<p>This essay attempts to investigate the use of lexical chunks in an empirical way. It tries to probe into the possible relationship between L2 learners competence of lexical chunks and their language production through analysing results from a multiple-choice chunk test and a writing test.</p>

A study was conducted among a sample of Korean American students to investigate the potential moderation of the risks related to English proficiency by the protection of school belonging. Perceived scholastic competence, self-reported school grades, and academic expectancies were used for dependent variables. It was hypothesized that students with higher sense of belonging would be less affected by English proficiency than their peers with lower sense of belonging. The risk of English proficiency was confirmed. However, school belonging did not have as much of an effect as expected and students with higher English proficiency seemed to gain more benefit from increased school belonging. This finding reminds educators of the pressing importance of English proficiency, and future research is suggested to investigate the unique effects of belonging among students of Korean, and perhaps other Asian, backgrounds.

This study, entitled “Understanding the Choice of Chinese Graduate Students’ English Learning Strategies in a Canadian Context,” explores the English learning strategies employed by six graduate students from China after their arrival in Canada, and documents and analyses changes in their learning strategies. These Chinese students encountered a change of language context because when in the unilingual Chinese environment they spoke Mandarin and upon their arrival in Canada, they were obligated to use English to communicate with Canadians and other international students. These students employed different English learning strategies in the Canadian context from what they were accustomed to in China. Thus, the researcher’s central objective in this study is to discover and document those changes in learning strategies and to investigate the factors accounting for the changes. In the process, the researcher aims to fill a gap in research exploring the learning strategies of Chinese students in foreign contexts, and create valuable new knowledge to benefit prospective Chinese international students, policy makers at the international universities, and English educators in China. The theoretical framework of this research is the qualitative co-constructivism paradigm along with narrative inquiry. Semi-structured interviews were used as the primary method of collecting data in this study, beginning with individual interviews, and followed by a focus group interview. The data collected through the interviews showed that the six participants’ reliance on the memory and cognitive strategies employed in China were abandoned in favor of utilization of compensation strategies and social strategies after moving to Canada. Furthermore, these participants were more open to making mistakes and taking risks during interactions with others in English. Moreover, these participants made these changes mainly because they desired to use the English-speaking environment in Canada to improve English proficiency. An important finding of my research is that their immersion in the English-speaking environment inspired these participants to employ different English learning strategies that led to significant improvement in their English proficiency.

A study was conducted among a sample of Korean American students to investigate the potential moderation of the risks related to English proficiency by the protection of school belonging. Perceived scholastic competence, self-reported school grades, and academic expectancies were used for dependent variables. It was hypothesized that students with higher sense of belonging would be less affected by English proficiency than their peers with lower sense of belonging. The risk of English proficiency was confirmed. However, school belonging did not have as much of an effect as expected and students with higher English proficiency seemed to gain more benefit from increased school belonging. This finding reminds educators of the pressing importance of English proficiency, and future research is suggested to investigate the unique effects of belonging among students of Korean, and perhaps other Asian, backgrounds.

