<p> As recent immigrants seek a productive and dignified life in &ldquo;new immigrant destinations&rdquo; that have little historical experience with immigration, public education systems serve a key function in immigrant integration efforts. In a federal system increasingly focused on accountability, a crucial sub-set of education policy and local responsiveness to immigration is English language instruction and services for Limited English Proficient (LEP) students and parents.</p><p> In such contexts, the role that local bureaucrats play, and whether they actively represent the interests of the newfound diversity of community members, are crucial questions if strongly held American ideals of social equity and equal opportunity are to be upheld. This research asks broad questions at the intersection of bureaucratic power, representative bureaucracy and educational policy toward English language learners at the local level. Variations in how school systems in the political bellwether of Virginia responded to a recent policy shock - federal guidance released in January 2015 that reiterated local school system responsibility for providing equal educational access to LEP students and parents &ndash; form a unique window into local policy-making. Using a concurrent triangulation mixed methodology that consists of a state-wide survey and interviews with a sub-set of the Title III coordinators who supervise programs for English Language Learners, this research shows Title III coordinators to be unrepresentative in passive terms of the foreign born population but nevertheless to have a strong sense of advocating for English Language Learners. Findings suggest that public service motivation is the key explanatory factor in driving a sense of role advocacy and this in turn drives a greater range of action taking by the coordinator to benefit ELLs. Despite this link between role advocacy and coordinator action, role advocacy is not found to be significant in driving the likelihood or range of system level responsiveness to the letter. Instead, political and demographic factors increase the likelihood of system action but, counter to existing literature, more conservative localities are found to be more likely to have responded to the Dear Colleague Letter. This suggests that a previous reluctance to act in these places may have been dislodged by the letter and points to the importance of change over time in conceptualizing local responsiveness to immigrants.</p><p>

<p> This quasi-phenomenological study identified the common lived classroom experiences of high school (grades 9-12) teachers who used the Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS) method of world language instruction. The study also explained why some teachers who were trained in and had some experience using TPRS abandoned the method, and what they perceived as obstacles to its use. Additionally, the study identified the techniques perceived as effective by traditional teachers for promoting student success in producing and comprehending the target language with the goal of bridging the gap between TPRS and non-TPRS teachers.</p><p> The central phenomenon studied was teachers&rsquo; lived experiences using TPRS, a method of world language teaching for providing a near-immersion classroom learning experience. The TPRS method required no textbook or grammar syllabus and focused on providing students with interesting, repetitive, and comprehensible input of commonly used verb structures and high-frequency vocabulary within the context of a story. For this study, a non-TPRS traditional approach included using a textbook, a grammatical syllabus, and production-based communicative classroom learning activities.</p><p> A purposeful sample of study participants included three groups of ten teachers each. The first two groups constituted the phenomenological part of the study because they had training and experience with TPRS. In the first group, ten participants used TPRS and considered themselves primarily as TPRS teachers. In a second group, ten teachers were selected because they were trained in TPRS and had some experience using the method but discontinued or limited its use when they encountered obstacles and resistance. A third group, not part of the phenomenological portion of the study, consisted of ten teachers who were not trained in TPRS, used a traditional approach, and had no experience using the method. That group provided a perspective outside of TPRS training and experience to discover which teaching techniques they perceived as effective. That input was included in the study to inform the researcher of potential improvements to recommend for the continuously developing TPRS method.</p><p> Data were collected through in depth, face-to-face, in-person, open-ended, semi-structured interviews. The results of the data analysis identified sixteen common lived experiences of TPRS teachers, twelve obstacles encountered by teachers when using or trying out TPRS, and four recommendations to consider incorporating into this changing and evolving method of world language instruction. </p><p>

<p> Many math students, both EL and non-EL, struggle to reach the level of proficiency on California state tests which is required since the passage of NCLB in 2002 (California Department of Education, 2012). In California only 34% of students scored at the level of proficiency or above in 2011 (National Assessment for Educational Progress, 2012). The purpose of this quasi-experimental quantitative study was to determine the degree of achievement, similarities, and differences in learning fourth-grade math for ELs and non-ELs when sentence frames are used as the method of instruction and when sentence frames are not used as the method of instruction in a southern California school district. The instructional method of using sentence frames with all students, non-ELs and ELs, may assist all students to become successful and reach the level of proficiency in fourth-grade mathematics. A group of approximately 23 teachers with approximately 30 students each for a total of 700 fourth-grade math students, will teach two lessons, one lesson that primarily uses sentence frames as the method of instruction and one lesson that does not use sentence frames in the method of instruction. Pre and post tests for each lesson was taken and data was analyzed to identify patterns, similarities, differences, and diverging themes associated when the use of sentence frames are used as the method of instruction and when sentence frames are not used as the method of instruction with ELs and non-ELs.</p><p>

