Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Linguistics, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-05, Section: A, page: 1710. Adviser: Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed June 20, 2007)."

De nos jours, les classes d'immersion française à niveaux multiples dans les écoles élémentaires au Canada sont de plus en plus répandues. Malgré ce fait, aucune recherche portant sur ce type de classes n'a été menée. Par contre, il existe des recherches au sujet des classes de langue première à niveaux multiples. Ces recherches montrent que les élèves dans les classes à niveaux multiples réussissent aussi bien et parfois mieux que ceux qui sont dans les classes à niveau simple. Cependant, les parents, les enseignants et les directeurs d'écoles ont tendance à se plaindre de la création des classes à niveaux multiples. Ce phénomène se retrouve aussi dans le contexte des classes d'immersion française à niveaux multiples. En effet, les parents, les enseignants et les directeurs d'école trouvent qu'il y a une surcharge de travail liée aux nombreuses attentes du curriculum jumelées à l'enseignement d'une langue seconde. Afin de mieux connaître et comprendre ce phénomène, cette étude tente de répondre à la question de recherche suivante: Quelles sont les perceptions des parents, des enseignants et des directeurs d'école à l'égard des classes d'immersion française à niveaux multiples à l'élémentaire? Un sondage par questionnaires écrits a permis de recueillir de l'information quantitative et qualitative auprès de parents, d'enseignants et de directrices d'écoles ayant de l'expérience avec de telles classes. Les résultats ont montré que les perceptions des participants sont diverses et dépendent de plusieurs facteurs. Cette étude a souligné le besoin de recherche à ce sujet afin de créer des ressources et d'offrir de la formation portant sur les classes d'immersion française à niveaux multiples à l'élémentaire au Canada.

Debates about book censorship and selection are far-reaching and ongoing, however little research has lingered in the spaces of irresolvable tension within these debates, and specifically the debates that focus on novels read in school. In an intertextual analysis of literary theory and editorial-blog responses to a recent debate about the suitability of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale as a high school text, I work to broaden and trouble understandings of what it means to read this novel in school. The online forum for discussion is a unique space that offers new and different insights into an age-old conversation. Weaving online reader responses to the Handmaid's Tale debate with a large body of research that struggles with our complicated relationship with reading, this thesis strives to add complexity and depth to an often-polarizing issue.

Increasing awareness of the value of home literacy experiences, combined with a recognition of the importance of the family, has contributed to growth in the number of family literacy programs. These, however, lack theoretical underpinnings. Further, there is a paucity of studies in family literacy practices with school age children. This study uncovers the interplay of family literacy practices in one low-income neighbourhood. To address sociocultural factors that affect literacy, societal circumstances and issues which enable or constrain literacy events were explored. By entering into the life-worlds of participants to portray lived dimensions of enculturation and family literacy this study employs critical theory to expand research in family literacy. The following questions guided my inquiry into the literacy-related practices and perceptions of low-income families: how family literacy practices unfold, how literacy is embedded in the social practices and relationships between school and home, and what conditions and factors within the family contribute to family literacy practices and children's enculturation into these practices? Eight families were purposively selected for this exploratory case study. Data collection included observations at school, parent interviews, questionnaires, journal entries, parent-child interactions and field notes. The findings uncover the ways that low-income families use and perceive literacy in their homes and serve to challenge assumptions, namely that we live in an egalitarian society and that schools do not privilege particular ways of thinking. The tragedy of living in poverty with its inherent barriers to equitable access and participation is presented as a key factor in limiting educational opportunities for low-income children. Emergent themes include: conflicting time orientation of low-income families; cultural mismatch between teachers and students; importance of the social environment and families as powerful social conduits for culture and identity formation; and limitation in household resources to support educational pursuits. These were analyzed for discourses of hope, invasion, time, space, female body and maternity that they frame in the women's lives. Implications for shaping current practice, future research, teacher education, and public policy are discussed. The significance of this study for the family literacy field inheres in offering an interactive model of literacy practices for educators.

The study sought to provide evidence regarding the pedagogic value of communicative tasks in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) setting. Previous research suggests that communicative tasks can provide conditions and promote processes which facilitate second language (L2) learning, as they encourage meaningful interaction in the L2 and learner attention to linguistic form. Interactive language use helps students to better comprehend novel language elements and to practice expressing themselves in the L2 as part of their language learning. Learner discourse while carrying out such tasks should reflect these processes. In EFL settings, where it is an ongoing challenge to provide learners with quality linguistic input and interaction opportunities, communicative tasks are seen as a promising pedagogical approach, yet relatively little is known about their implementation and outcomes in such settings. This case study investigated the nature of the oral discourse generated through the use of selected communicative tasks in a university EFL class by students working in small groups and their non-native EFL teacher, emphasizing its interactive features. It also compared the effects of two task types ( jigsaw and decision making). This study explored the students' and teacher's perceptions and attitudes with respect to the use of communicative tasks vis-a-vis the existing oral method, as well as changes in these attitudes and perceptions over a semester. Finally, it sought evidence of language learning outcomes, particularly lexical development, from these tasks. The research context was an oral academic English course for Indonesian undergraduate medical students with intermediate English proficiency. Participants included an experienced non-native English speaking teacher and her eight students who completed all the tasks and were selected as representative of the class. Examination of the students' interactions and teacher discourse when implementing and completing the tasks revealed that both jigsaw and decision making tasks worked well in the hands of an experienced non-native teacher. Both task types generated a considerable amount of interactive language as students interacted, negotiated, and cooperated during task implementation and completion. The two task types complemented each other in terms of the various aspects of language learning they promoted, their relative difficulty, and the level of students' language proficiency required. In addition, the teacher and students reported similar, positive perceptions and attitudes with regard to the use of communicative tasks, and there was anecdotal and observed evidence that the communicative tasks might facilitate lexical learning in this setting. The study contributes to our knowledge of EFL pedagogy and extends classroom-based research to EFL settings, particularly in its study of a communicative task-based methodology for promoting student interaction in an EFL setting.

