<p> This dissertation presents the findings of an on-line survey completed by 222 FYC (First Year Composition) instructors at universities and community colleges across the United States along with supplemental information derived from multiple open-ended interviews with seven FYC instructors in Arizona. Both survey and interview questions were designed to accomplish three primary goals: to determine which conventions of academic English FYC instructors identify as most important; to understand the common problems encountered by instructors in teaching those conventions, and; to solicit instructors' perceptions about ways in which learning outcomes might be improved. </p><p> Results indicate general consensus among FYC instructors on which skills are both the most critical to academic English proficiency and the most difficult for their students to learn. At the same time, the survey and interview responses reflect widespread dissatisfaction with the ways in which academic English sequences are currently structured, apparently related to the instructors' common perception that the sequences are only "somewhat" successful in terms of preparing students for successful academic writing. Accordingly, the overwhelming majority of FYC instructors suggest changes for increasing the effectiveness of their programs; however, there is surprisingly little agreement among them on what those changes should be. </p><p> The concluding section of this study presents pragmatic suggestions &mdash; congruent with a number of the instructors' observations &mdash; for reconfiguring FYC sequences. Additionally, it is argued that, aside from the targeted skills addressed by the instructors, the survey and interview responses indicate that academic English has been implicitly invested with culture-specific values which should be made explicit in instruction and which, given the gatekeeping status of FYC courses, the increasing diversity of student populations and the growing divide between the academic and wider cultures, require critical examination.</p>

<p> As digital media makes its way into elementary school classrooms, urban school culture moves slowly to join in. The move to integrate new technologies into schools is both enabled and constrained by factors such as the need for students and teachers to be seen as people who are "successful" in both public and social terms. The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the complexities for elementary children learning to write in the digital age. I used a case study approach, examining the language choices of eight third and fourth grade students (4 girls and 4 boys) who attended an urban elementary school in a large southeastern city in the United States. I analyzed how the students' language choices contributed to the construction/negotiation of their writer identities and the degree to which these constructs/negotiations were enabled/constrained by what the participants imagined was/not possible from their positions as students while composing with varying technologies. I conclude that it is not only the young writers who imagine what is/not possible from their position as students, it is also those who guide, or "authorize" student writing, including teachers, administrators, and parents. This constructing/negotiating, authorizing/guiding all take place as students seek to maintain membership (textually) within their school world while endeavoring to cultivate new memberships within expanses or publics that coexist alongside their schools. The young writers highlighted in this study, working against from within the school district's accountability and efficiency agenda show that being a "successful" student writer can mean more than their merely reproducing what is expected of them.</p>

<p> Many Japanese families come to the US because the fathers are dispatched to work at Japanese companies in the US, and they return to Japan after a 3-4 year stay. Many children attend an American local school as well as a supplementary Saturday school, hosh&umacr;k&omacr;, in order to keep up academically after they return to Japan. However, balancing an American and a Japanese education while in a foreign country is a challenge for both Japanese parents and children. Children who plan to permanently live in the US also spend a lot of time to maintain their Japanese at the hosh&umacr;k&omacr; and home. This study examines Japanese families' attitudes and strategies for maintaining and further developing their children's Japanese in the US. Additionally, this study investigates issues regarding their children's education in the US.</p><p> To understand the overall context of the focal hosh&umacr;k&omacr; and the Japanese families, the principal of the hosh&umacr;k&omacr; was first interviewed. Then, 92 Japanese parents participated in a survey regarding their attitudes and strategies for maintaining and developing their children's Japanese. Thereafter, five in-depth case studies of Japanese families (a mother and at least one school-aged child) were conducted to investigate issues regarding children's education in a foreign country. Activity theory was utilized to analyze the interview data on strategy use. It was found that Japanese families have positive attitudes toward Japanese maintenance and development and utilize multiple combinations of strategies. Moreover, it was revealed that the Japanese families' issues moved from English education to a stronger emphasis on Japanese education over time, and they struggled both in local schools and the hosh&umacr;k&omacr; because of the educational and language differences. The study documents how Japanese families, both sojourners and permanent residents, take advantage of the hosh&umacr;k&omacr; resources helping their children prepare to return to Japan and to maintain their children's Japanese and cultural knowledge.</p>

<p> Most developmental community college students are not completing the composition sequence successfully. This mixed-methods study examined acceleration as a way to help developmental community college students complete the composition sequence more quickly and more successfully. Acceleration is a curricular redesign that includes challenging readings and assignments and reduces the number of required classes in the developmental composition sequence. Developmental students taking an accelerated composition class at the California community college studied were as successful as developmental students taking the traditional segmented basic skills course. Students who pass the accelerated course skip a developmental class and are eligible to take the college-level course, which saves them time and money. The students who were interviewed cited the main factors leading to their success: the academic support from faculty, academic support from fellow students, the personality/caring of the teacher, and an interest in the class theme. Data were from the first semester the college offered this class. Findings from the study indicate that the college studied should continue offering accelerated composition classes and should encourage attendance at professional development meetings so that all parts of the accelerated curriculum will be implemented in the future. Implementing all parts of the accelerated curriculum may increase the success rates. The college studied should also re-examine its traditional basic skills curriculum and the timed writing departmental final exam, which causes unnecessary stress and lowers expectations. More effort could be made to include readings from minority authors and to provide support, such as through learning communities.</p>

