The purpose of this study is to examine the theories of orientations in the context of a Japanese-as-a-foreign-language (JFL) classroom in the Northwest of the United States. Using a Grounded Theory methodology, this study includes data from card-sorting activities, teacher and student interviews, classroom observations, and scenario studies. The perspectives of language planning--theories of orientations--bring socio-political aspects to the foreign language classroom context, and help to describe the participants' voices, hopes and determinations toward learning Japanese in a foreign language classroom setting. The existing theories of orientations and the abstraction of the data results are merged into a new taxonomy. The notion of Grounded Theory--an interplay of data and theories--is a central perspective throughout the study. The JFL program in the Northwest reflects many aspects of the language-as-resource orientation. Most of the participants' voices and hopes are explicitly included in the program and in some standards on foreign language education. However, heritage language and identity issues are not explicitly discussed in this program. The research suggests that this program consider this aspect and develop an appropriate methodology for this population. In addition, a new descriptive orientation taxonomy is suggested in the coding process: Language as means of communication, Language as linguistic means, and Language as a mediator of culture (with two different emphases: First language and culture; and Any language and culture). The research findings and interpretations were negotiated with the participants in order to assure their appropriateness, and the study includes two-year data from various interviews, ranging from a pilot study to final interviews. Final interviews were conducted in addition to the main study in order to assure the results and my interpretations of interview quotations. This study contributes to research methodology itself by incorporating various research tools including descriptive statistics and traditional qualitative methods. As an exploration of this topic, this study presents important implications to foreign language education and pedagogy, and to theory development in language planning and policy.

Four-year colleges and universities in the US have a lengthy history of educating traditional students from privileged backgrounds. Such students usually arrive on campus with behaviors, beliefs, and learning strategies designed to help them succeed in classes that depend upon lectures as the primary mode of instruction. As increased numbers of nontraditional students have gained admission to four-year schools, college instructors have struggled to accommodate the diverse learning styles of this burgeoning student population. Unlike traditional students, nontraditional students generally lack a large repertoire of effective behaviors, beliefs, and learning strategies needed to succeed in college. Poor learning practices mean less learning and less learning transferred across assignments and courses. Although college composition classes tend to provide student-centered instruction designed to facilitate learning, nontraditional students continue to struggle to learn. In response to the learning challenges and failures that nontraditional students encounter at college, some four-year schools have chosen to redirect these students to two-year colleges. This dissertation argues in favor of equipping nontraditional students at four-year schools with effective learning practices via instruction in student self-regulation and self-efficacy inside the college classroom.

During the last several years, the growing interest in the teachability of pragmatics in a second or foreign language has been represented by a number of interventional studies that have examined either the possibility of teaching certain pragmatic features, or the effectiveness of specific teaching methods. This classroom-based project designed to investigate the teachability of pragmatics, focused on four intact classes at two different proficiency levels, using a quasi-experimental research design with the following structure: pretest - treatment - posttest - and delayed posttest. Participants were enrolled in a program of Foreign Languages at a university in Colombia. Two groups of students of basic English 2 (second semester) and two groups of students of intermediate English 1 (fifth semester) were the participants. The four groups received a written discourse completion test (WDCT) and a paired video-taped role-play (RP) as pretests. Results from the WDCT showed no significant differences between the two groups at each level, so the type of treatment (T1: pragmatics-based, and T2: institutionally imparted) was randomly assigned to the groups at each level. Treatment 1 provided learners with sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic information and practice of receptive and productive skills in the TL. The treatment lasted 20 hours distributed across three weeks, after which, all the participants received a post-test in the same two forms taken by the pretest. The comparison of paired samples between the pre-test and the post-test, and the comparison of multivariate means between groups at each level showed significant differences that confirmed the efficiency of the pragmatics-based instruction, although improvement was more evident in WDCT performance than in RP performance. The qualitative analysis indicated progress in the ability to perform the expected speech act, the use of typical expressions, and the amount of information given. Improvement was also salient in macrolevel cultural aspects such as the expression of appropriate levels of formality, directness and politeness for the realizations of requests, apologies and compliments, as measured by the WDCT and the RP. The delayed post-test suggests that the pragmatics-oriented instruction favored both retention and improvement for the WDCT, while for the RP, the main effect was retention.

