<p> This phenomenological study includes exploration of the instructional experiences and the schooling factors that have been in place both assisting and failing academically six long-term English learners who attend a comprehensive urban high school in Los Angeles. Long-term English learners have attended schools in the United States (U.S.) for more than six years and are not yet fully proficient in English. Qualitative and quantitative data sources, include demographic questionnaire, one-on-one focused interviews, classroom observations using English learner Shadow Study Protocol (Soto, 2012), academic transcript analysis, and a focus group, were analyzed using descriptive content analysis and Critical Sociocultural Theory (Handsfield, 2012; Lewis, Enciso, &amp; Moje, 2007). The researcher identified two instructional experiences-lessons not engaging students in social interactions or learner-centered activities, and instruction did not help students gain proficiency in the English language-that hindered these students' advancement-and three schooling factors-enrollment in Structured English Immersion (SEI) programs throughout schooling, lack of knowledge about the reclassification process and low academic literacy skills and lack of understanding of how to succeed. To remedy this situation as it impacts numerous students, Legislators should pass laws that support bilingual education and schools should offer English learners the opportunity to develop their native language to be successful in developing bilingualism.</p>

<p> This qualitative study was exploratory in nature. The goals were to examine: (a) if and how bilingual early care and education (ECE) teachers perceived their personal second- language learning experiences to have informed their practices in the classroom, and (b) to explore the teachers' experiences working in classrooms with children who spoke multiple home languages. The following research questions were addressed: (1) What are bilingual ECE teachers' teaching practices with children who are dual language learners (DLL)? (2) In what ways do bilingual ECE teachers' second language learning experiences influence their teaching practices with DLL children? The nine female ECE teachers participating in this study were bi- or multilingual, had completed a college-level degree, and had at least 3 years of experience working in ECE. Data sources included a Participant Demographic Questionnaire, two observations, an interview, a reflection activity, and follow-up letters. Results identified the use of several best practices for working with DLLs, and classroom practice was found to be empathetic, inclusive, and encouraging of children to maintain their home language. Overarching findings showed the importance teachers placed on providing a seamless experience for DLL children, the need for additional training specific to teaching DLL children, and the importance of preparing DLL children for future success. Research, practice, and policy implications are: (a) draw on bilingual teachers and their personal experiences and practical knowledge, (b) implement policy changes at the state level that would create a new certification, and (c) address the content of higher education degrees and ECE training.</p>

<p> A deficit orientation of English Language Leamer (ELL) Latino students permeates the climate at many schools across the state of California. School efforts to address the academic needs of ELL students emphasize disadvantages, and focus primarily on language remediation approaches. In turn, ELL students are submerged into a substandard curriculum that fails to capitalize on, and denies students access to, their cultural and linguistic strengths. In the Los Angeles schools, only 27% of EL students who began the ninth grade were eligible to graduate four years later. Latino ELL students are significantly academically challenged and struggle to meet high school graduation requirements; these students, by default, are not prepared for college. Reversing the desolate academic trajectories of Latino ELL students by validating and promoting their strengths as a foundation for learning was the impetus for this study. </p><p> This study documents student and staff perceptions of the implementation of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Seal ofBiliteracy Awards Program at one high school with a predominantly Latino student population. Guided by a conceptual framework utilizing the concepts of empowerment of minority students, community cultural wealth, funds of knowledge, and subtractive schooling, this qualitative case study examined the narratives of Latino ELL students and staff participants to gain an understanding oftheir perceptions about college access, the process of implementing the LAUSD Seal ofBiliteracy Awards program, and the purpose, value, and impact of the program on student achievement. The study included focus group interviews with 26 high school student participants, primarily female and mostly in the 12th grade, and individual interviews with six staff participants in various capacities with an educational experience ranging from five to 15 years. </p><p> The findings indicate that the LAUSD Seal ofBiliteracy Awards Program is active at the research site and is producing positive student social and academic impacts. School level impacts include an improved academic school climate and increased parent presence at school functions. In order to shift practice towards an "assets" schooling orientation, recommendations of this study call for a change in policy, converting a voluntary program into a mandatory program. Recommendations of this study urge educators to change current practices to ethically address the issue of evaluation of "transcripts" from foreign countries and to work with teachers to build capacity for additive schooling approaches. Furthermore, recommendations for practice suggest schools must provide all students equitable access to college information by establishing a college and career readiness pathways course that is also a graduation requirement. </p>