<p> This yearlong study in an 8^th grade classroom explores a blogging literacy event that illustrates how reading, digital writing and oracy work together to better support student learning, reasoning and dialogue. While many studies separately confirm the role of talk and writing in promoting learning, few studies address how writing informs talk practices, and no known studies examine how purposeful, individual blogging about literature promotes productive classroom dialogue. </p><p> Students within this eighth grade classroom are expected to write and participate in a blog with their classmates about literature they select and read independently. Students then discuss the literature and their blogs in small group conversations with their classroom teacher, leading to rich, meaningful discussions. Focal data consists of student blogs, video recorded small group conversations, audio recorded student and teacher interviews, written student reflections, observation field notes and photographs of student artifacts. </p><p> This study explicates the potential of writing acting as a springboard to further student reasoning through conversation. It documents the flexibility of teacher talk to take student contributions and align them in meaningful ways with educational language and purposes. Even within the confines of regimented curriculum agendas, the study illustrates how teachers can play a variety of roles in which they employ a repertoire of skills and strategies, making decisions in the moment to build on what students bring to the classroom and engender a classroom environment of risk-taking, meaning-making and learning. </p>

The present thesis investigated two questions: (1) is there a correspondence between lexico-semantic categories like object and syntactic categories like noun in acquisition, and (2) can the late emergence of action nouns be explained by their use in longer, "complex predicate" constructions (CP), such as Have a hug? / Paper 1 examined the use of words that can appear as noun or verb, in the speech of nine English-speaking children (aged 1;3--2;6) and their caregivers. Children showed a strong polarization in their productions, using a majority of object words consistently as nouns and non-object words consistently as verbs. However, children also showed some flexibility, and used fewer non-object words as nouns than object words as verbs. / Paper 2 investigated words used by caregivers in CPs to those that were not in the speech of nine English-speaking children (aged 1;3 to 4;6). On average, words used in CPs by caregivers emerged later in child speech that non-CP words. Also, at early stages children had not mastered the use of verbs required for CPs. It was concluded that words used in CPs (i.e. action nouns), may emerge late due to their use in these expressions, and not due to a problem understanding the semantics of action words.

The purpose of this study is to draw together various perspectives into a coherent framework that will identify relative importance of respective factors and developmental changes in accounting for second language (L2) writing. A total of 517 Taiwanese EFL students from four educational levels were recruited for inquiring into the development of EFL writing. Quantitative analyses of writing tasks, vocabulary tests and questionnaires were used to describe and explain the multi-faceted nature of EFL writing in terms of the likely influencing factors. Initially the contributions of respective factors were examined separately. Rhetorical analyses of students' English and Chinese compositions showed there were co-existing positive and negative influences of first language (L1) rhetoric on English writing. Analyses of lexical use and errors in English compositions, plus results from the assessment of two vocabulary tests, indicated that lexical and grammatical knowledge was a critical factor in explaining English writing. Results of students' Chinese writing abilities in relation to English writing proficiency revealed that the transfer of Chinese writing expertise was conditioned by a developed Chinese expertise and a lack of English writing experiences. Findings from the written-speech analysis of English essays suggested a transitional development whereby spoken language was used. Analyses of questionnaires indicated that EFL writing was positively related to attention on the macro-level structure and negatively related to micro-level concerns. Subsequently, integrated analyses were conducted to examine the interplay among these factors. The shared variability of factors contributed a much larger portion to the explanation of developmental changes, suggesting that the development of EFL writing involves the interaction among influencing factors much more than the individual factors themselves. The unique contributions (independent of other interrelated variables) showed that essay length outweighed the other predictors, suggesting a need for instruction to develop the skill of fluency. A determining factor that consistently accounted for English writing performance was the students' levels of English learning and English writing experiences. The implication is that, particularly in the context where writing is neglected for beginning or intermediate learners, there is a need to revitalize writing as a communicative skill in the EFL curriculum. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