Miscue analysis and eye movement analysis are used to explore the reading process of first-grade beginning readers as they use pictures and print in a picture book designed for instructional purposes. Eye Movement Miscue Analysis (EMMA) is also used as a tool to gain insights into the reading strategies of the beginning readers in this study. Miscue analysis provides a psycholinguistic analysis of' unexpected oral responses in the oral texts that readers produce. Eye movement analysis provides an analysis of the visual fixations of readers in pictures and the print. Both forms of analysis are used to examine the relationship between the oral and visual aspects of the reading process. This dissertation focuses on first-grade beginning readers' use of pictures and print as they read. Patterns of eye movements relative to picture use, print use and the relationship between the two media are described, analyzed and compared. Results of the analyses are discussed in relation to existing literature within the theoretical framework that informed the study. Major findings include that beginning readers are aware that reading is a complex process of making meaning from print and pictures; they exhibit many of the same reading strategies as older more experienced readers; and they sample pictures in ways that are purposeful and know where to look for useful information. Implications for authors, illustrators, publishers, educators and reading theorists are discussed and areas for further research are delineated.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine and describe complex academic tasks undertaken by adolescents and the classroom conditions supporting them. The setting for this study was one southwestern university's Summer Institute for Writing and Thinking Across the Curriculum. With students and teachers working in collaboration, the Institute intended to provide high school students with opportunities to utilize the writing process as a tool for thinking and as a means to increase their writing proficiency. Teaching writing in classroom settings has been found to be particularly challenging, and further, sometimes the complexity of writing tasks have been sacrificed for the sake of maintaining classroom order. The Institute seemed a likely environment for engaging in complex cognitive processing and thus for examining complex tasks and noting the conditions that supported them. Participant observation and interviews were the data collection methods employed. Results of the study indicated that students engaged in complex cognitive processing, gained more control over their writing and thinking processes, and produced a variety of complex individual and group products. The Institute assessment, consisting of writing samples obtained on the first and last days of the three-week Institute, demonstrated growth in writing proficiency for 74% of the students. The features that supported the successful accomplishment of complex academic work included (a) well-designed, open-ended assignments that were scaffolded within and across tasks, (b) collaboration of students and teachers in small writing groups, (c) establishment and nurturance of writing communities, (d) the sharing of leadership, (e) availability of multiple resources, (f) instructional strategies that protected a non-threatening, non-judgmental environment, and (g) instructional strategies that fostered complex thinking and problem solving. The writing community played a key role in fostering complex cognitive processing, maintaining order, and connecting students to their academic work.

This study examines language and education policy in colonial as well as independent Mozambique. Mozambican people struggled for 500 years to free themselves from the grip of Portuguese colonialism. Independence came in 1975. A decade of intense and determined Struggle for Liberation stopped the Portuguese from further destroying the country. The review of the literature provides key concepts and principles in language planning and policy. Then the study examines language and education in selected Sub-Saharan African countries. The ideas and opinions of African writers are brought into the discussion. The main study starts by looking at language and education in colonial Mozambique starting in 1940. This period is important in the educational history of Mozambique. It was during this time that the Missionary Statute, an agreement between the Government of Portugal and the Catholic church, came into being. This agreement entrusted Portuguese Catholic missionaries with education in the colonies. Missionary education viewed Mozambican languages, culture and all things African as deficits. Missionary schools were places of unlearning all things that instilled pride in the Mozambican people. When the War of Liberation broke out in 1964, Mozambicans established their own schools in the areas liberated from the Portuguese. These schools instilled in the students the much needed Mozambican character, and personality. They became the model for independent Mozambique's New System of Education. Mozambique is a nation of many languages. During the colonial period the Portuguese proscribed the use of these languages in education. Consequently, many languages in Mozambique today have not been studied academically. This study uses historical research methods to gather and analyze data, and records the struggles of the Mozambican people as they work toward reconstructing their beautiful country. The study concludes that communities and government be involved in promoting all Mozambican languages. While this study is critical of Portuguese colonialism, it is not an attack on the Portuguese language. The paradox is that while Portuguese is the colonial language, it is also the language of liberation for Mozambicans. It is in this sense that the Portuguese language was declared the language of unity, instruction, and government.

In this study I examined my thinking and professional growth through the use of reflective journals. The study documents my understanding and use of reflective journals as a tool for learning and thinking over time. I examined my sixteen reflective journals in an effort to make sense out of what it means to be a teacher. In this study I was guided by the question: What are the ways in which I reflect and think about myself as a teacher and my teaching, as evidenced through my journals. Analysis focused in four areas. The first was on the content of the journals. This included my topics, issues, and questions which I wrote about. A second analysis examined how I used my journals to think and reflect. A third component explored how I reflected on my beliefs and practices. The fourth area identified what supported and interfered with my thinking and reflecting. Through this study I examined my learning process and the ways that I use journals to support my thinking and professional development. My findings inform other teachers to consider reflective practice and supports the use of narrative for research. This study provides implications for teacher educators and professional developers to consider participants' prior knowledge and current beliefs when implementing professional programs. Participants need to be recognized as part of the process when involved in professional development.

