The purpose of this study was to examine my belief that allowing young children time for free choice engagements and play is not only appropriate but necessary for their development of written literacy. This teacher research study took place in my kindergarten classroom. Data was collected during a daily free choice time when students had access to virtually all materials in the classroom and were responsible for their own engagement decisions. The primary data consists of field notes of my observations while students were involved in free choice engagements, a checklist of their engagements, and artifacts of the written literacy that students engaged in. The data analysis led to the development of a description of the types, functions, and contexts for how written language is integrated into the free choice engagements of the kindergarten students in my class. This analysis is from data on all the children in my classroom. Case studies offered a portrayal of three individual students' explorations of written language during free choice. The case studies give background information about each child, then describe the child as a player, and finally the child's literacy knowledge is described. This study has allowed me to become more acutely aware of what was happening during free choice time in my classroom. Throughout this dissertation I have contended that children come to school with a great deal of knowledge about literacy, and teachers need to value the literacy knowledge that children already have. The same must hold true for play. No doubt children have learned to play long before they come to school. It is the teacher's responsibility to close the gap between the two environments. Teachers need to respect each child's literacy strengths and motivations, and continue to offer invitations for engagements in many functional literacy engagements. I am confident that students will engage in written literacy when they are ready and see the engagements as meaningful and functional in their own lives.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how nonnative English teachers' identity constructions develop and influence their pedagogy in U.S. higher education. The research on nonnative teachers of English has not adequately explored their identity constructions. This study relied on a phenomenological case study approach that analyzed the lived experience of nonnative English teachers in relation to wider language ideologies and practices. Data were generated from spring 2003 to fall 2003 through phenomenological in-depth interviews, classroom observations, questionnaires, and autobiographical accounts of research participants. The data were primarily analyzed through the use of the constant comparative method. The study reveals that identity construction among nonnative English teachers, with its dynamic and contradictory nature, remains challenging, changing, and growing over time in relations of wider language ideologies and practices. Thus, the findings reject a fixed, unitary, and monolithic view on the identity construction of nonnative English teachers. In terms of the study's practical and pedagogical implications, university programs should know that nonnative English teachers can practice mutual accommodation through which both nonnative English teachers and their students can collaborate in order to improve the learning of English and enrich diversity within U.S. higher education. University programs should also focus more on what nonnative English teachers can do in collaboration with native English teachers. Finally, this study suggests that language educators should explore the role nonnative English teachers play in language pedagogy in an era of the global spread of English that produces highly proficient nonnative English speaking professionals.

After studying hundreds of Saudi children's books, I decided to keep eighty of them to represent my selection. My main focus in this study is the literary and cultural characteristics of Saudi children's books. Thus, this study is based on two questions: What are the literary characteristics of Saudi children's books? and What are the cultural characteristics of Saudi children's books? I used the content analysis approach to answer both questions. Content analysis means the use of a theory or theme to analyze a text or a series of texts. The theory or theme is used as an analytical device, the main focus being analysis of the text rather than development of theory. In order to answer the question about the literary characteristics of Saudi children's books, I studied the seven most common literary elements found in textbooks of children's literature. A literary analysis chart was developed representing character, plot, setting, theme, point of view, style and tone. After analyzing the selected books literarily, I found that only a small number of the selected books use techniques of the literary elements to attract the readers. The majority of the books represent the false nature of flat characters and are written to instruct and educate children rather than entertain them. Illustrations do not add much to the written text in the majority of books; thus the majority of the books are illustrated books rather than picturebooks. A cultural analysis chart was developed from the readings and the interviews about Saudi culture. Three major categories represent the Saudi culture for this study: religion, family and childhood. After doing the cultural analysis for the selected books I found that there are many misrepresentations of the Saudi culture in most of the books indicating a lack of careful study of the culture. There is a separation between religious and nonreligious books, women have traditional roles in most of the books, and children are portrayed as either ideal or stupid in the majority of the books. Moreover, the landscape and/or the clothes of characters in most of the books are misrepresented.

This doctoral study aimed to research the origins and languages from which the picture storybooks were translated and published in Taiwan in year 2001, to identify the major themes and genres of those translated picture storybooks, and also to examine the language and cultural suitability of a small number of translated picture storybooks. A two-step research design of content analysis was applied as research methodology, and two sets of research questions were asked. The subject that was investigated in the study was English-to-Chinese picture storybooks from Taiwan. Step one was to survey the picture storybooks in Chinese translation in aspects of country of origin, language, publishers, themes, and genre. A total of 276 children's picture storybooks in Chinese translation were included for examination. Step two was to analyze the translations of 13 books through a content analysis. The in-depth content analysis tried to answer the question: What are patterns in the changes made in the Chinese translation of picture storybooks at the lexical, semantic, aesthetic and cultural levels? The findings of the broad survey showed that the picture storybooks that publishers in Taiwan selected for translation and publication in year 2001 were mostly imported from English speaking countries (the United States and Great Britain), Japan and German speaking countries (Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland). English, German and Japanese were the three predominant languages from which the Chinese versions of the stories were translated. A wide range of themes were found in the stories, and fantasy and realistic fiction were the two major genre identified. It was found in the study that the majority of the books selected to be translated and published in Taiwan in 2001 were universal books, rather than culturally specific books. This study concluded that no mistranslation was found in the 13 books in the in-depth content analysis. The conclusion was drawn based on the analysis of changes made by translators in the aspects of book title, word replacement, sentence and paragraph organization, translation of expressions and cultural concepts and text and illustration relationship.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the cues and miscues singers produce while reading musical text with written text. Analysis of the miscues focuses on defining the process and strategies singers use as they sight-sing a piece of music never before seen or heard. The research of Kenneth S. Goodman forms the basis for the procedures and methodology used in data collection and data analysis. Sight-singing data collected from eight singers, including all cues, miscues, asides, and specific notes, was transcribed on a musicscript. This data yielded 923 musical text and written text cues and miscues. Analysis provides the data that evolved into the Sight-Singing Musical Miscue Taxonomy, a tool for evaluating the miscues of singers orally reading music. A Musical Miscue Inventory Coding Form also was developed using the categories and sub-categories of the Sight-Singing Musical Miscue Taxonomy. The results of the eight singers' use of cues and miscues of the Sight-Singing Musical Miscue Taxonomy and the Musical Miscue Inventory Coding Form provides evidence for the parallel but distinct nature of sight-singing as two semiotic systems working in conjunction with each other-musical text and written text. The results also provide the means to establish a relationship between the sociopsycholinguistic transactive model of reading and the sociopsychomusical linguistic transactive model of sight singing. The findings of this research show that sight-singers utilize the same holistic process and strategies as readers do. The cueing systems, the cognitive strategies, and the learning cycles are the same.