<p> This study reports findings from research conducted which assessed ELL students' comprehension of text through the use of graphic organizers and multiple response strategies. The research consisted of explicit instruction on how to utilize graphic organizers and multiple response strategy tools to help retain information. The teacher-researcher modeled how to use and create these tools and strategies and provided practice time after the demonstration. </p><p> The participants included 13, sixth grade students in a Bilingual science class, in Passaic, New Jersey. In this study a variety of different methods were used to gather the data. Pre and Post Assessments, Anecdotal notes, Journal entries, and Graphic Organizers were used. The findings indicated that ELL students are able to comprehend text better if they have appropriate strategies and tools to use. There was no specific evidence that determined whether students preferred one over the other. The results showed that there were improvements in their scores than they had before the study.</p>

The purpose of this thesis is to reflect upon the complex process of educating the sons and daughters of immigrant parents from diverse cultural communities. The study stresses the importance of valuing the language and culture of students in Aotearoa-New Zealand for whom English is another language. It is argued that the discourse of what shall be called ‘technocratic pedagogy’ falls short of meeting this goal. What is needed is more expansive and inclusive programmes that apprehend the social, economic, and political contexts of learning. This is necessary if the students are to continue their education not simply to absorb prescribed information and ideas but to actively understand, question, challenge, and change the school and the classroom. The thesis is written from the perspective of an indigenous Maori teacher trained in technocratic approaches of practice looking to aspects of her intimate culture, Tongan and Samoan ways of representing the world, and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy to transform contemporary education that tends to exclude the adolescents from learning in school. This thesis is not simply another contribution to the ways in which teachers of school English in general think about methodologies and approaches to learning; rather, it is addressed more specifically to those Maori, Tongan, and Samoan teachers in this country who work with and alongside communities who are from the Kingdom of Tonga and the islands of Samoa. Thus, there is great value placed on educational experience with indigenous Tongan and Samoan teachers and students in an educational project referred to in the thesis as a ‘School-within-a-school’. The School-within-a-school refers to a site of education for teaching school English to immigrant adolescents within a large, state, secondary school in the city of Auckland. Particular attention is also paid to educational experience with indigenous teachers in a Curriculum Committee and Maori and Tongan grassroots organisations located within the same school. A fresh approach to teaching English accepts culture as the ground on which to begin to reflect on a practice within a specific context. The teachers who have a dynamic relationship with students argue that culture is a primary site for contradictions and that a revolutionary challenge to technocratic pedagogy is necessary, but not sufficient, to value and actively include the students in school. Since the English language and its attendant practices, values, traditions, and aspirations are the grounds for the students' marginalisation, immediate, consciously organised changes in the teaching beliefs, contents of education, and society at large in Aotearoa are necessary parts of any reintegrative pedagogy. On this account, the belief is that pedagogy is vitally important since it can enable the students to understand the technocratic discourse and draw upon the personal and collective experiences to counter the tendency that denies them full participation in school and the classroom. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

The purpose of this thesis is to reflect upon the complex process of educating the sons and daughters of immigrant parents from diverse cultural communities. The study stresses the importance of valuing the language and culture of students in Aotearoa-New Zealand for whom English is another language. It is argued that the discourse of what shall be called ‘technocratic pedagogy’ falls short of meeting this goal. What is needed is more expansive and inclusive programmes that apprehend the social, economic, and political contexts of learning. This is necessary if the students are to continue their education not simply to absorb prescribed information and ideas but to actively understand, question, challenge, and change the school and the classroom. The thesis is written from the perspective of an indigenous Maori teacher trained in technocratic approaches of practice looking to aspects of her intimate culture, Tongan and Samoan ways of representing the world, and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy to transform contemporary education that tends to exclude the adolescents from learning in school. This thesis is not simply another contribution to the ways in which teachers of school English in general think about methodologies and approaches to learning; rather, it is addressed more specifically to those Maori, Tongan, and Samoan teachers in this country who work with and alongside communities who are from the Kingdom of Tonga and the islands of Samoa. Thus, there is great value placed on educational experience with indigenous Tongan and Samoan teachers and students in an educational project referred to in the thesis as a ‘School-within-a-school’. The School-within-a-school refers to a site of education for teaching school English to immigrant adolescents within a large, state, secondary school in the city of Auckland. Particular attention is also paid to educational experience with indigenous teachers in a Curriculum Committee and Maori and Tongan grassroots organisations located within the same school. A fresh approach to teaching English accepts culture as the ground on which to begin to reflect on a practice within a specific context. The teachers who have a dynamic relationship with students argue that culture is a primary site for contradictions and that a revolutionary challenge to technocratic pedagogy is necessary, but not sufficient, to value and actively include the students in school. Since the English language and its attendant practices, values, traditions, and aspirations are the grounds for the students' marginalisation, immediate, consciously organised changes in the teaching beliefs, contents of education, and society at large in Aotearoa are necessary parts of any reintegrative pedagogy. On this account, the belief is that pedagogy is vitally important since it can enable the students to understand the technocratic discourse and draw upon the personal and collective experiences to counter the tendency that denies them full participation in school and the classroom. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

