This dissertation presents three case studies of collaborative interaction in a third-grade dual-language classroom during writing instruction over the course of a school year. The study addresses the notion of developing student voice, and how instruction can be seated so that students' narratives will assume central stage in the classroom, creating the opportunity for dialog between students' texts and the texts of the school. This study is situated between a progressive perspective that emphasizes growth through self reflection, organically driven texts, and above all individual meaning, and a post-progressive perspective that challenges educators to provide explicit instruction in the privileged discourses of the dominant ideology. A significant feature of the study is the evolution of the Writing Workshop into a Writer's Workshop, as the focus of activity became the students and their intentions for their texts. The Writer's Workshop was characterized by active and varied peer collaborations as students interacted in a community of writers. The study describes the varied expressions of critical literacy as the case study children interacted with peers to create texts that were shared daily. Critical literacy is defined as the ability to use print as a tool for developing critical consciousness. This was demonstrated in the increasingly sophisticated intentions students established for their texts, as they wrote to shock, entertain influence and reflect. The study underscores the damage to children whose language and literacy development is assessed to be deficient, particularly in the case of bilingual or bidialectic children, and how remedial instruction disrupts not only the child's own incremental progress, but their membership in a supportive learning community.

This study examines the discourse of second grade bilingual students participating in small group literature discussions over one academic year. The main research question is "What is the nature of the talk in which second-grade bilingual Spanish/English students engage as they discuss children's literature in small groups?" The study is based on a qualitative research design, using methods and techniques from ethnography and case study research, and was conducted in a collaboration with a teacher researcher. It describes the conversations of 21 Latino students, Mexican American children from working-class families, during 19 literature discussions. Each literature discussion consisted of four small groups of students for a total of 75 literature circles. Ten students were English dominant, and 11 were Spanish dominant. The students were sometimes grouped by language dominance, but most of the time they were heterogeneous groups where both English and Spanish dominant students talked with each other about the same self-selected book. Nine students and 11 literature circles were chosen as case studies to examine in depth the range of the students' responses to literature. Data gathering methods included field notes from participant observation, audiotapes, transcripts, videotapes of 75 literature circles, and samples of the students' written responses to literature. Through a detailed description and analysis of the children's responses to literature, this study documents how young bilingual children can have sophisticated literary responses and meaningful discussions of texts given opportunity and an appropriate context. Small group literature discussions, informed by Rosenblatt's reader-response theory, are proposed to be a crucial component of an intellectually challenging curriculum, especially in facilitating various forms of talk about text. This study shows that the small groups created a collective zone of proximal development for students' meaningful discussions. The findings of this research illustrate that there is no need for delaying children's development of critical thinking until they first learn to decode, emphasizing skills at the expense of content and thoughtfulness. A collaborative approach to research where the classroom teacher participates in the study is also proposed as an effective research model aimed toward educational change.

For English as a Second Language students, learning to write academically effective essays is an immense challenge because the students must obey linguistic conventions, write for an unfamiliar audience, and employ rhetorical strategies that the audience expects. In composition programs the special challenges that ESL students face are sometimes overlooked. In this dissertation I provide a rationale for developing ESL composition programs and concrete strategies for doing so. To account for, understand, and accommodate rhetorical expectations for American academic audiences, ESL students need information that acts as an interface between conventions in their countries and the conventions American academic readers expect. The study of popular culture allows ESL students to develop such information by helping them decipher aspects of the culture they are living in. Popular culture texts reflect everyday uses of language and commonly held views because they are produced for general American audiences. They reflect widely accepted rhetorical strategies because audiences demand that texts be written according to their expectations. The process of studying popular culture is liberating for ESL students because it integrates learning about academic essay writing with broader cultural concerns. I concentrate on three genres of popular culture texts: ads, because their use of rhetorical appeals is so clear and because their content suggests American values; formula fictions, because they portray popular role models and follow readers' expectations; and news articles, which show examples of discursive domains and structural conventions. I also make suggestions for using contrastive analyses to help students perceive differences and similarities in cultural expectations, and I demonstrate partial results through research and samples from student writing. By incorporating popular culture texts into the ESL composition curriculum, we help students learn to communicate their ideas in practical, accessible ways. It is by actively targeting American culture as a focus of study and helping students develop tools to analyze popular culture materials on their own that we can make effective changes in composition programs for ESL students.