The purpose of this study is to create rich, descriptive portraits of the identity perceptions of three female, Mexican American adolescents, as revealed through selected texts of multiple sign systems. These portraits support the concept that identity is a continuum which is complex, dynamic, and multi-faceted. The identities of the participants encompass elements which were derived from each participant individually as well as from their relationships of connection to or opposition of others. Discussing concepts of identity with the participants exemplified that one's identity is a process which is continually evolving and transforming. This transformative process involves experiences of tension, observation, reflection, and action which encourage an individual to adjust, add, or discard particular elements of one's identity. Each participant's integrated self identity entails their individual and relational elements as well as the changes made through tension, observation, reflection, and action. The ethnographic case study design of the research facilitated an exploration of the complexities of constructing one's identity as an adolescent who must reconcile aspects of culture, gender, and class. Data collection methods included in-depth interviews, participant and non-participant observation in various data collection sites including school, home, and work, and the gathering of written, visual, and auditory artifacts such as poetry, personal writing, photographs, drawings, and music. Data were analyzed inductively and compared, and case studies reported the findings. The portraits of these three young women illustrate the importance of providing our adolescent students with classroom opportunities to explore and construct their identities through texts of multiple sign systems. By expanding the concept of text to include multiple ways of knowing, educators invite students to express themselves through a variety of sign systems with which they may feel more comfortable. They may use "conventional" literacy, such as reading and writing, and "unconventional" literacies, including music, art, and movement. The portraits of the three female adolescents emphasize the necessity to embrace and seek to understand the multiple identities of our adolescent students, rather than judging them on assumptions made based on their race, class, or gender.

The purpose of this case study is to examine the nature and uses of multiple literacies in an Opera Project as experienced by school children who attended a bilingual first grade in a culturally and linguistically diverse urban school district in the American Southwest. Thirty-one young children created and produced an opera in collaboration with an artist-in-residence, university researcher, apprentice teacher, and their classroom teacher and parents. Significant to this research is a focus on the perspectives of the participants about this in-school multiple literacy experience as well as the sociocultural contexts that influenced their experience. In addition, this study provides evidence of the processes, types, and uses of multiple literacies in young children's opera. By working at the nexus of language arts/literacy and music/arts education, this research builds on the existing theories and practices in these disciplines and informs both. A review of the literature points to the gap between a reductionist, deficit-driven paradigm in schools and children's natural learning proclivities. Culturally and linguistically diverse children are considered as less capable and further marginalized by school practices that emphasize decontextualized and verbocentric forms of literacy. This study uses ethnographic techniques and an arts-based approach to educational research to examine 24 one hour sessions of an Opera Project. New understandings were rendered in an opera libretto, constructed in the vernacular of the participants with the personal signature of the researcher. This alternative genre contributes to changing the way we think about language arts. A reconceptualization of language arts/literacy that both includes and goes beyond a skills-with-print definition requires a transformation in the way educators think about meaning making and curriculum, intelligence and knowledge, perception and expression. It requires an unpacking of one's assumptions and perspectives about what it means to have an experience and to live a literate life. For this process to be sustained, a wider audience must have access to young children's opera as (1) semiotic apprenticeship, (2) inquiry, (3) synergy, (4) an awakening to multiple literacies, and (5) survival. In this way art as conscious life is literacy for life's sake. Many ways is the way.

This study investigated the efficacy of using e-mail in the form of a class mailing list to help ESL students practice and develop academic writing skills beyond the spatial and time limits of a writing classroom. In this study, e-mail writing tasks of different purposes, audiences and task structures were integrated into a process-oriented freshman ESL writing class. The subjects of this study were 22 ESL students in a freshman composition course. In an ex post facto design (Hatch & Lazaraton, 1991), this study involved within-subject repeated measures of data collected from different e-mail writing tasks over the course of a semester. Data analysis included (1) computerized text analysis focusing on the linguistic and textual features of written discourses at the levels of syntactic complexity, lexical richness, textual cohesion and grammatical accuracy; (2) holistic and analytical assessments by ESL raters focusing on the overall rhetorical features and quality of writing. The results indicated that there were syntactic, lexical, textual and grammatical differences in ESL students' writing performance on e-mail writing tasks of different rhetorical purposes, and there was also variation between e-mail tasks involving an interactive audience and those involving an non-interactive audience, and between structured versus non-structured e-mail tasks. In particular, in e-mail tasks in which an interactive audience was present, students tended to produce texts that were linguistically more complex. Besides, students wrote with a higher level of syntactic and lexical complexity in the non-structured e-mail tasks than in the structured ones, indicating more sophisticated use of language when the student were given more freedom and control of the learning activities. The results also showed obvious tradeoff effects between linguistic complexity and accuracy, i.e. while students produced texts that were linguistically more complex, there was less attention to grammatical accuracy. Furthermore, the results suggested that motivation, attitude, and anxiety had some significant contributions to the variation in ESL students' writing performance while they composed in an electronic mode.