The purpose of this study is to draw together various perspectives into a coherent framework that will identify relative importance of respective factors and developmental changes in accounting for second language (L2) writing. A total of 517 Taiwanese EFL students from four educational levels were recruited for inquiring into the development of EFL writing. Quantitative analyses of writing tasks, vocabulary tests and questionnaires were used to describe and explain the multi-faceted nature of EFL writing in terms of the likely influencing factors. Initially the contributions of respective factors were examined separately. Rhetorical analyses of students' English and Chinese compositions showed there were co-existing positive and negative influences of first language (L1) rhetoric on English writing. Analyses of lexical use and errors in English compositions, plus results from the assessment of two vocabulary tests, indicated that lexical and grammatical knowledge was a critical factor in explaining English writing. Results of students' Chinese writing abilities in relation to English writing proficiency revealed that the transfer of Chinese writing expertise was conditioned by a developed Chinese expertise and a lack of English writing experiences. Findings from the written-speech analysis of English essays suggested a transitional development whereby spoken language was used. Analyses of questionnaires indicated that EFL writing was positively related to attention on the macro-level structure and negatively related to micro-level concerns. Subsequently, integrated analyses were conducted to examine the interplay among these factors. The shared variability of factors contributed a much larger portion to the explanation of developmental changes, suggesting that the development of EFL writing involves the interaction among influencing factors much more than the individual factors themselves. The unique contributions (independent of other interrelated variables) showed that essay length outweighed the other predictors, suggesting a need for instruction to develop the skill of fluency. A determining factor that consistently accounted for English writing performance was the students' levels of English learning and English writing experiences. The implication is that, particularly in the context where writing is neglected for beginning or intermediate learners, there is a need to revitalize writing as a communicative skill in the EFL curriculum. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

The purpose of this study is to draw together various perspectives into a coherent framework that will identify relative importance of respective factors and developmental changes in accounting for second language (L2) writing. A total of 517 Taiwanese EFL students from four educational levels were recruited for inquiring into the development of EFL writing. Quantitative analyses of writing tasks, vocabulary tests and questionnaires were used to describe and explain the multi-faceted nature of EFL writing in terms of the likely influencing factors. Initially the contributions of respective factors were examined separately. Rhetorical analyses of students' English and Chinese compositions showed there were co-existing positive and negative influences of first language (L1) rhetoric on English writing. Analyses of lexical use and errors in English compositions, plus results from the assessment of two vocabulary tests, indicated that lexical and grammatical knowledge was a critical factor in explaining English writing. Results of students' Chinese writing abilities in relation to English writing proficiency revealed that the transfer of Chinese writing expertise was conditioned by a developed Chinese expertise and a lack of English writing experiences. Findings from the written-speech analysis of English essays suggested a transitional development whereby spoken language was used. Analyses of questionnaires indicated that EFL writing was positively related to attention on the macro-level structure and negatively related to micro-level concerns. Subsequently, integrated analyses were conducted to examine the interplay among these factors. The shared variability of factors contributed a much larger portion to the explanation of developmental changes, suggesting that the development of EFL writing involves the interaction among influencing factors much more than the individual factors themselves. The unique contributions (independent of other interrelated variables) showed that essay length outweighed the other predictors, suggesting a need for instruction to develop the skill of fluency. A determining factor that consistently accounted for English writing performance was the students' levels of English learning and English writing experiences. The implication is that, particularly in the context where writing is neglected for beginning or intermediate learners, there is a need to revitalize writing as a communicative skill in the EFL curriculum. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

The purpose of this study is to draw together various perspectives into a coherent framework that will identify relative importance of respective factors and developmental changes in accounting for second language (L2) writing. A total of 517 Taiwanese EFL students from four educational levels were recruited for inquiring into the development of EFL writing. Quantitative analyses of writing tasks, vocabulary tests and questionnaires were used to describe and explain the multi-faceted nature of EFL writing in terms of the likely influencing factors. Initially the contributions of respective factors were examined separately. Rhetorical analyses of students' English and Chinese compositions showed there were co-existing positive and negative influences of first language (L1) rhetoric on English writing. Analyses of lexical use and errors in English compositions, plus results from the assessment of two vocabulary tests, indicated that lexical and grammatical knowledge was a critical factor in explaining English writing. Results of students' Chinese writing abilities in relation to English writing proficiency revealed that the transfer of Chinese writing expertise was conditioned by a developed Chinese expertise and a lack of English writing experiences. Findings from the written-speech analysis of English essays suggested a transitional development whereby spoken language was used. Analyses of questionnaires indicated that EFL writing was positively related to attention on the macro-level structure and negatively related to micro-level concerns. Subsequently, integrated analyses were conducted to examine the interplay among these factors. The shared variability of factors contributed a much larger portion to the explanation of developmental changes, suggesting that the development of EFL writing involves the interaction among influencing factors much more than the individual factors themselves. The unique contributions (independent of other interrelated variables) showed that essay length outweighed the other predictors, suggesting a need for instruction to develop the skill of fluency. A determining factor that consistently accounted for English writing performance was the students' levels of English learning and English writing experiences. The implication is that, particularly in the context where writing is neglected for beginning or intermediate learners, there is a need to revitalize writing as a communicative skill in the EFL curriculum. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.