abstract: This dissertation explores the nature of collaborative writing in an interdisciplinary research context beyond classrooms. Most of the current studies in collaborative writing in second language contexts are based on collaborative writing in classroom-based contexts such as English as a Second Language courses with undergraduate students. Collaborative writing tasks are getting its popularity both in classrooms and beyond classrooms with various purposes and objectives. Thus, it is more likely that multilingual writers encounter some kinds of collaborative writing tasks in various contexts. For writing instructors and writing curriculum developers, it is important to understand various types of collaborative writing tasks and their writing practices. The current study investigates the nature of collaborative writing in an interdisciplinary collaborative research project. The study examines the processes of a multilingual writer’s literacy development in collaborative writing tasks. Based on a qualitative case study, the study focuses on identifying what literate activities were involved in, what effects from the writing collaboration were observed, and what factors influenced this multilingual writer’s writing development. I analyzed various sources of data such as writing samples, writing journal notes, observation fieldnotes, project documents, and the interviews from the focal participant, the graduate student, and two other co-authors as informants in the study. Based on a multilingual writer’s perspective, the findings show what the collaborative writing practices look like in an interdisciplinary research setting. The findings indicate that a multilingual writer’s writing skills were constantly evolving while interacting with collaborators through various phases of collaborative writing. Particularly tasks in collaborative revision process such as mediating the gaps between co-authors and responding to research members were crucial in developing awareness for audience and content organization. Drawing on a naturalistic qualitative study, this dissertation discusses that studies of collaborative writing in second language learning contexts needs to provide broader perspective and aspects of collaborative writing in various settings that multilingual writers engage in. The research concludes with a discussion of pedagogical implications, limitations of the study and future research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2019

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

abstract: Special education identification processes related to English language learners (ELs) in the United States have puzzled the field for decades. The phenomenon of referrals, the first step toward identification, is complex since it requires deciphering the root cause of students’ learning struggles—e.g., second language (L2) factors, the possibility of a learning disability (LD), or the combination of multiple other influences. To investigate the various influences contributing to learning difficulties, I centered this study on three potential sources, individual, institutional, and interpersonal. I aimed to answer, how did sociocultural influences mediate a teacher’s understanding of ELs’ competence? How did sociocultural influences mediate whether a teacher referred ELs to special education services? Using a cultural-historical theoretical approach, I sought deeper theoretical and empirical understandings into how institutional factors (e.g., tiered intervention contexts, policies), combined with other influences, mediated ELs’ referral decisions. I used a multiple parallel case study design following two fifth-grade ELs who faced the possibility of a referral. Interested in the interpersonal domain (e.g., interactions and communication among people), I zoomed in to a local process, student-teacher conferences to examine how classroom processes shaped teachers’ thoughts of students’ competence, and ultimately, referral decisions. I video-recorded teacher-student conference sessions over 14 weeks, and audio-recorded viewing sessions of the recorded conferences to understand teacher and student interpretations of learning competence. To understand how other dimensions (individual and institutional) contributed to teachers’ overall views about the student competence, I interviewed parents and school personnel, wrote observational field notes, and examined archival documents related to student learning over the entire fifth-grade year. I used inductive and iterative qualitative analytical approaches to craft the findings. My findings reaffirmed the complexity involved in finalizing ELs’ referral decisions. I found cultural factors intertwined with structural forces, driving students’ special education candidacies in divergent directions: one evaluated (LD); the other, retained. I also found the referral decisions were based on narrow understandings of learning and behaviors, lack of attention to students’ L2 needs, and faulty and overpowering structural forces which undermined teacher’s professional opinions about the referrals. These findings have implications for research, practice, and policy. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Special Education 2020

Thesis advisor: María E. Brisk / Bilingual international students’ ability to function linguistically has been found to be closely associated with their academic performance (Karuppan & Barari, 2010; Rowntree, Zufferey, & King, 2016) and social adjustment (Andrade, 2006; Yeh & Inose, 2003). While most previous research has focused on the language and education experiences of graduate international students (e.g., Cheng & Erben, 2011; Jiang, 2014; Lin, 2006; Xue, 2013), it remains unclear how undergraduate students, especially newly-arrived college freshmen, function linguistically during their transnational, translingual, and transcultural experiences. Drawing upon Bioecological Model of Human Development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1985), this one-semester-long qualitative study explored the linguistic functioning and first-semester college experiences of twelve international freshmen from China. The guiding research questions were: (1) How did the twelve Chinese international students from different disciplines function linguistically in academic and social settings at the beginning of their first semester in college? (2) How did they meet the oral and written linguistic demands in academic and social settings throughout the semester? (3) What has changed regarding their linguistic functioning over the course of one semester? The participants were twelve first-semester Chinese international freshmen majoring in eight disciplines. Multi-modal data were collected through a combination of a 4-month digital ethnography (Pink et al., 2016) using a culturally-relevant social media application software WeChat, along with traditional qualitative data collection methods including semi-structured interviews, bilingual language logs, writing samples across genres, talks around texts, and informal communication. Three themes emerged based on data analyzed following applied thematic analysis (Guest, MacQueen, & Namey, 2012), including linguistic functioning in academic and social settings, the students’ coping strategies initiated, and their perceptions of support received. While the students’ previous language and education backgrounds played an important role in their ability to function linguistically in college, internal factors such as motivation and agency also helped to shape their first-semester college experiences. Although Chinese was frequently adopted as a bridging tool earlier in the semester, its popularity naturally decreased overtime throughout the semester. In questioning eight commonly held misconceptions, this dissertation has unpacked the within-group variability and tensions among Chinese international students and drawn attention to their initial transitional, translingual, and transcultural experiences from a developmental perspective. Based on the findings, I present (1) suggestions on how American higher education could better serve the unique linguistic and academic needs of its growing international student population to facilitate their long-term success, (2) implications on research methodology, and (3) directions for future research. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

