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<p> This communication activism for social justice research (CAR) study created and implemented storytelling workshops to improve the communication of migrants who are English language learners (ELLs), by increasing their knowledge of and experience with U.S. cultural norms and narrative practices for conversation. Prior to the intervention study, a preliminary study, which used ethnography of communication (EC) and cultural discourse analysis (CuDA), was conducted to explore situated meanings of communication in Conversations in English (CIE) groups that ELLs attended at a local library. By using findings obtained from that preliminary study to design, implement, and study the storytelling workshops in which ELLs participated, the intervention study demonstrates how EC and CuDA can inform interventions, as well as how communication design can be used to plan and analyze interventions. The intervention study also shows how English language education and, in particular, teaching ELLs about U.S. cultural communicative practices, can be enhanced through the use of storytelling. Finally, the project reveals important lessons learned about engaging in CAR.</p><p>

abstract: This dissertation is an exploration of various identity labels available for first-year composition (FYC) students that tend to classify them into categories which may or may not relate to the students' perception of themselves. If there remains a gap between self-identification and institutional labeling then students may find themselves negotiating unfamiliar spaces detrimental to their personal goals, expectations, and understanding of their writing abilities. This may trigger a rippling effect that may jeopardize the outcomes expected from a successful FYC program stipulated in the WPA Outcomes Statement. For this study I approached 5 sections of mainstream FYC and 7 sections of ESL/ international FYC with in-class questionnaire based surveys. The 19 questions on the survey were cued to address students' concern for identity and how course labels may or may not attend to them. With feedback from 200 participants this study endeavors to realize their preference for identity markers and definitions for mainstream and ESL sections of FYC. The survey also checks if their choices correlate and in some ways challenge ongoing research in the field. The survey reports a marked preference for NES and English as a second language speaker as prominent choices among mainstream and ESL/ international students, respectively, but this is at best the big picture. The "truth" lies in the finer details - when mainstream students select NNESs and / or resident NNESs the students demonstrate a heightened awareness of individual identity. When this same category of resident NNESs identify themselves in ESL/ international sections of FYC, the range of student identities can be realized as not only varied but also overlapping between sections. Furthermore, the opinions of these students concur as well as challenge research in the field, making clear that language learning is a constant process of meaning making, innovation, and even stepping beyond the dominant mores and cultures. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2012

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<p> English prosody works as a structural and semantic glue that establishes relationships among words and phrases within a sentence, and among sentences within a larger discourse. This dissertation hypothesizes and demonstrates an association between acoustic measurements of English prosody and holistic measures of English proficiency. To test this hypothesis, acoustic data was used from 10 examinees each of low, medium, and high oral English proficiency groups of L1 Chinese speakers who took Purdue&rsquo;s Oral English Proficiency Test (OEPT). Prosodic measurements of duration, F0, and intensity were gathered from adjacent function and content words in the OEPT audio data and compared with holistic OEPT scores. An ordered logistic regression found a significant difference (p = 2.00^e-16) among the three groups for how groups used durational differences between adjacent function and content words. Parallels of mental mapping of information are proposed between acoustic treatment of function and content words and the suppression and enhancement mechanisms of Gernsbacher&rsquo;s (1997a) Structure Building Framework.</p><p>

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A thesis presented to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, 2008. / Judging from what several of teachers have generally said about the poor performance and low levels of English proficiency, (how poorly they spoke, read and wrote), there seems to be a lack of interest or motivation among rural high school learners to acquire English proficiently. Thus, motivation being what initiates, sustains and directs thinking and behavior, as Louw and Edwards (1997:425) put it, and that motivational processes make us seek and find the things we need for our survival and development (approach motives) - one of the three variables on which good language learning depends, in Pride’s (1979) words, lack of it (motivation) is considered a worrying enough a situation, which warranted scrutiny and careful study. Many factors could account for such a decline or loss of interest in learning English, which is a need for survival in a cosmopolitan country like South Africa and in the world today. Only some kind of misunderstanding of freedom and language rights or misinformation and ignorance or even some form of a misguided ethnic endeavour suicidal in nature on the part of learners, could create or inform such an unfortunate situation of lack of motivation to learning English, when competition for jobs is so high. This research has investigated factors, which might account for what seems to be clearly a decline in interest or motivation among the rural KZN high school learners to acquire English proficiently. In order to meet the aims and objectives of the study, four different groups of people key to the study (people directly involved in the learning and teaching taking place in high schools situated in the rural communities of KwaZulu- Natal) had to be questioned about the matter: 1) learners from several rural high schools 2) high school educators - English subject specialists from a wide selection of rural high schools, as well as few primary school educators 3) parents of children learning in different rural high schools. 4) Some officials, too, from the KZN department of education were interviewed, from whom official information and statistics were obtained.