This dissertation reports on an investigation of task-based, synchronous, computer-mediated communication (CMC) and its relationship to second language lexical acquisition among learners of English. Over the course of one university semester, twenty-four intermediate-low and intermediate level non-native speakers of English from the English Language Center at Michigan State University engaged in multiple communicative tasks in pairs using ChatNet, a browser-based chat program. One of the overarching objectives of this study was to evaluate the viability of implementing computer-mediated communicative language learning tasks as a tool for promoting language learning in the ESL classroom. This study also sought to explore how intermediate level international ESL students collaborate in reaching mutual understanding, and whether and how they negotiate meaning when communication problems arise while engaged in these CMC tasks. Another purpose of this study was to test existing frameworks used to describe student interaction and negotiation, as well as to explore the role of task type in learner-learner CMC. Finally, this study sought to determine whether task-based CMC could help us establish a more direct link between negotiated interaction and lexical acquisition. A detailed analysis of the chatscripts as well as the pre- and post-test measures provide strong evidence that learners use a wide variety of communication strategies in an effort to smoothly navigate computer-mediated conversations while engaged in language learning activities. Learners were also found to negotiate for meaning when problems in understanding arose in ways that are similar to those observed in the oral interaction literature. Task type was found to influence learner choices in dealing with unknown lexical items as well as the overall amount of negotiated interaction learners engaged in. Moreover, based on the pre- and post-tests, this study provides strong evidence for a more direct link between negotiated interaction and second language acquisition, specifically the acquisition of lexical items. Post-treatment questionnaire and interview data suggest that learners, while engaged in task-based CMC activities found the experience valid, useful, enjoyable, and virtually stress-free. Based on the findings above, this study concludes that task-based CMC is a viable and effective toot for promoting language development in the intermediate-level ESL classroom. This is especially true when learners are engaged in those tasks that have been shown to elicit high levels of negotiated interaction. Further, in view of the favorable ratings by students, task-based CMC seems to offer a positive affective environment, which compliments the communicative language learning experience.

A recent innovation in language testing involves the use of computer-mediated communicative language tests i.e., assessment of individuals' second language ability from transcripts of their interactions via computer-mediated communication (CMC). Studies have shown that such interactions in the first language involve a hybrid discourse with features of both written and spoken language, which suggests the possibility of making inferences about oral language ability from performance in a CMC environment. The literature to date offers little guidance on this matter. Research on computer-mediated communication has focused on its use in the second language classroom rather than in a testing context while studies of the linguistic and interactional features of second language learners' CMC discourse have mostly been descriptive with little direct comparison of CMC and face-to-face discourse. This study, therefore, examines the validity of making inferences from computer-mediated discourse to oral discourse through a comparison of the performance of 24 third-semester French students on two tests: a computer-mediated communicative French test; and its nearest equivalent format in face-to-face testing, the group oral exam. Using a within-subjects design, counterbalanced for testing condition and discussion topic, the present study focuses on five areas which have important implications for validity: (a) the predictability of ratings of pronunciation on the group oral test; (b) the similarity of scores achieved on the CMC and group oral tests; the presence of similar (c) linguistic and (d) interactional features in the discourse of both tests; and (e) students' attitudes to the two tests. Results show that although scores on the two tests showed no statistically significant difference, students' discourse differed in many respects which would, thus, invalidate any inferences made about oral ability from computer-mediated performance. Moreover, this study raises an important question about the role of computer-mediated communication in promoting second language acquisition since the computer-mediated discourse contained fewer examples of the negotiation of meaning routines that interactionist theories hold to be important to language acquisition.

This dissertation contributes to the area of Applied Linguistics and foreign language teaching and learning by investigating whether formal instruction, as opposed to no specific instruction, plays a significant role in the acquisition of Spanish spatial prepositions: "en", "sobre", "de," and "a." The study investigates the effect of formal instruction for spatial concepts for which English native speakers could use the L1 to generate correct responses in the L2 and for spatial concepts that created confusion between the L1 and the L2. It also investigates the effect of formal instruction when prepositions are taught by rules. The study introduces a visual/spatial/kinesthetic methodology based on the Davis Symbol MasteryRTM program, originally designed to be used with juvenile and adult dyslexics. The study investigates whether 3-D clay modeling can create new mental representations of spatial concepts not existent in the L1 or resolve overlapping spatial concepts between the L1 and the L2. Advanced university learners of Spanish as a Second Language participated in this study. Results show that (a) formal instruction has a significant general effect for the mixed spatial concepts chosen for this study; (b) formal instruction has no significant effect over no specific instruction for concepts for which English native speakers could use the L1 to generate correct responses in the L2; (c) formal instruction, specifically 3-D clay intervention, can either help resolve the confusion in case of overlapping of spatial concepts between the L1 and L2 or create new mental representations not existent in the L1; and (d) formal instruction has no significant effect in the case of instruction by rules. The dissertation offers a novel theoretical explanation for why 3-D clay modeling may help resolve confusion in the case of overlapping of spatial concepts between the L1 and L2 or create new mental representations not existent in the L1. Vygotsky's Tools for Cognitive Development are extended: 3-D clay modeling provides a tool that is both concretely grounded and consciously systematically accessible. The dissertation also discusses motivation in learning based on Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow Theory".