No description available.

Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Mary T. Copple / The formation of English past tense by EFL (or ESL) learners has been the object of much second language acquisition research. This study investigates the production and marking of English past tense verbs by 55 adult Afghan EFL learners who use Pashto or Dari as their first language. The participants were first required to produce the past tense while responding to a questionnaire about their daily activities, and then completed a correction task in which sentences with verb errors appeared. The collected data was analyzed based on verb regularity (Pinker & Ullman 2002, Jaeger et al. 1996, Hoeffner 2000, Housen 2000) and the sequential inflection of events or non-events based on inherent lexical aspect (Vendler 1967, Salaberry 2000, Bardovi-Harlig & Reynolds1995, Tickoo 2001, 2005). Results show that the participants were more accurate in marking and producing regular verbs than irregular verbs for the past tense in both experimental tasks. When examining the role of regularity of the verb in the sequential marking of lexical aspect, it was discovered that past tense production of irregular verbs was influenced by the lexical aspectual verb type as non-events exhibited lower accuracy rates for past tense inflection.

A potentially rich source of curricular material for the development of a Deaf Studies curriculum lies in the category of feature films. The case of minority status of films produced by the American Deaf community is presented based on a comparison with the African-American independent film industry. An ethnographic study formulates an understanding of the contributions made by deaf independent filmmaker, Ernest Marshall. Marshall's personal background, his film business and perspectives on the value of film and signed language are discussed. A description of Marshall's film collection also provides an excellent historical resource for signed language use and for cross-cultural comparison purposes. Film studies are stressed as a viable teaching approach where the film medium providing cultural insights into the lives of deaf people and serving as a primary source for the documentation and preservation of American Sign Language.

This study investigated whether training in and use of referential questions had an effect on learners' linguistic output and accuracy. The study had three components. A quasi-experimental design with treatment and control groups examined quantitatively the performance of students on a set of variables, including number of words, number of T-units, clause length, coordination, subordination, grammatical accuracy, error-free T-units, and comprehensibility. A pretest and posttest were administered to a population of 149 students (64 in treatment groups and 85 in control groups) enrolled in three consecutive levels of French as a foreign language at the university of Arizona. Gain scores were computed and statistical tests were conducted on these gain scores for significance. A follow-up study examined the performance of selected high and low achievers within groups and across levels on the same variables. Finally, an attitude questionnaire was administered to the treatment groups at the end of the treatment period. Its purpose was to tap the students' perceptions of the effectiveness and enjoyableness of homework tasks involving referential questions in language learning. Results of the quasi-experimental study indicated that all subjects within groups and across levels significantly increased their performance between the pre- and post-tests on most of the variables examined. No statistically significant differences, however, were found between treatment and control groups. Results of the follow-up study with high and low achievers indicated that only in two areas were the differences between high and low achievers clearly established and consistent across levels: error-free T-units and number of words in error-free T-units. The high achievers outperformed the low achievers in 100% of the cases on those two variables. There was variation on the other variables. Results of the attitude questionnaire indicated that the majority of students felt that referential question assignments were more effective and more beneficial tools of language learning than were fill-in-the blanks-type exercises. However, barely half of students rated referential question assignments as enjoyable.

This study investigates tasks in which international graduate students who are non-native speakers of English must use a second or foreign language (L2) in simulated conflict and stressful situations with native speakers. In particular, the study examines conflicts where the non-native speaker (NNS) must issue a directive to a native speaker (NS) in order to achieve an important outcome or avoid unwanted or even dangerous consequences. Unlike previous studies which place equal or no emphasis on the consequences of the directive under investigation, this study focuses on the perlocutionary effect that the speaker anticipates as a result of the utterance of a directive. Although this is an empirical study, it also critically examines the directive as a macro or discursive speech act colored by the relationships Power, Distance and perceived Consequences of the speaker based on the context of the situation in which it is uttered. The analysis of the data reveals that most advanced NNS have difficulty in high stakes situations based on a comparison of their directives to NS directives, supporting the hypothesis that the encoding of power in a directive is essential to the NNS as well as to the NS in attaining or avoiding some important result. The qualitative evidence further suggests that an important source of this difficulty is the constant awareness that even the advanced NNS is still a NNS and this produces a diminished sense of power relative to NSs.