulary instruction and learning is shown to be very important in English medium (international) schools, where there are large numbers of students whose first language is not English. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Applied Linguistics) English as a second language (ESL) First language (L1) General service vocabulary Academic vocabulary Technical vocabulary Word family High-frequency vocabulary Mid-frequency vocabulary Low-frequency vocabulary General service list (GSL) Academic word list (AWL) Content words Controlled productive vocabulary Formulaic sequences Function words Headword Lemma Word family Word frequency Technical vocabulary English for academic purposes (EAP) Incidental learning Intentioal learning Lexis Collocation Lexico-grammar Concordance Quantitative research Qualitative research Corpus-driven approach Corpus-based approach 428.1 Vocabulary -- Study and teaching English language -- Word frequency English language -- Study and teaching Communicative competence
794	Immigration, Literacy, and Mobility: A Critical Ethnographic Study of Well-educated Chinese Immigrants’ Trajectories in Canada Wang, Lurong 13 June 2011 (has links) This dissertation interrogates the deficit assumptions about English proficiency of skilled immigrants who were recruited by Canadian governments between the late 1990s and early 2000s. Through the lens of literacy as social practice, the eighteen-month ethnographic qualitative research explores the sequential experiences of settlement and economic integration of seven well-educated Chinese immigrant professionals. The analytical framework is built on sociocultural approaches to literacy and learning, as well as the theories of discourses and language reproduction. Using multiple data sources (observations, conversational interviews, journal and diary entries, photographs, documents, and artifacts collected in everyday lives), I document many different ways that well-educated Chinese immigrants take advantage of their language and literacy skills in English across several social domains of home, school, job market, and workplace. Examining the trans-contextual patterning of the participants’ language and literacy activities reveals that immigrant professionals use literacy as assistance in seeking, negotiating, and taking hold of resources and opportunities within certain social settings. However, my data show that their language and literacy engagements might not always generate positive consequences for social networks, job opportunities, and upward economic mobility. Close analyses of processes and outcomes of the participants’ engagements across these discursive discourses make it very clear that the monolithic assumptions of the dominant language shape and reinforce structural barriers by constraining their social participation, decision making, and learning practice, and thereby make literacy’s consequences unpredictable. The deficit model of language proficiency serves the grounds for linguistic stereotypes and economic marginalization, which produces profoundly consequential effects on immigrants’ pathways as they strive for having access to resources and opportunities in the new society. My analyses illuminate the ways that language and literacy create the complex web of discursive spaces wherein institutional agendas and personal desires are intertwined and collide in complex ways that constitute conditions and processes of social and economic mobility of immigrant populations. Based on these analyses, I argue that immigrants’ successful integration into a host country is not about the mastery of the technical skills in the dominant language. Rather, it is largely about the recognition and acceptance of the value of their language use and literacy practice as they attempt to partake in the globalized new economy. situated learning and literacy practice multimodal uses of language and literacy social domains and discursive discourses language and literacy in the workplace discourse analysis consequences of literacy literacy, positioning, power relations social reproduction and categorization language and literacy in the job market reading and writing literacy and orality literacy artifacts home, school, job market, workplace gatekeeping process, social selection 0516 0282 0275 0727 0535 0340 0747 0628 0326 0745
795	Immigration, Literacy, and Mobility: A Critical Ethnographic Study of Well-educated Chinese Immigrants’ Trajectories in Canada Wang, Lurong 13 June 2011 (has links) This dissertation interrogates the deficit assumptions about English proficiency of skilled immigrants who were recruited by Canadian governments between the late 1990s and early 2000s. Through the lens of literacy as social practice, the eighteen-month ethnographic qualitative research explores the sequential experiences of settlement and economic integration of seven well-educated Chinese immigrant professionals. The analytical framework is built on sociocultural approaches to literacy and learning, as well as the theories of discourses and language reproduction. Using multiple data sources (observations, conversational interviews, journal and diary entries, photographs, documents, and artifacts collected in everyday lives), I document many different ways that well-educated Chinese immigrants take advantage of their language and literacy skills in English across several social domains of home, school, job market, and workplace. Examining the trans-contextual patterning of the participants’ language and literacy activities reveals that immigrant professionals use literacy as assistance in seeking, negotiating, and taking hold of resources and opportunities within certain social settings. However, my data show that their language and literacy engagements might not always generate positive consequences for social networks, job opportunities, and upward economic mobility. Close analyses of processes and outcomes of the participants’ engagements across these discursive discourses make it very clear that the monolithic assumptions of the dominant language shape and reinforce structural barriers by constraining their social participation, decision making, and learning practice, and thereby make literacy’s consequences unpredictable. The deficit model of language proficiency serves the grounds for linguistic stereotypes and economic marginalization, which produces profoundly consequential effects on immigrants’ pathways as they strive for having access to resources and opportunities in the new society. My analyses illuminate the ways that language and literacy create the complex web of discursive spaces wherein institutional agendas and personal desires are intertwined and collide in complex ways that constitute conditions and processes of social and economic mobility of immigrant populations. Based on these analyses, I argue that immigrants’ successful integration into a host country is not about the mastery of the technical skills in the dominant language. Rather, it is largely about the recognition and acceptance of the value of their language use and literacy practice as they attempt to partake in the globalized new economy. situated learning and literacy practice multimodal uses of language and literacy social domains and discursive discourses language and literacy in the workplace discourse analysis consequences of literacy literacy, positioning, power relations social reproduction and categorization language and literacy in the job market reading and writing literacy and orality literacy artifacts home, school, job market, workplace gatekeeping process, social selection 0516 0282 0275 0727 0535 0340 0747 0628 0326 0745

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