The increased use of online teaching during the year 2020 has highlighted that there is still a lack of knowledge on how the virtual classroom affects interacting and speaking. Therefore, this study focuses on answering the following two research questions: To what degree does online teaching support speaking and interaction in the classroom? Also, what strategies can teachers use to facilitate speaking and interacting better online? To answer the research questions, the author collected information from six different empirical studies in the field. One key result is that it is of high importance to increase the amount of interaction and communication between students in the Secondary School classroom. Furthermore, it is also highlighted that improving the design and structure can promote more purposeful interaction and communication between students and teachers. One implication of the study and for the field of research, in general, is that it only focuses on English as a second language and no other subjects. Another implication is that the study used only six empirical studies to collect the information which makes it difficult to generalise the results.

While many studies have been conducted on the methodology of teaching English, second language (ESL), few have focused on ESL administration, specifically college level ESL administration. This descriptive study analyzed and evaluated the personal and professional characteristics of college level ESL administrators.

<p>This study investigates Korean parents’ perceptions of and attitudes toward issues related to the study of English, such as the social phenomena that arise from excessive emphasis on learning English and so-called “English fever”; as well as ideas about Standard English, American English, Korean English and other varieties of English (World Englishes). This investigation was conducted using a survey that targeted Korean parents, who are the primary decision-makers when it comes to their children’s English education. The survey was comprised of two sections with similarly-themed questions: one part asked respondents’ opinions based on their own experiences learning English, and the second part asked about their philosophy when it came to their children’s English education. In this way, the study explored whether or not respondents held contradictory attitudes between their beliefs as learners and their beliefs as parents. The results of the survey confirm that respondents view English as essential for success in South Korea, but it was also clear that they are tired of the excessive pressure placed on learning English and social problems caused by it. Additionally, they believe there is a standard English, but do not consider it to be limited to specific dialects, such as American or British English and while they perceive the existence of other varieties of English, they are less interested in learning them. Regarding their children’s English education, their responses were not fully contradictory, but they did show some degree of inconsistency. For example, they preferred their children have Native English teachers and were less accepting of them being taught other varieties of English, including Korean English. Significantly, the results of this study not only challenge, but stand in contrast to results from previous studies and to prevailing social prejudices, which often portray Korean parents as English-obsessed and willing to go to any lengths to ensure the highest-quality English education for their children.</p>

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Fluent reading has been described as the ability to read a passage with accuracy, at a steady rate, with minimal hesitancy, and good comprehension (Grabe, 2009; Kuhn, Schwanenflugel, & Meisinger, 2010). Dysfluent reading can affect motivation for reading in English language learners, thereby limiting access to a wealth of language input from written texts (Taguchi, Gorsuch, & Sasamoto, 2006). Extensive research of repeated reading in L1 settings has been shown to increase reading fluency (Samuels, 1979; National Reading Panel, 2000), while comparatively little research has been done on repeated reading in L2 settings (Grabe, 2009). The objective of this eye-tracking study was to accurately document lower-level and higher-level reading processes in an immediate repeated reading exercise to observe how repeated reading affects reading fluency in adult English language learners. In our study, 30 students in an intensive English program in the United States read three short expository texts three times each. Eye-tracking showed significant increases in reading fluency measures in both lower-level and higher-level reading functions. For example, average first fixation duration decreased by 15 ms from the first to the third reading and average late dwell time decreased by 40 ms from the first to third reading. Repeated reading is an exercise that should be considered by educators to help English language learners increase their reading fluency with immediate repeated reading of expository texts.

ESL writing teachers face the challenge of providing written feedback that is both effective and motivating to students. Thus, many end up making use of praise (or positive feedback) before offering criticism. Past research, however, has not put enough emphasis in how students receive praise. In fact, Hyland and Hyland’s (2001) article is one of the few and most recent works to focus on praise above other types of feedback. Yet, they have not accounted for the possibility of different types of praise as Kamins and Dweck (1999) have suggested. In our study, two types of praise (person and performance) have been considered as well as cultural background and L2 proficiency. An original survey was developed in order to analyze these three variants and understand how L2 learners perceive and attribute value to praise in written feedback. A total of 106 participants rated six different samples of praise based on how clear, helpful, valuable, encouraging to revision, kind, and motivating the comment of praise is. In the conclusion, praise type seems to be the most significant variant as participants showed preference to performance over person praise.