INTRODUCTION: Language barriers between providers and low English proficiency (LEP) families in pediatric hospital care can reduce the quality of care provided to LEP patients/families. Boston Medical Center serves a population with a large LEP patient base. Currently, there is no existing model of care that efficiently and effectively incorporates interpreters on all morning rounds to optimize communication for all patients, especially LEP patients/families. OBJECTIVE: To improve communication between providers and LEP families on morning rounds in the Pediatric Inpatient Unit of Boston Medical Center. The aim for the QI initiative was to increase the percentage of rounding episodes with LEP patients/families in which the care plan was discussed between providers and families through the use of an in-person interpreter during morning rounds by 50% by February 28, 2015. METHODS: A quality improvement initiative utilizing residents, medical students, the unit coordinator and the ward assistant to introduce, streamline and standardize a process to incorporate interpreters on all morning rounds as needed for LEP families. The Model for Improvement was used for testing this initiative. Four Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles of testing were conducted between October 21, 2014 and February 20, 2015. The primary outcome was the proportion of rounding episodes for LEP patients/families in which the care plan was discussed between the provider and patients/families through an in-person interpreter. This data was collected through a newly created "Interpreter Rounding Form" (IRF) that served as a checklist for the process. The secondary outcome looked at patient satisfaction for both LEP and English proficient (EP) patients. This data was collected through survey questions from the CAHPS and AHRQ patient surveys. Process measures included if interpreter was requested, if interpreter was used and if any change in care management due to having in-person interpreter present. Balancing measures included duration of rounds, interpreter arrival time, and resident satisfaction. Language being included in resident verbal signouts and written signouts between teams was also tracked. Run charts were analyzed for all outcomes and measures to determine the effectiveness of changes tested. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: For the first three PDSAs, there was a significant amount of variation in data measurement, which required focused efforts on better operationalizing our measurement framework. Changes were made after each PDSA to streamline the process and enforce completion of IRF, with which data was collected. For the fourth PDSA, starting in January 2015, completion rates for the IRF slowly increased to a median of 40%. Primary outcome data for PDSA 1-4 showed a median of 52% based on the rounding episodes that were recorded on the IRF forms, which suggests that the aim for a 50% increase in using an in-person interpreter on all morning rounds was achieved by February 28, 2015. However, this data may not reflect all the requests and encounters in which an in-person interpreter was used due to the missing data from a low completion rate of forms before PDSA 4. Further analysis of PDSA 4 data showed that though an in-person interpreter was used at a median of 38% of all encounters with LEP patients/families, providers were communicating with patients/families in their preferred language at 100% of the time; if did not request interpreter, providers used a resident or medical student who spoke the family's language 43% of the time. Patient survey data suggested that out of all patients in the unit, 80% of patients/families reported having "Always" understood the doctors, with LEP patients/families at a slightly higher percent than EP patients (100% vs 88%). Patients reported "Good" or higher for the quality of the information that was provided by the doctors on morning rounds at a median of 84%, with LEP patients at 100% compared to 84% for English-speaking patients. Qualitative analysis of patient responses showed that LEP patients liked the explanations and information provided in the morning rounds while EP patients mostly liked the attitude and approach of the doctors. One major limitation to our process was the constantly rotating residents/medical students and the need to train new teams. The project is ongoing with a focus on further standardization until a goal of 90% completion rate for IRF and 80% for primary outcome can be reached. Future PDSAs will encourage using medical interpreters for all LEP patient encounters and family-centered rounding.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-08-20Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:15:48Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 anchieta_pp_me_sjrp.pdf: 807879 bytes, checksum: 0077f433ec077e28149ee6c734142941 (MD5) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / Visto que o papel do professor é relevante para os contextos de ensino/aprendizagem de Língua Inglesa (LI), torna-se coerente que ele participe dos processos de avaliação não apenas como avaliador, mas também como avaliado, buscando sempre melhorias em sua prática pedagógica. De acordo com Martins (2005), a avaliação do professor é indispensável para o ensino de línguas, além de representar um desafio no trabalho desenvolvido por aprendizes e mestres. Um tipo de instrumento de avaliação utilizado em professores de LI, para verificar seu nível de proficiência na língua estrangeira (LE) com a qual trabalham, são os exames de proficiência. Existem diferentes tipos de exames internacionais que classificam quantitativamente a proficiência de seus avaliados, como, por exemplo, o TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) e o FCE (First Certificate in English). A proposta deste trabalho é a de apresentar resultados de uma pesquisa de mestrado desenvolvida na UNESP/SJRP, na qual realizamos um levantamento de dados a respeito de testes de proficiência em LI existentes no mercado. Com isso, buscamos contribuir para a elaboração de um exame de proficiência em língua estrangeira, denominado EPPLE – Exame de Proficiência para Professores de Língua Estrangeira. Além dos testes de proficiência que no trabalho são analisados, compõem também os dados analisados, respostas a questionários aplicados a professores de Licenciatura em Letras, de várias localidades do Brasil, os quais sugerem algumas das crenças desses profissionais sobre avaliação e suas diversas visões a respeito dos testes de proficiência em LE e suas possíveis repercussões. Dessa forma, pudemos verificar e agrupar algumas características dos exames analisados que possivelmente servirão de base para o aprimoramento do EPPLE. Foram sugeridas ideas condizentes ao local de aplicação do exame... / Since the teachers’ role is so important to the contexts of English Teaching and Learning, it is coherent that they participate of the assessment process not only as teachers but also as evaluated people who are always improving their jobs. According to Martins (2005), the teacher’s assessment is indispensable to the language teaching and represents a challenge to the job developed by teachers and researchers. A kind of assessment instrument used by English teachers in order to verify the students English proficiency level are the Proficiency Tests and Exams. There are different kinds of international exams that classify the proficiency level of their candidates, such as the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and the FCE (First Certificate in English). The main goal of this dissertation is to present results of a master research developed at UNESP/SJRP. A research about English Proficiency Tests was conducted. We intend to contribute to the implementation of an English test specific for english teachers, known as EPPLE. In addition, we also analyzed some questionnaires applied to stakeholders of the English teaching and learning system. We could notice that our participants have different opinions about the English proficiency tests. And, when we discuss about specific points of electronic English tests, the stakeholders seem to be not sure about the topic. Based on the corpus about the English tests we have analyzed, we could suggest some characteristics to be applied in the EPPLE. To conclude, we hope that this dissertation contributes not only to EPPLE improvement and implementation but also to the improvement of researches in Applied Linguistics