This study investigates the speech of a four year old girl who is growing up in a Chicano neighborhood in Houston. Her parents, and many of her neighbors, mix English and Spanish. The girl's linguistic system is described and modeled from a cognitive perspective. The girl was observed interacting with family and friends at her home. Her styles of speech in different social situations were analyzed. Different linguistic subsystems are apparent at different levels. Her phonology is one composite system. She has separate English-like and Spanish-like morphological constructions for verbs and pronouns, but subsystems of morphological constructions for nouns are fuzzier. Syntactically, English-like and Spanish-like subsystems are clearly revealed for verb phrases, fuzzily revealed for clauses, whereas noun phrases are not organized into subsystems. Four subsystems of lexical classes can be discerned based on their use in different interpersonal roles. She has different ways of speaking to babies, younger playmates, parents, and older friends. The girl's speech is generally appropriate for each situation. However, the variation is not due to a consistent distinction between English and Spanish. Code-switching models do not reflect the organization of her linguistic system. Rather, she organizes her linguistic knowledge as a collection of signs, and various relations between signs account for her appropriate linguistic behavior in a given situation.

In her Communication Analysis (1988) Ilah Fleming developed a model of language analysis that treats all strata of language as a network of interplay. Through the application of her philosophy and methodology to language teaching, grammar instruction becomes a part of an integrated system of morphotactic, propositional, and discourse strategies. Functional areas, like case, voice, and transitivity, are customarily treated as morphotactic in language texts. Following Fleming's model, these are taught as propositional, their functional operations are clarified, and their relationship to both morphotactic and discourse structures are revealed.

<p>Past research has shown that learner-centered environments can improve students' self-esteem and increase their academic skills. The purpose of this study was to determine whether teaching the core curriculum within a caring classroom environment increases students ability to communicate effectively and perform at higher achievement levels in writing. The study addressed the experiences of teachers in implementing a new writing program with a strong emphasis on social skill development as a precursor to good writing. Guided by the social learning theories of Dewey, Rogers, and Vygotsky, who contended that social interaction is vital to the development of cognition, a qualitative case study was undertaken consisting of individual interviews with 15 teachers at 6 elementary schools in southwestern Connecticut. Data were collected to address the extent to which a caring community of students can foster positive academic outcomes. Data were analyzed and coded to discover common themes. Results showed that teachers perceived that the social skills taught through the program did increase students writing skills. In addition, students had better listening skills and were more comfortable taking academic risks. This finding supports past social learning theories. Based on these findings, 3 days of professional learning workshops were created with the goals of building student-teacher relationships, creating learner-centered environments, and curtailing bullying. Equipping teachers with this resource will help to create social change by helping students become better communicators in a diverse society, increasing their graduation rates, and preparing them to enter the global workforce of the 21st century. </p>

It is a well established fact that Grimms' fairy tales have been adapted by the Grimm brothers to suit the taste of middle class Europeans in the 19th and 20th centuries. Later, the National Socialists in Germany used the fairy tales to teach racism. This thesis presents the theoretical discussion in East Germany (the GDR, "DDR") which served as a rationale for using some of these fairy tales in the socialist education of children, and outlines the ideologically motivated selection of the fairy tales. The thesis analyzes the DDR regulations, which governed education in kindergarten and elementary school as well as in (after school) day-care programmes. It shows the extent to which Grimms' fairy tales were used in socialistic teaching of children. It is clear that the fairy tales selected and edited by the Grimm brothers to cater to the taste of the 19th century bourgeois were also considered effective in the teaching of values to children in a socialistic society. It appears that this aspect has not yet been addressed in modern western literary criticism.

<p> Writing conferences are a writing process tool to aid students with writing development. Conferences are underutilized due to time constraints and lack of direction. This qualitative study examines whole class writing conferences, a conference method that includes all members of the class participating in weekly discussion of written drafts. Fourteen first-year undergraduate composition students and their teacher at a United States New England university meet in twenty-two class periods where they learn about and then participate in whole class writing conferences. Field notes from class observations and from writing conference discussions, written feedback from each student on drafts reviewed during whole class writing conferences, original drafts and revisions of writing, student interview data, and student survey data are analyzed. Students are active participants in this method, showing independence in writing decisions and appropriate evaluative response to writing. Evidence from the data reveals that students revised essays, improving introductions, transitions, topic sentences, and supporting paragraphs. All revisions include the addition of details. Use of this method created a supportive community in this classroom, and students communicated positive experiences with participation in whole class writing conferences. Whole class writing conferences provide an opportunity for students to learn about writing in a way that is consistent with how undergraduate students develop, practice, and write ideas.</p>