<p> This study examines the application of the Simple View of Reading (SVR), a reading comprehension theory focusing on word recognition and linguistic comprehension, to English Language Learners&rsquo; (ELLs&rsquo;) English reading development. This study examines the concurrent and predictive validity of two components of the SVR, oral language and word-level decoding, for determining ELLs&rsquo; English reading comprehension in the third and fifth grades, using data from a nationally representative dataset, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ECLS-K). Literature in both first (L1) and second language (L2) reading comprehension development suggest that, in addition to word- and text-level decoding factors, oral language skills (such as listening comprehension) also impact L2 reading comprehension. This study found that while English word-level decoding skills were the strongest predictors of ELLs&rsquo; English reading comprehension in third grade, both third and fifth grade English oral language skills were stronger at predicting fifth grade ELLs&rsquo; English reading outcomes, thereby confirming the hypotheses grounded in the conceptual frameworks of ELL reading comprehension development (Proctor et al., 2005; Zadeh et al., 2011; Kim, 2015).</p><p> These findings suggest that screening fifth grade ELLs using English oral language measures may be more effective at predicting potential difficulty in reading comprehension than traditional fluency measures (such as DIBELS ORF). Moreover, while English word-level decoding factors are stronger predictors for third grade English reading comprehension, these findings indicate that third grade English oral language measures may be better at determining how ELL students will perform in English reading comprehension as they conclude elementary school in fifth grade than traditional fluency and decoding measures. In sum, the results of this study underline the importance of instruction, intervention and assessment in English oral language skills as critical components of literacy programming for elementary ELLs.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to explore policy as it exists amongst literacy professors working with linguistically diverse students in higher education. The goal of this study was to provide research-based guidance on how explicit and implicit policies are created and implemented within a higher education setting. This study explored the declared, practiced, and perceived language policies related to the literacy instruction of linguistically diverse students at a four-year, post-secondary institution. </p><p> The design was a qualitative, embedded case study. Semi-structured interviews of professors, a student diversity survey, and an artifact review were performed. Study results found that higher education&rsquo;s management of its program provided ample space for policy interpretation. Professor practices were influenced by their knowledge of teaching and influenced student learning. Also, although professors believed in improving student literacy, ideologies around power and bilingualism complicated this goal.</p><p>

<p> This study examines the role of gender and its relationship to communication. It is motivated by two research questions: first, how do adult international students in an intensive English program (IEP) at a public university in Southern California perceive the impact of gender on communicative patterns? Second, in discussing gender, do these students depict gender as a binary, a spectrum, or something else? Previous scholarship has theorized that gender is a performative process wherein individuals, by adopting traits such as gait, vocal range, style of dress, and so on, call upon a cultural code that marks them along a continuum from masculine to feminine. Individuals construct their genders dialectically through their gender performances and other people's reactions to them. Furthermore, gender, as a crucial component of identity, plays a major role in learning. This research addresses two major gaps in the literature by examining how international students perceive gender and how they identify their own gender. Data are derived using qualitative methods, including an open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The findings from the research illustrate that the binary gender categories of male and female are salient to the international students investigated, and that many identify their own gender as within a binary. Moreover, the students overwhelmingly depicted women as more talkative than men, and some findings suggested that women's speech is regarded as less valuable than men's. In addition, some students appeared sympathetic toward members of nonbinary genders, while others denied their existence. Pedagogical implications are discussed.</p><p>

Latinos consistently have the lowest degree completion rate throughout the United States (Kurlaender & Flores, 2005). At the same time, Latinos are the fastest growing sector of the U.S. population. Taken together, these facts demonstrate an ongoing and growing inequity in educational opportunities and outcomes for a significant portion of the nation’s population. The findings of this study provide additional knowledge regarding how Latino students perceive interaction with faculty and how affirming relationships with faculty can develop Latino students’ sense of belonging. In addition, the study identifies three main support sources for Latino student persistence, which include family support, collegiate self-efficacy, and a sense of belonging to the campus. This study presents five recommendations for policy and practice based upon the findings of this study, for campus leaders to address the low number of Latino students persisting in their college journeys. Furthermore, it provides three suggested areas for future research.