The purpose of this thesis is to reflect upon the complex process of educating the sons and daughters of immigrant parents from diverse cultural communities. The study stresses the importance of valuing the language and culture of students in Aotearoa-New Zealand for whom English is another language. It is argued that the discourse of what shall be called ‘technocratic pedagogy’ falls short of meeting this goal. What is needed is more expansive and inclusive programmes that apprehend the social, economic, and political contexts of learning. This is necessary if the students are to continue their education not simply to absorb prescribed information and ideas but to actively understand, question, challenge, and change the school and the classroom. The thesis is written from the perspective of an indigenous Maori teacher trained in technocratic approaches of practice looking to aspects of her intimate culture, Tongan and Samoan ways of representing the world, and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy to transform contemporary education that tends to exclude the adolescents from learning in school. This thesis is not simply another contribution to the ways in which teachers of school English in general think about methodologies and approaches to learning; rather, it is addressed more specifically to those Maori, Tongan, and Samoan teachers in this country who work with and alongside communities who are from the Kingdom of Tonga and the islands of Samoa. Thus, there is great value placed on educational experience with indigenous Tongan and Samoan teachers and students in an educational project referred to in the thesis as a ‘School-within-a-school’. The School-within-a-school refers to a site of education for teaching school English to immigrant adolescents within a large, state, secondary school in the city of Auckland. Particular attention is also paid to educational experience with indigenous teachers in a Curriculum Committee and Maori and Tongan grassroots organisations located within the same school. A fresh approach to teaching English accepts culture as the ground on which to begin to reflect on a practice within a specific context. The teachers who have a dynamic relationship with students argue that culture is a primary site for contradictions and that a revolutionary challenge to technocratic pedagogy is necessary, but not sufficient, to value and actively include the students in school. Since the English language and its attendant practices, values, traditions, and aspirations are the grounds for the students' marginalisation, immediate, consciously organised changes in the teaching beliefs, contents of education, and society at large in Aotearoa are necessary parts of any reintegrative pedagogy. On this account, the belief is that pedagogy is vitally important since it can enable the students to understand the technocratic discourse and draw upon the personal and collective experiences to counter the tendency that denies them full participation in school and the classroom. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

The purpose of this thesis is to reflect upon the complex process of educating the sons and daughters of immigrant parents from diverse cultural communities. The study stresses the importance of valuing the language and culture of students in Aotearoa-New Zealand for whom English is another language. It is argued that the discourse of what shall be called ‘technocratic pedagogy’ falls short of meeting this goal. What is needed is more expansive and inclusive programmes that apprehend the social, economic, and political contexts of learning. This is necessary if the students are to continue their education not simply to absorb prescribed information and ideas but to actively understand, question, challenge, and change the school and the classroom. The thesis is written from the perspective of an indigenous Maori teacher trained in technocratic approaches of practice looking to aspects of her intimate culture, Tongan and Samoan ways of representing the world, and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy to transform contemporary education that tends to exclude the adolescents from learning in school. This thesis is not simply another contribution to the ways in which teachers of school English in general think about methodologies and approaches to learning; rather, it is addressed more specifically to those Maori, Tongan, and Samoan teachers in this country who work with and alongside communities who are from the Kingdom of Tonga and the islands of Samoa. Thus, there is great value placed on educational experience with indigenous Tongan and Samoan teachers and students in an educational project referred to in the thesis as a ‘School-within-a-school’. The School-within-a-school refers to a site of education for teaching school English to immigrant adolescents within a large, state, secondary school in the city of Auckland. Particular attention is also paid to educational experience with indigenous teachers in a Curriculum Committee and Maori and Tongan grassroots organisations located within the same school. A fresh approach to teaching English accepts culture as the ground on which to begin to reflect on a practice within a specific context. The teachers who have a dynamic relationship with students argue that culture is a primary site for contradictions and that a revolutionary challenge to technocratic pedagogy is necessary, but not sufficient, to value and actively include the students in school. Since the English language and its attendant practices, values, traditions, and aspirations are the grounds for the students' marginalisation, immediate, consciously organised changes in the teaching beliefs, contents of education, and society at large in Aotearoa are necessary parts of any reintegrative pedagogy. On this account, the belief is that pedagogy is vitally important since it can enable the students to understand the technocratic discourse and draw upon the personal and collective experiences to counter the tendency that denies them full participation in school and the classroom. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1993. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-10, Section: B, page: 5407. Chair: Debra Gordon.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1995. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-04, Section: B, page: 2888. Chair: Frances Campbell-LaVoie.