This case study explores the experience of nonnative speakers of English enrolled in Freshman Composition at the University of Arizona, including the groups commonly identified as International and Resident Nonnative Speakers of English. This study examines the experiences of these groups in learning English, coming to the university, and making their way through freshman composition. A major goal of this study is to identify concrete pedagogical implications, including suggestions regarding placement, curriculum design, classroom teaching, and student support. Data were collected in 2 stages over a two-year period, from fall 2000 to spring 2002 and came from a variety of sources, including: (1) questionnaires; (2) classroom observation; (3) oral interviews with students, instructors, and administrators; (4) written materials from students and instructors. The results of the first stage of this study were primarily based on a questionnaire completed by 3,234 students attending freshman composition. This stage examined the characteristics of NNS attending composition courses designed for NNS and others attending courses designed for NS, finding important differences between these two groups in terms of their overall numbers, linguistic diversity, gender ratio, age, and L1/L2 language strength. The second stage of this study focused on 16 NS of Spanish. This stage of the study presented a more complex picture of the NNS experience, dividing these NNS into three orientations: U.S., Cross-border, and Mexico. This stage first examined the experiences of these students before their entrance to the university, finding differences in four areas: their perception of and relationship with the U.S./Mexico border, their language learning experiences at home, their language learning experiences at school, and their writing experiences before the university. The second stage investigated the university experiences the students in these three groups via eight themes that emerged over the course of the study, also finding many differences between these three orientations. These themes included how they were placed into composition courses, the culture shock they sometimes experienced, their behavior in the classroom, their writing difficulties, the writing they did in other classes and outside of the classroom, the resources available to them, and an analysis of their success.

The determinants of foreign language enrollment in U.S. colleges and universities were modeled for ten study years between 1960 and 1998. The units of analysis were at two different geographic scales: the state and EA (Economic Area) levels. Developmental characteristics, foreign language study requirements, and foreign language availability were found to be the strongest determinants of absolute foreign language popularity, measured as the percentage of all college students in a given geographic area who study a foreign language. Demographic and geographic characteristics were found to be the strongest determinants of relative foreign language popularity, or the percentage of all foreign language students enrolled in a particular foreign language. Supply-side factors were of equal importance with demand-side factors in determining absolute foreign language popularity, but demand-side factors predominated in regards to determining relative foreign language popularity. Spanish displayed a distinctive pattern of determinants, consonant with its outsize share of enrollments.

This teacher research study examines the use of stories told by five second grade Latinas as a means to gain an understanding of their lives and the literature they were reading and discussing during small group literature discussions. The questions guiding the research are (1) what stories do these Spanish-speaking girls bring from their lives to literature discussions and (2) how do these girls use their stories to make sense of literature? The study is based on a qualitative research design and is also phenomenological in that I wanted to understand how the children created meaning from the books we read and discussed and how their individual experiences shaped their understandings. Although there were a total of seven literature discussions held during the time of the study, I decided to focus on two of the discussions. Included in the analysis are profiles of each the five girls in the study, case studies of both literature discussions and Narrative Intertextual Analysis (NIA) Maps. Findings indicate that sharing their life stories during literature discussions gave the girls an opportunity to deliberately scrutinize the emotionally charged events in their lives that they chose to share through story. The life stories the girls shared helped them understand the book we were reading and also allowed them to step away from their lives, if only briefly, and reflect on, think about, and see connections between the events in their lives so far; the girls used stories as meaning-making devices.

This dissertation examines the political and educational perspectives regarding English Language Learner (ELL) education. The broad context is the state of Arizona between 2000 and 2004. The specific context is the community of Rio Verde, a border town in Arizona. The data for this study consisted of a document review and analysis and interviews. The document review was of public documents. The interviews were with 10 study participants from the community of Rio Verde consisting of teachers, administrators, former students, and parents. The document analysis revealed two distinct positions regarding the education of ELL students; those in favor of English-only policies and practices and those against English-only policies and practices. The study participants from Rio Verde focused on beliefs about bilingualism and binationalism, immigration, the local history of ELL education, systemic inequities, and the role of the teacher in ELL education. Implications from this study that may be used to inform ELL policy and practice included: effective methodologies for ELL students based on educational research, collaboration in language policy development, placing value on the local context and history, discussion, reflection, and research as decision-making, and, teacher education programs' focus on ELL education.