I have devoted 8 years to prepare for this ethnographic case study. I have analyzed through Bakhtin’s lenses of dialogicality and intertextuality, focusing on exploring an ESL college student, Chen Hua’s online social identity construction through his use of L1 and L2. I have collected multiple layers of data including formal and informal interviews, observational field notes, interactive emails, narratives and online discussion forum contents ever since the focal participant started his 9th grade in a high school, throughout his college and military career. I used ethnographic coding, grounded coding, Gee’s five theoretical tools and critical discourse analysis to analyze the data. The findings indicate that the ESL college student (an ROTC member) constructed his multiple identities through discursive social practices by making use of available resources, making multithreaded social connections from the online texts/discourses to the real world in which he was living. His unique multiple identities constructed through his use of L1 and L2 in computer-mediated communication practices and through other offline social practices, are reflected and embedded within the current macro sociocultural, political, and historical context of the U.S.A., which helped transform and shape him into what he is and how he participates in “serving and sacrificing” for the community and for this country.

This study explores theoretical and pedagogical implications of space, language, and power in renegotiating identity for immigrant English Language Learners (ELLs) in secondary schools in the United States. The primary research question explored in the study is: How does spoken and written language and discourse shape the production of third spaces for renegotiating immigrant student identity in the ELL writing classroom? I adopt an epistemological lens of space from a postmodern geographic perspective that contends that space is socially produced and is co-constituted by material, abstract and lived spaces. The theoretical framework draws on constructs of social space, space-time, and the chronotope propose reconsideration of third spaces for immigrant ELLs. The context of the study is an intermediate ELL writing classroom designed around immigrant students developing academic and critical literacy grounded in their lived spaces of immigration. The methodology employed combines ethnography of the classroom space with critical discourse analysis of critical spatial events that are analyzed as moments of spatial production. Ethnographic narrative of the classroom space, governed by guiding concepts of critical literacy and shared behavioral norms, centers on the focal immigration unit in which student immigration narratives provide overarching chronotopes of immigrant student identities. Analysis of classroom spatial production highlights tensions in social space that are mediated by language, discourse and communication surrounding immigrant identities. Transcript analysis of critical spatial events traces intersecting space-times at global, local and micro-local scales of classroom discourse. Findings from ethnographic case study of one immigrant Latino male, who aspires to become a hip hop DJ, illustrate how hip hop discourses frame the chronotope of immigration and represent a shared third space between the teacher and focal student. This study contributes new ideas in theory and research methods by operationalizing third spaces for immigrant ELL student. Implications also follow for curriculum and instruction rooted in lived spaces of experience and for critical reflective practice for educators.

This study is an exploration of the ways in which four Somali students use language to express their identity and assert their views. The study explores the ways in which the Somali students' home culture and the school culture influence the development of their identity. Students participated in a lunchtime focus group on a regular basis over a period of several weeks. Using a micro-ethnographic approach to analysis, the students' interactions were reviewed while considering the ways in which knowledge was affirmed and contested, examples of intertextuality and intercontextuality were identified, and ideational notations or larger world view constructs were pinpointed. In this approach, specific events and interactions were linked to the broader contexts and connections that the participants were using in their communications. The result suggests a new and deeper understanding of the way in which these Somali learners use language to express their identity and negotiate the world. As a result of the examination of their interactions, educators can take from these participants' experiences some ideas about issues to consider when working with second language learners and their families. In this study students used language to assert their own identities as well as to position others in the group. These identities were continually negotiated by students and teachers alike. Students at times pushed back against ways in which they were identified. The Somali learners spoke of changing roles in the family as a result of learning English and being relied on to translate for parents who were non-English speakers. There were occasions where students used language in meaningful and contextually appropriate ways, but without understanding the power of the terms they used. Teachers have a significant role to play in shaping learners use of language and terms and guiding them to a more nuanced understanding of language. By examining children's language, it became apparent that teachers can provide critical information to help parents of second language learners negotiate the school and district resources. Students did express their Somali language and culture as they negotiated their school experience.