This essay attempts to investigate the use of lexical chunks in an empirical way. It tries to probe into the possible relationship between L2 learners competence of lexical chunks and their language production through analysing results from a multiple-choice chunk test and a writing test.

Objectives To provide contemporary, national population-based estimates of complete tooth loss of older adults by English language proficiency. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of the 2017 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey among participants ≥50 years of age (n=10,452, weighted=111,895,290). Results The prevalence of complete tooth loss was higher among those with limited English proficiency (Spanish speaking: 13.7%; Other languages: 16.9%) than those proficient in English (Spanish speaking: 5.0%; Other languages: 6.0%). After adjusting for education, complete tooth loss was less common among participants for whom Spanish was their primary, with limited English proficiency relative to English only (adjusted odds ratio: 0.56; 95% confidence interval: 0.42-0.76). Among those without complete tooth loss, dental visit in the past year were less common among participants with primary languages other than English as compared to those who only speak English. Discussion Research is needed to examine the relationship of aging, oral health, and access to care.

abstract: English proficiency is one of the major factors affecting international students’ academic adjustment to American universities. Many international college students select to improve their academic English proficiency through an English intensive program. Collaborative learning is an educational approach to teaching and learning that allows students and teachers to engage in a common task and work together to search for knowledge and skills. This thesis study aims to develop, design, and iteratively refine strategies to help English intensive program teachers build collaborative learning and promote international students’ effective collaboration, so as to improve students' academic English proficiency. In this study, two different collaborative learning strategies were designed, implemented and iterated. Data was collected using qualitative methods and follow the principle of design-based research (DBR; Barab, 2014) The results of this study suggest that successful instructional strategies for collaborative learning should be designed in the following ways. First, gathering participants’ opinions and feedback at all phases of design and iteration; Second, linking the new strategies or activity to students’ grade should be the center of the design. Third, in DBR，researchers need to be patient to build good relationships with practitioners, which can provide a basis for continuing research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Art 2020

Language is central to all teaching and learning. The ability to communicate effectively, and more specifically during instruction is one of the key competencies beginner teachers should develop. While English is the home language of ±10% of South Africans, the majority of learners are taught in English from Grade 4 onwards, many of their teachers being non-native English speakers themselves. The English proficiency level of most South African teachers has been identified as problematically low by a number of researchers. This study aimed to investigate the nature of Classroom English and the underlying oral English proficiency of native isiZulu-speaking pre-service teachers as a first step toward being able to better support Classroom English proficiency development of non-native pre-service teachers. Within my conceptual framework for the study oral English proficiency is viewed as part of and foundational to Classroom English proficiency. A mixed methods approach was used. Data were gathered through questionnaires which gauged perceptions of the pre-service teachers’ English proficiency in the classroom as well as voice recordings of lessons they presented during their practice teaching period in rural KwaZulu-Natal schools. Voice recordings of this case study were analysed with the support of existing oral English proficiency rubrics and a self-designed Classroom English proficiency rubric. In a broad sense findings correspond with previous studies in similar fields, pointing to the nature of Classroom English of this case study at a level not considered ideal for effectively facilitating teaching and learning. These isiZulu-speaking preservice teachers require more support to develop better Classroom English proficiency. An approach that specifically addresses development of language proficiencies required in the classroom, with vocabulary and grammar embedded therein, is suggested. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Humanities Education / MEd / Unrestricted